I struggle with this question. I think its a great question. Like fern46, I was raised by my mother to be positive. Maybe obsessively positive. In the first few weeks with my new therapist we have been exploring trauma, and youth, and how I remember this positivism as strained and dare I say it, manic.

Something I don't remember from my youth is feeling that this positive energy has sincerity with it, and as I left my youth and grew into adolescence... it seemed to be something that was missing like the tin man's heart.

I struggle with being a positive person. I can't seem to do this properly. I can usually help others find positives in their situations, but to find it in mine is not an easy situation. It's something I'm working on with my therapist. We've got a lot of damage to hunt down and I need to work on.