Is it possible to laugh at the struggles your mental illnesses put you through? In my opinion, yes!”
Like this experience I had at a job interview, when I was hit by hypomania just before I entered the meeting room.
The most embarrassing job interview ever.
2 things: I’m clumsy and the hypomania kicks in when I get extremely excited.
So, after having been unemployed for years because of depression, anxiety and being overmedicated I finally found some meds which stabilized my bipolar episodes. Great.
I then applied for jobs, being tired of having nothing to do. I had applied for a job in a well know company making medicine for Diabetics all over the world. The salary was high and the job seemed easy.
I then got an email invitation to a job interview from this company…. the interview was the next morning!
Let me remind you that I hadn’t had an actual job for 8 years…. which means my CV was one big fabricated lie. I now had less than 24 hours to memories. I also had to read about the company and since the job interview was early in the morning, I couldn’t take my sleeping pills, which meant I would get no seep, at all.
I was so excited and determined to get this job.
Oh yeah, maybe I should tell you as well that I have memory like a goldfish and the concentration of overtired 4-year-old on a sugar rush at 8pm. The “beauty” of having ADHD as well as Bipolar.
The next day I got on my bike. So tired! My brain was exhausted, I was so nervous and still so excited.
Once I found the place, I had to go through a small changing room, where I had to take of my clothes, put on sterilized clogs, a silver jumpsuit and a hairnet. I looked like a space man and I found that so funny I could hardly hold it in. Overtired, nervous, excited and not having someone to laugh my ass off with by the fact that I was going to an interview looking like a canteen lady-spaceman. It was so hard not to laugh out loud, but it clearly wasn’t the right time or place.
When I came into the factory, I was offered coffee in a machine, probably not the best idea to drink coffee at this moment, because I had reached a full-blown hypomania.
I then entered a meeting room, with 6 people around the table. It shocked me, so I spilt my coffee on myself and the table. But determined to make a good impression I went around the room to shake their hands…. still with coffee on my hands… tripped over a cord from the wall to a laptop, which disconnected and would have fallen on the floor if the guy had not caught it first, I then landed on my seat in front of the manager and said “well that went well” and laughed. I got the job!
I have several experiences like this which I now find funny. Even though they have left me awake for hours, so many nights feeling totally embarrassed and like a complete idiot.
“I’ve taught myself to laugh at my mental illness challenges because feeling sorry for myself is unbearable.”
Once, I rearranged all the furniture in a large reception area in a workplace, without consulting the manager. I’d been there for 3 weeks.
One by one 2 personal trainers, a receptionist and even a member join me, for reasons I don’t know. So weird, they didn’t question I was doing or if I had even spoken to the manager about it.
I was so hypomanic! I was having a great time, hell I was the queen of the place. So funny to look back at. Not funny the next day when the hypomania had worn off and I realized what I had done.
Another time I hyped all the patients a New Year’s Eve at the mental hospital. Imagine 20 mentally ill people, having the time of their lives that evening.
I made them all wear funny hats, we blew confetti, went crazy with the bombs, horns and other New Year’s Eve thingies on the tables.
They were smiling, some were laughing for the first time in a long time. There was so much energy. Even the staff were having a laugh.
We all slept the whole next day.
It was extremely funny and it wasn’t till the next day I realized I had been hypomanic. That is the best New Year’s Eve I’ve had in my whole like. I smile every time I think of it.
It’s easy to see humor in funny situations but harder to see humor in our struggles, but we should. We have to. Otherwise our lives are too hard, sad, dark, unbearable.
I love joking about it with people who relate. My bipolar came back this summer, after a 2-year stable period. 2 weeks depression and 4 weeks of rapid mixed episodes. I didn’t have anyone who’d get me around me and to get better we have to talk about it. Because our thoughts are our hell and when I speak about it, I can reflect. Also, I need someone to joke about it with. That helps me.
That’s why I started looking for memes (funny pictures with funny text on the internet and social media platforms) and quotes which are funny and relatable. By funny I mean that they are sarcastic, ironic, dark and some are inappropriate. You have to relate to see the humor in them.
It’s so hard to explain how they help and how they make me feel. Some of them make me laugh, others make me smile, few just gives me a smiling feeling on the inside. Most of them just gives me that “it’s funny because its true” or the “funny but not funny” feeling.
Either way, they help me because they take my struggles and make them funny for me. I can relate to the person who made that meme, the one who reposted it, and I can see hundreds or thousands have liked it and relate as well.
So, in my darkest hour, as I mentioned, I went on Instagram and saw memes and quotes that joked about suicide, depression, intrusive thoughts and social anxiety, which was what I was struggling with at that moment.
“I wasn’t suicidal but I was depressed, and I found the jokes funny because I could somehow relate. I think most people with bipolar have thought about suicide.”
I then decided to make my own meme page and that’s the best thing I have done. When I post memes, I have people who laugh with me and relate to me. The quotes and memes I post attract people with similar struggles and we connect.
I get comments and messages from people who just want to tell me that they love my page, it helps them, they feel less alone, they feel related to, they laugh or smile for the first time in ages, some even use my page as their morning ritual to start the day with a smile and a reminder that they’re not alone in this.
I now have over 1.200 followers in 14 weeks and I’m active every day. I’m no longer doing it just for me (but also for me). I’m also doing it because I realized I help people. I never expected that to happen but I’m so happy that little me can make a positive difference in people’s lives. They tell me that.
I would like to share some of the funny stuff I have seen and reposted on Instagram, because I can relate. Maybe you can too.
Anxiety: Something is wrong
Me: what?
Anxiety: something
Me: can you at least give me a general idea?
Anxiety: S O M E T H I N G!
Joking about that makes something so horribly funny to me and others
This one is one of my personal favorites, because I always panic once I get to security: “My brain before I go through airport security: what if I accidently have a gun”
I had over 1.000 likes on that post. Which means that’s very relatable probably to those who deal with anxiety, intrusive thoughts and just because many of us are extremely forgetful. Our illnesses fry our brains and the meds mess with our memories. Instead of crying about that we joke about it and it puts a smile on our faces. We’re in this together.
What about this one?
“Do you ever tell someone a piece of your childhood trauma that you have become very desensitised to over time? You can talk about it in a detached way but they’re like “yo WTF, do you need me to call you a therapist?” … and you’re like “lol don’t know I’m just here for a giggle”.
“So many of us have been though terrible traumas and to keep living despite them. We have created a wall between us and the traumas. We have disconnected ourselves from them and therefore we can talk about them like we’d talk about shopping groceries.”
I especially relate to this one:
“I’m an overly emotional unemotional clingy but distant private person who likes to overshare at any moment and I’m still trying to figure out how that works”
My dark humor finds this hilarious:
“I wanna marry someone as funny as me. Imagine laughing cause we both forgot to pick up the kids for school.”
I don’t want kids, but I want people around me who has this kind of humor that borders to not being acceptable. I think once you’ve been through a lot your sense of humor gets a bit dark as well. But that’s ok and luckily there are many people out there laughing at the same crazy inappropriate stuff.
“I recommend that you try to search for some humor in your life. Humor related to your situation and connect with people who find the same things funny. Social media is great for that.”
I follow people with mental illness memes/jokes/quotes, but also the ones for introverts, sarcastic people, dirty jokes, rude, dark and about relationships, single life, loneliness.
You can also look for people in your area with mental illnesses. I have and I’ve met some. The first thing I check is if they find my sense of humor funny, because it can get very dark sometimes and that’s my favorite part. Find people and/or pages with your sense of humor and I guarantee you it will make a difference in your mental state, in your life.
Don’t take life so seriously. You’ll never get out alive!
