(CNN)Between sleepless nights, diapers and feeding times, having small children at home could leave Priscilla Goins feeling exhausted. She loved her kids, but it was a lot.
"I would sometimes say 'I just want a minute to myself,'" Goins, of Knoxville, Tennessee, said. "People would be like: 'Oh, you'll miss it when they're older.'" And that made her so mad.
It's not that she disagreed. But in those moments, Goins wasn't looking for a reality check. Instead, she wanted acknowledgement that the exhaustion she was going through was legitimate. Her friends' responses sometimes left her feeling bad for wanting that alone time.
"I still want that minute to myself," she recalled feeling. "But now I think that's wrong."
A focus on upbeat thinking, while shunting challenging and difficult experiences to the side, is what some experts call "toxic positivity." Goins came across the term recently and was curious if others had similar encounters.