I was not sure how I should begin with this post. In media it is often perceived as playing down suicide when we use terms like catch the bus. I have read comments on SS that for many people humor takes the edge of pain when you can make jokes about it.
During my most cruel times with extreme psychosomatic pain I have made a lot of jokes when I was around clinic staff. Some of them were really good I can be witty but not so much on SS rather in real life. During my extreme suicidality I agreed on talking in front of psychology students about my life and illness. I can be quite articulate and I am good in self-reflecting this is at least something my therapists told me. That is why they asked me to do it. (I crow way too much in this post)
I had extreme pain, severe acute-suicidality and severe depression to that time. So I told them my whole story about the abuse, the bullying and that I am convinced my life will end with my suicide. I made countless jokes when I told my story. They were not cheap, I have made jokes about the cruelty of life, the naive hopes I had and I emphasized the cynicsm of my current situation. I perceive my situation as very cynic. I could make a whole thread only about that topic. For example people wanted me to have a materially well life and abused me to work harder as child now working makes me ill due to the domestic violence. And as a consequence I will have to live in poverty/kill myself due to poverty. Sometimes it feels so absurd being in such a fucked up situation. You wonder why all that happened how absurd it is to plan your own suicide and why this is happening just to you. It reminds me somehow of Alexei Nawalny. He probably has to spend his whole life in prison and being tortured and recently he joked that he is glad to be released in 30 years.
David Foster Wallace quoted an writer saying "Irony is the song of the bird who has come to love his cage." or "Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage." A vague interpretation of that would be irony can help in shortterm to deal with problems but this does not solve the problem. Though when I think more about it I think he meant rather irony in mass culture.
I think he has seen the humor of Kafka in a different way. He said in an interview when Kafka wrote one of his most horrific stories he laughed so loud at night so that his neighbours complained. However I don't want to pretend I understood his remarks on Kafka's humor fully. Though I found the example of A Little Fable (Kleine Fabel) very interesting. As I understood it portrays the feeling of being trapped. Knowing you are trapped. Try to escape this trap. And with every step you go, with all decisions you make you come closer to it. You get more and more in panic. Then there is finally a door. The door opens and you realize you was always there at that point that you wanted initially to escape from. Das ist komisch (That is funny - he said it in German in the original text.). I paraphrased it I am pretty sure DFW would have hated that . Lol.
However I can extremely relate to this description. I also think I am trapped there is no escape and with every step I do I come closer to my end. In some sense it is funny or absurd to deal with all this cynism and bullshit.
To conclude I can only say that humor helps me to cope. For people who are not in a similar situation probably find it weird to joke about things like ctb. But it is just a way to deal with horrific pain.
Once when I was extremely under pressure. LIke really extreme insane and I was extremely desperate. I started laughing in a fucking bus. I could not not stop laughing there was so much tension. I just thought everything in this bus think I am nuts. (which is somehow true.) This only happened once. When I told my psychiatrist about it she said that this is a paradoxical laughter. Though I forget the exact name for it. It is not the condition Joker in the movie had.
Oh and I forgot to mention one thing. Wittgenstein thought the most serious and profound questions can only be discussed in form of jokes. So debating suicide is one of those questions.
What are your experiences about coping with humor when life is unbearable? (Fuck my post are all way too long.)
During my most cruel times with extreme psychosomatic pain I have made a lot of jokes when I was around clinic staff. Some of them were really good I can be witty but not so much on SS rather in real life. During my extreme suicidality I agreed on talking in front of psychology students about my life and illness. I can be quite articulate and I am good in self-reflecting this is at least something my therapists told me. That is why they asked me to do it. (I crow way too much in this post)
I had extreme pain, severe acute-suicidality and severe depression to that time. So I told them my whole story about the abuse, the bullying and that I am convinced my life will end with my suicide. I made countless jokes when I told my story. They were not cheap, I have made jokes about the cruelty of life, the naive hopes I had and I emphasized the cynicsm of my current situation. I perceive my situation as very cynic. I could make a whole thread only about that topic. For example people wanted me to have a materially well life and abused me to work harder as child now working makes me ill due to the domestic violence. And as a consequence I will have to live in poverty/kill myself due to poverty. Sometimes it feels so absurd being in such a fucked up situation. You wonder why all that happened how absurd it is to plan your own suicide and why this is happening just to you. It reminds me somehow of Alexei Nawalny. He probably has to spend his whole life in prison and being tortured and recently he joked that he is glad to be released in 30 years.
David Foster Wallace quoted an writer saying "Irony is the song of the bird who has come to love his cage." or "Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage." A vague interpretation of that would be irony can help in shortterm to deal with problems but this does not solve the problem. Though when I think more about it I think he meant rather irony in mass culture.
I think he has seen the humor of Kafka in a different way. He said in an interview when Kafka wrote one of his most horrific stories he laughed so loud at night so that his neighbours complained. However I don't want to pretend I understood his remarks on Kafka's humor fully. Though I found the example of A Little Fable (Kleine Fabel) very interesting. As I understood it portrays the feeling of being trapped. Knowing you are trapped. Try to escape this trap. And with every step you go, with all decisions you make you come closer to it. You get more and more in panic. Then there is finally a door. The door opens and you realize you was always there at that point that you wanted initially to escape from. Das ist komisch (That is funny - he said it in German in the original text.). I paraphrased it I am pretty sure DFW would have hated that . Lol.
However I can extremely relate to this description. I also think I am trapped there is no escape and with every step I do I come closer to my end. In some sense it is funny or absurd to deal with all this cynism and bullshit.
To conclude I can only say that humor helps me to cope. For people who are not in a similar situation probably find it weird to joke about things like ctb. But it is just a way to deal with horrific pain.
Once when I was extremely under pressure. LIke really extreme insane and I was extremely desperate. I started laughing in a fucking bus. I could not not stop laughing there was so much tension. I just thought everything in this bus think I am nuts. (which is somehow true.) This only happened once. When I told my psychiatrist about it she said that this is a paradoxical laughter. Though I forget the exact name for it. It is not the condition Joker in the movie had.
Oh and I forgot to mention one thing. Wittgenstein thought the most serious and profound questions can only be discussed in form of jokes. So debating suicide is one of those questions.
What are your experiences about coping with humor when life is unbearable? (Fuck my post are all way too long.)
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