Make it Funny

I use humor as a way to cope with my mental illness. What I mean when I say I use humor to cope with my mental illness is that I make jokes about what my life with mental illness is like. I make jokes about using the CBD products to manage my symptoms. I make jokes about the other management strategies and coping techniques that I pull out of my Mary Poppins-style bag of tools. I also make jokes about the emotions that often come with trying to live my best life in spite of the mental illness like the anger, the frustration, and the impatience. Sometimes, I even try my best to make my intrusive thoughts seem as ridiculous as possible so I can really play up the fact that they aren't based in reality so I can file them away more easily.

It's okay that I am the one making jokes about my life with mental illness. It's not okay when other people make jokes about my life or anyone else's life with mental illness. For me, it's not even really okay when other people repeat my own joke about my mental illness to someone else. It's also not okay for me to make jokes about anyone else's life with mental illness even if they're doing it, but I can laugh with them.

Making jokes about my life with mental illness is a coping strategy because mental illness is a dark, heavy thing to live with, and the moments when I can find something about it to laugh about make it a little lighter and take away a tiny bit of the power that it can feel like the mental illness has over my life. When other people make jokes about someone else's life with mental illness, it usually isn't to help that person cope. It's often at the expense of that person, in an attempt to belittle the fact that they're struggling with something the person making the joke doesn't believe is a real, life-threatening condition. That's why it's okay for mentally ill people to make jokes about their own life with mental illness but it's not okay for other people to do the same thing. 

When I'm making jokes about my mental illness and the way I live my life with it, my intent isn't to cause harm. My intent is to prove to myself that I can find a break in the suffering to laugh. If I can find that one break, then I know I can hang in there because, surely, there will be more breaks in the suffering in which I can find something to laugh about. If I can just survive, one bright moment of laughter at a time during the periods of struggling with my mental illness, then I know that the struggling will eventually end, and I'll be able to find my way back to a happier, healthier place again. 

I feel like I should make a distinction. While I use humor as a coping strategy, I'm not flippant about my mental illness. I still give it the proper seriousness, compassion, and treatment it deserves when required. Humor isn't a replacement for actual treatment, and "laughing off" signs or symptoms of a possible issue with your mental health is not the same thing as using humor to cope with a mental health condition. 

I'll end with this: Using humor is a pretty common way that humans cope with unpleasant things, and a mental health condition is no exception to that coping strategy. Laughing in the midst of the suffering is often the only way people can find the strength and the will to keep hanging in there until they can find their way back to a healthier place. It's okay if someone with mental illness makes jokes about their mental illness and the way they live with it. It's not okay if someone else makes jokes about someone else's mental illness or their life with said mental illness.