Stop telling people to be grateful — it's emotional gaslighting that silences grief

Gulf News

02-05-2025

I'll be grateful as long as you don't tell me to be so.
Dubai-based Kitty Crenshaw is grateful that she survived a fire in her previous apartment back home in London, but it still doesn't heal the burn marks on her arm or bring back the many possessions that she lost in the fire, which include her grandmother's cards, letters, and her own jewelry sets. 'Whenever I complained that my hands hurt, or I was upset about the fire, some of my friends would snap at me, 'You're alive, just be grateful'.'
She is glad that she survived the fire. She just wish that it had been without so much loss. 'So, after that I kept quiet. I felt awkward if I shared anything about it. But everything hurt and ached for a long time, but I just kept thinking that I needed to feel grateful.'
No doubt, gratitude is generally beautiful thing; it helps you appreciate what you have. It's healing and comforting. And gratitude journals are wonderful tools, especially when you're rebuilding yourself. Yet, when gratitude is used carelessly or manipulatively, it becomes something far more harmful. It dismisses accountability, silences discomfort, and i nvalidates real pain. Telling someone to 'just be grateful' can, intentionally or not, erase their needs and deny them the space to grieve or process their experience.
People don't do it intentionally. Yet, it all comes down to a concept and phenomenon called weaponised gratitude, as Psychology Today explains it. So, what is weaponised gratitude? It's when gratitude is used as a tool to silence or shame someone's pain, intentionally or not — dismissing their need to grieve or seek support
Gratitude needs to come from within. It shouldn't be an order.
Charlotte Wilson, a clinical psychologist based in Abu Dhabi, puts it plainly: 'When you tell someone to be 'grateful' right after they've opened up about their struggles or doubts, it can make them feel like a burden. It sends the message that their pain is invalid, that they shouldn't speak up because someone else has it worse.'
This statement is often used in varying scenarios, from inter-personal to professional. For instance, Ryan Sheffield, a corporate communications professional remembers finally pushing for an increment after two years and was told, 'Look just be grateful that you still have your job. There are layoffs happening.'
You cannot force gratitude into someone's life, and in such cases it can be perceived as gaslighting. You aren't taking accountability for your actions and are dismissing someone's rightful concerns as invalid.
And so he didn't try asking again for another year, till he had enough. But the truth is, people build walls. Sometimes, they pretend to be excessively thankful and grateful, because they fear they might be shut off if they're not. 'It fosters this idea of toxic positivity, and undermines a person's actual feelings,' says Wilson. Sure, gratitude journaling and thank-you rituals help, but that's later: First, you need to get to a place to feel as if you can appreciate these rituals. How do you write about gratitude and joy, when you are feeling so empty?
In order to fight this emptiness, people force conversations about gratitude that disrupts actually honest and heartfelt communication, explains Wilson.
And if not, we start following the 'they-have-it-worse' route. But as Wilson points out, everyone has it worse, by that logic, no one would ever have the right to grieve. 'You can't quantify pain or anguish. Even if someone's suffering seems small or superfluous to you, it's very real to them. And that matters. There's always a more compassionate way to respond.'
Everyone has it worse
The problem arises, when we internalise such beliefs and start thinking. We start believing that 'someone else has it worse', and so, they suppress their suffering.
For instance as Wilson recalls, one of her friends had lost her job suddenly. It was a sudden shock, and she wasn't quite able to come to terms with it for a few days. However, a few days later, another friend had another devastating loss: Her relationship ended, too. The first friend felt awkward about sharing her grief with the second, afraid that it wasn't 'much' and she would look like whining. 'And so, I was just between two people grieving, one openly doing so, while the other was quiet and repressed, but trying to make the other one feel better.'
Weaponised gratitude does extensive emotional damage, almost rewrites your psyche, compelling you to suppress your hurt, rage or resentment, which leads to emotional burnout, explains Diana Matthews, a Dubai-based psychologist. 'It leads to emotional burnout, maintaining unhealthy dynamics where expressing what you need is seen as ungrateful.'
Worse, it creates the web of an illusionary positivity, which can gradually fracture a person's sense of self.
So, what can we do?
Listen to a person. Yes, they still have a roof though they've lost their job, but they need to be heard. Acknowledge what they feel, explains Sumeira Tariq, a wellness practitioner.
Moreover, both gratitude and sadness can exist at the same time. You can be grateful that you have friends and also sad that your relationship ended. 'Ask a person, what support they require at this time. If you fear trauma dumping, that is valid too, but that's a different matter altogether that requires certain boundaries, not dismissing someone's grief as unnecessary,' says Tariq.