key jordan-abrams<p>oh one more thing about the whole <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Thanksgiving" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Thanksgiving</span></a> thing. popular culture has it steeped in <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/ToxicPositivity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ToxicPositivity</span></a>.</p><p>for more information on what toxic positivity is, I direct you here: <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-toxic-positivity-5093958" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">verywellmind.com/what-is-toxic</span><span class="invisible">-positivity-5093958</span></a> </p><p>there are situations in which gratitude is bullshit. it's just like telling someone as an answer to their problems, "it could always be worse", it's utter fucking bullshit. if I'm living in an abusive situation, it's awful shitty of people to tell me to be grateful for the roof over my head.</p><p>I shouldn't have to do performative gratitude. it's demanded of me every day when my parents do the slightest little things for us, or when they say it's for us and it's actually for them. when my tone of voice goes off from what they expect, my father slams doors and yells about the house and threatens to kick us out. (yes, he has anger issues; when anger management classes are suggested he yells and slams doors some more; it entirely makes my point, and it does absolutely nothing to fix the situation.)</p><p>early on in my sobriety someone told me to do gratitude lists. but even when I was doing them every day, it was much more of fake it 'til you make it and it never got to the point where I didn't have to fake it anymore. </p><p>so anyway, Thanksgiving is bullshit, thank you for coming to my TED talk.</p>