Smiling Uncontrollably Talking About Dark Subjects?

[BlueMoon_]

For some reason, sometimes when I discuss serious topics in therapy I can't help but smile or laugh a little. Also, sometimes I will tell my therapist upsetting things that have happened to me with humor added, I guess because that's how I cope with bad stuff.

I feel like I might look a bit weird smiling and laughing talking about these things.

Does anyone else do this, and do you know the cause?

[elitbd]

Yes, I started doing it again too.
I remember my previous therapist made me noticed this. For me it was because I minimised or not took seriously the impact of abuses on me. Which is what I got from family and eventually I learnt to do it to myself.
If I think about it, there's very little to laugh.

[NarcKiddo]

Yes. This has always happened in FOO, where we have laughed over totally gross and unfunny things. I also try to inject humour wherever possible and have done so ever since I realised that my mother could not laugh and rage at the same time. Humour also deflects attention off me and onto the 'joke'. Laughing is also a way of expressing emotion that is acceptable even to FOO.

Humour is a massive topic. I am sure there is a reason why many people with difficulties end up as comedians.

[Armee]

I don't know the cause but I understand the reason.

I do it too quite badly. Not smiling but laughing and making jokes. It's the only way to deal with the horror.

I once did a podcast interview on one of these dark subjects and what I noticed was that every part where it really got me to the point that I was on the verge of emotionality I would laugh instead.

I'm lucky because my therapist understands this so he has always understood that it doesn't mean there's something wrong with me or that I'm being untruthful. He understands the laughing means it's really horrific. Does your therapist seem to understand?

He'd tell me a story of when he was first starting off in the field and working on a psychiatric unit. There was a group of teens he'd lead and one - a girl - would laugh hysterically saying the really awful things that had happened. The other teens would gang up on her saying things like man that's messed up to laugh about things that are so horrific. But my therapist would tell them to stop and explain that she is laughing because the things she is saying are so horrific, and ask her "is that right?" And she'd nod her head yes while laughing.

He would tell me that story when I would laugh. So I would understand that it was normal and that he understood too. So I wanted to share it with you too.

You are very normal..what happened to you was not.

[Kizzie]

I like to joke but I can sometimes hear a voice inside sometimes saying "Why didn't you say anything about the sadness, fear, anger or grief you're feeling? It feels better to joke around, to laugh at things that used to just devastate me - like the crazy things N's do. A T I had once told me one day I might laugh at the things my NM did and I thought she had no idea the pain I was in. Lo and behold I did find myself laughing at some absurd thing she did some time later and then nothing she did hurt me like it did when I was younger.

I guess it happened when adult me took charge and I would not let her do the things she used to that did hurt so much when I was a child. It was also when I let go consciously of the need/wish that she would treat me better, be the M I wanted so badly. I was able to step back and see that her N behav stemmed from her own trauma.

Anyway, I think it's a form of release but also of control, of calling the behaviour out in a way. If I laugh at the crazy behaviour of an N and don't let them get under my skin, they no longer win, I do. That said, the only time I really trigger nowadays is if I don't realize someone is an N and they drag me into the N arena before I realize it. So difficult to get back into that adult part as you say Narc Kiddo! 

[Dalloway]

I do that very often, too. Your post made me think about the reasons I´m doing it. I think I´m trying to take the edge off the seriousness of the things I´m talking about, a bit to take the attention away from the painful stuff. Some topics are too hard to process in one piece and they are too triggering to relive at once, so I guess I´m trying to water it down a little.