A couple of weeks ago, I shared a personal story about my own experiences with depression, anxiety, and PTSD on Megsanity. Books, Psychology, Sanity. And today I’m extremely excited to have Meghan O’Flynn here on my blog sharing some of her own wisdom.
Honestly, Meghan and I struggled a bit to find an appropriate topic for her to write about on Foxy Wine Pocket. After all, hers is a psychology blog with humor and mine is a humor blog… with psychological problems. But in case you haven’t noticed, I lean towards twisted and dark humor—so I asked her to “help me feel like I’m not an asshole when I use dark humor.”
Literally, an hour later, Meghan sent me this post. (She’s amazing.) Please enjoy. And follow her on Facebook and Twitter and read everything she writes. She’s THAT good.
It’s Good To Be Bad: The Psychological Benefit of Dark Humor by Meghan O’Flynn
A beautiful woman is standing on an overpass, ready to leap to her death.
A homeless man approaches her and says “If you’re going to kill yourself, would you like to have sex first? It might be a fun way to go out.”
“No! That’s disgusting!” she screams.
The man turns and walks away.
“Wait, is that it?” she calls after him. “You don’t want to tell me that I shouldn’t do it? And where are you going so quickly?”
“I have to get down to the bottom,” he says. “If I hurry, you’ll still be warm.”
Humor has long been known for its ability to reduce stress and improve mood. Not only do we get to enjoy physical changes in heart rate and improved oxygen consumption while laughing, but after-giggle effects include slowed heart rate, lowered blood pressure and overall more mellow physiology(1). These benefits are likely due to changes in the endocrine system(2), and reductions in cortisol and epinephrine(3). It’s all about the chemicals. (I was going to tell you a joke about Jonestown here, but the punch line is too long.)
This stress hormone regulation thing might also explain why some people laugh during times of anxiety or grief, say at funerals, as their bodies try to find a way to calm down. But dark humor is a little bit different mostly because of how we perceive it. We often see people using nasty jokes as insensitive pricks, when in fact, they might be more sensitive to the very issues they joke about.
If a physician jokes about opening an abortion clinic called “Don’t Kid Yourself” it’s not a matter of being an insensitive asshole. I mean it could be, but it isn’t usually, just like your uncle Frank may or may not be a dick for holding out a turkey leg at every Thanksgiving dinner and yelling, “The leper told the prostitute to keep the tip!”
They might be insensitive, but they might not be. Because dark or gallows humor can also be a coping mechanism even more effective at long-term stress reduction than the clean jokes your grandma tells you.
But why?
Dark humor may be a type of cognitive behavioral strategy what serves a dual purpose of exposing individuals to the topics they fear the most along with those super awesome bodily calming effects. Journalists exposed to traumatic situations report using avoidance and black humor along with exercise and substance abuse to deal with the strain(4). And I’ll vote for jokes before drugs any day.
How many journalists does it take to change a lightbulb? Two. One to change it and another to shoot the editor.
Outside of journalism, this coping mechanism is especially common in those who have been through traumatic events and those in the helping professions, such as physicians, emergency responders and mental health professionals. Because while telling jokes is all well and good, knock knock bullshit won’t always make you forget the completely horrid and unfair struggles in store for the eight year old rape victim you just treated. Some days we want to pretend like the mother losing her child to cancer won’t be forever changed. A fireman needs a way to deal with pulling a body from flames never to be revived.
People want a reprieve. They need one. And by finding ways to bring humor into an event, even dark events, we find a way to lessen the blow.
And it’s not just for professionals. For those dealing with high anxiety levels, a joke about a dead prostitute might be more appealing than trying to deal with a miscarriage, or the death of a loved one. In this example, finding ways to joke about death with some distance in place (the prostitute as opposed to a parent) may help one to talk about the event in general, desensitize one to the subject matter and make the trauma easier to deal with when the time comes.
But they are not always funny to those not using them in this way. People tend to find jokes about immoral behaviors funny only if they are weakly connected to the moral being challenged or if they are otherwise distant from the actual subject matter(5). Context is important. Your blind uncle might not appreciate a Hellen Keller one liner. You can’t just walk up to an environmentalist and say shit like: “Wanna hear a joke? A baby seal walks into club…”
You can’t tell someone traumatized from their house burning down that they should seek additional support on the local burn ward because burn victims always tend to stick together. So seriously, don’t do that shit. Using dark humor to cope and being a total dick are not mutually exclusive. You can be doing both without realizing it. Use humor safely and kindly unless you know that the people around you are up to (or down to) the same level of prickly gallows humor you are. (Unless you’re a blogger, in which case you’ll probably get reamed no matter what you do. Ahem.)
It is hard sometimes (that’s what she said), but occasional inadvertent slips into inappropriateness are usually not intentional, nor are they completely avoidable without feeling censored. But even if those of us who use dark humor slip sometimes, we’re really not trying to hurt those around us. For many people, dark humor is simply a way to cope with the very real, very horrible things they go through every day. And professionals are not immune. We have to be able to sleep at night too.
So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to run a group meeting for compulsive shoplifters. I would tell jokes in there, but it’s hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs. They always take things literally.
1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2249748/
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17510497
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2556917
4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22044184
5. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1592027
Meghan O’Flynn is a clinical therapist, writer, artist, wife, and mommy. She adores her amazing little boys, dark chocolate, tea, dirty jokes, and back rubs with no strings attached, in that order. She writes nasty psychological suspense novels and is amazed that her husband still agrees to live with her after reading them.
28 Responses
Love this. My family and I always laugh equally as hard at funerals as we do at holiday gatherings. Thank you for validating our crazy ways 😉
It’s easier to cope using humor. I’m glad you now have something to tell anyone who doesn’t like it. haha 😉
I love this so much…it makes me feel like I’m a little more normal.
Okay…no. A little less odd is better.
Glad you liked it!
So it’s normal then? Phew.
My daughters favourite joke is “why did Nikky fall off the swing?” “Because she had no arms!”
Followed by: “knock knock” (who’s there?) “not Nikky!”
NICE.
This is awesome! I feel much better about my habit of making inappropriate jokes too soon after events.
New York Magazine had an interesting point in their 10th anniversary of 9/11 issue: no good jokes came out of 9/11, showing how as a country we don’t have the same gallows humor that many other countries have. Perhaps our Puritan upbringing? But the magazine did share what they considered as the best (not necessarily funniest) joke about 9/11.
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“9/11 who?”
“YOU SAID YOU’D NEVER FORGET!!!”
That 911 was pretty great. There are a bunch of others, but they are….REALLY dark. There’s always a line and figuring out where that is is tricky sometimes.
Next time someone rolls their keyboard (eyes) at me Imma whip this post out and stuff in their (comment) box. <–See what I did there? 😉
Great examples of comparing being a jerk and being stressed/nervous. I feel vindicated that I am usually stressed.Operative word being usually.
Everyone likes a good comment box stuffing. 😉
Especially if you tickle the send key first.
I definitely use humor as a coping mechanism. In fact, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be funny without all the weird crap I’ve gone through. YAY FOR GOING THROUGH WEIRD CRAP!
Hooray for a sense of humor! Funny people cope better. It’s good to be able to laugh.
Would it be wrong to say that, if you were my therapist, I might still be in therapy?
Wait…that was meant as a compliment. Really!
Thanks for another excellent post about a topic so near and dear. You are amazing!
Haha. Well, if you were in therapy for too long I wouldn’t be doing my job. I did take on the most complicated cases before I was in a position to tell everyone else what to do, so who knows? Maybe we’d be hanging out telling bad jokes as therapy. Outside the box, people. It’s where the healing starts. (Usually.) 😉
I’m so glad you guys enjoyed it!
GREAT POST, Meg! I love the way you appropriately weave inappropriate dark humor into this piece. It is beautifully crafted, with a powerful message on the healing powers of laughter! Well done!
Thank you! I’m really glad that it spoke to you. Everything is better with humor. Well…most things anyway. 🙂
I love this. And i love dark humor. Once I have said out loud the worst thing anyone can think, the air in any room is noticably lighter.
Absolutely! Nothing clears the air like a good dead prostitute joke. 😉
True story, and I swear I’m not an asshole, but a few years ago, when 9/11 was on a Saturday, I was welcoming volunteers early in the morning to a free legal clinic, and I said I could think of no better way to spend the day than bringing a little more light and kindness into the world. And then COMPLETELY without thinking about the words coming out of my mouth and with no intent to actually say them in that context, I said, “So, thanks to everyone for dragging your carcasses out here so early on a Saturday.” I had one of those out of body experiences where I wanted to go back in time and cover my mouth so I wouldn’t have said it. MORTIFIED. I think I’m going to hell no matter what I do at this point.
This is excellent, as are the jokes. I howled. Because I wholeheartedly appreciate dark humor. I think it’s a healthy way of dealing with a dark world. We have to be able to laugh and sometimes it means laughing at life’s absurdities in an irreverent way, as long as – like you’ve said here – it’s not intentionally mean spirited. Great piece Meg.
*burn victims always stick together*
*snort*
*snrk*
BAHAHAHAhahaahahkjsdhashj
“Don’t Kid Yourself” bwahahahhah!!!
I love the topic! I always was interested in reading articles on psychology! Will definitely check out her blog!
My brother-in-law is a cop, and his wife an emergency room nurse. Weekends camping with them and some of the cop buddies are always one darkly humerus story after another. I see how this is true! The weekend after my BIL’s partner was shot (not fatally thank goodness) he and my hubby started fooling around with my son’s Hulk hands. This spiraled into a full on fight between the two (not in anger, however). A fat lip, bloody nose, a few rug burns, and 15 minutes later, we were all holding our bellies from laughing so hard at the situation. So, yeah, I get this!
When my husband died 16 years ago a friend asked I had donated his organs and if the funeral would be open or closed casket. I told her that because of his age and medications his organs could not be donated, that there would be no casket because his body would be donated to a local teaching hospital and that the hospital would later arrange cremation. She laughed and said, “Oh, like Blue Bell Ice Cream.” Their motto is ‘We eat all we can and sell the rest!’ That was my first belly laugh after his death, and much appreciated.
As a nurse I can attest to this. Most of us have very dark senses of humor, mainly as a coping mechanism. Thanks for the laughs too, awesome jokes.
This article makes me feel better with how much i love black humor.
Everyone around me here are so super sensitive around all kinds of topics, so it’s fun challenge how they think and open them up a bit more. Through humour! They suddenly aren’t as sensitive when you joke about it in the right way. 😉