The Things We Laugh About Because Talking About Them Would Be Weird

“I’m actually going to have a mental breakdown.”

“Oh my God, I’m going to kill myself that was so embarassing.”

Both laugh. Conversation moves on. 

If you’re anything like me, then that exchange should not seem foreign to you. You’ve probably heard it a thousand times; after a test, an awkward interaction, a bad night’s sleep. The disquieting thing is that sometimes it is funny. And sometimes there’s more truth in there than you’d like to admit. When did joking about how badly we’re doing become one of the main ways we talk about how we’re doing?

In some ways, dealing with stress and wider mental health problems via humour does genuinely help. There’s something comforting in turning your issues into a joke, like somehow you might be able to trick your brain into thinking it’s actually okay and the turbulence in your mind is something to laugh about and make light of. Especially amongst friends, cracking a joke can communicate quite a lot without requiring the terrible sincerity that comes with saying, actually I am having a really hard time. Personally, some of the most honest conversations I’ve had with friends have begun as jokes. But what happens when the joke works a little too well? 

Sometimes, humour doesn’t start the conversation but instead replaces it altogether. Someone says, “Haha, I haven’t slept properly in a week,” everyone laughs, and nobody asks why. I know in my own life I often package uncomfortable things as jokes because it gives me an escape route. If the person I’m talking to laughs then I know I got out safe but if they look concerned, I can just immediately say it was “just a joke.” In this case, humour gives us plausible deniability for vulnerability. 

I think one of the main reasons why we find sincerity so embarrassing is because it just feels so honest. Teenagers supposedly talk about mental-health more openly than previous generations, yet actually telling a friend “I’m not doing very well” can still feel painfully earnest. What I’m trying to say is that we repost mental-health content all day long, use therapy vocabulary, joke about anxiety and burnout but genuine vulnerability still makes us feel cringe or “pick-me”. 

So, next time a friend jokes about having a breakdown, you’re probably still going to laugh. Humour isn’t the enemy here, sometimes it’s how we best reach each other. But maybe after laughing there’s room for one more sentence:

“No, but seriously - are you okay?”

And perhaps the harder part is resisting the instinct to laugh when somebody asks it back.

By Arianna Enserro