This week's discussion post is my inspiration for this personal reflection! One of the prompts for the discussion this week that intrigued me is:
Explore the psychological implications of humor, including its role as a coping mechanism for stress and adversity. Discuss the potential dangers of using humor as a defense mechanism and strategies for promoting mental well-being through communication.
As well as Dr. Hubbard's awesome response question:
How do you think social support groups (like AA or support for those who have lost, etc) can use humor in their meetings in a good way to still show they care and not just act like it is a joking manner?
This topic and these questions are so incredibly personal and special to me because, A.) it is the subject of my research paper and most importantly, B.) because it is and has been a very real part of what has gotten me through the grief that I carry and the roller coaster of emotions I have ridden trying to understand it.
I know that I write about the loss of my brother a lot, but it is because it is a very large part of my reality and writing about it helps! Humor has also been a large part of my healing process which is why I love to use so many examples of it. 💚
Humor played (and still does play) a MAJOR part in my grief journey. As soon as the day after my baby brother's passing, my older brother's and I were trying to make light of the situation by making jokes that we knew Noah would find hilarious, jokes that he himself would have made (he had a dark sense of humor). We made memes about Noah to cope with the situation and we utilized our humor as a defense mechanism to deflect how painful our emotions were at that time so as to ward off people from asking us questions about our feelings because it would set us back to square one in terms of healing. This played a large part in keeping us sane and close together during the most difficult period of time we have and will ever face in our lives.
Were there times in which I used humor to pretend like everything was okay when it was not? Yes, absolutely. Was it a healthy coping mechanism? No, but it did more good than harm in my situation.
Years before Noah's passing, I was at a Goodwill and I sent him a Snapchat of a picture of Jesus I found with a lamb that I photo shopped his face onto in the app before sending it to him. He thought it was HILARIOUS and it had been a picture that circulated through the family group chat often because it made us all chuckle. At Noah's funeral service my brothers and I created a slideshow of pictures and videos that we had of Noah to share and present. In that slideshow, that picture was included and let me tell ya, the confused looks by the people in that auditorium were abundant.🤣 But the laughter that came from my brothers and I (and even my grief-stricken mom) was priceless. And that's how humor heals.
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