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no one can decide who you are. no one can decide what your reality is. no one can decide specifically how you feel about something. these can all be true. while still acknowledging that it is, in fact, possible to make someone feel something.

you can make someone feel sad. you can make someone feel pain. you can make someone feel scared. you can make someone tired. and i don't mean people have this mystical power over you that you'll never be able to fight against.

i mean that what we say, and what we do, does have an effect on people. if you slap someone in the face, you made them feel pain. we know slapping someone hurts. sure, you didn't literally make their neurons fire and create the sensation of pain, but that's what bodies automatically do when struck (unless there's neurological damage, and that's a disability. one i have!).

the same goes for emotional pains. if you yell and scream at someone, there's a good chance that'll make them afraid. or angry. that's a normal response to threatening behavior. completely expected, and sometimes, people ellict that response on purpose. because they're choosing to hurt someone.

you don't tell an abuse survivor "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent!" and you certainly don't tell them their abuser "can't make you feel any certain way." that is abso-fucking-lutely a thing. people do it to other people all the time. we call that interpersonal violence.

toxic positivity is not therapy, it's gaslighting and abuse. 99% of therapists i've encountered have no fucking business being therapists, i swear to god. and then i have to go online and see the same pop psych shit spouted by people who either don't know what they're talking about, or don't realize they're being groomed into victim-blaming themselves and subsequently others.