"What I had just witnessed was joy trying to surface in a room trained for heaviness. These days, it can feel almost indecent to admit that something is going right. You soften your tone. Add a disclaimer. Wait for the other shoe to drop. Even ordinary lifts-a new job, a relationship finding its stride, a weekend that simply felt good-get wrapped in apology or hidden altogether."
"I call it the Joy Taboo: the quiet pressure to mute or shrink good news when the world feels heavy. It masquerades as kindness. If people I care about are struggling, shouldn't I dim my own light? That reflex looks generous, but it actually connects to stress and grievance. Cut joy from the script and relationships lose the sustenance they need to grow, replenish, and repair."
"The costs show up quietly. Conversations tilt toward problems and stay there. Friendships start to feel like debriefs, always processing, rarely replenishing. At work, teams gather around urgency and outrage while the bright spots that sustain energy go unspoken. The relationship holds, but it tends to go flat. Platforms amplify the pattern. Online, negative emotion travels fastest. On TikTok, trauma dumping-sharing intense stories without context or consent-racks up views. Everyday stress gets relabeled as "trauma" because grief earns clicks while joy gets treated as suspect"
Joy has become a social taboo that people mute or soften when the world feels heavy. People downplay good news with disclaimers, lowered voices, and waiting for misfortune. That reflex often appears generous but signals stress and grievance and deprives relationships of replenishing positive energy. Conversations and friendships skew toward problem-focused debriefs instead of balance. Work teams cluster around urgency and outrage while bright spots go unspoken. Social platforms amplify negativity because negative emotion travels faster and trauma dumping earns views. Everyday stress gets relabeled as "trauma," which makes joy appear tone-deaf and suspect, eroding the sustenance relationships need to grow.
Read at Psychology Today
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