I know I’m certainty NOT a sociopath, because I have a great amount of empathy for others. So there must be a logical explanation for the fact that when I woke up and heard that a plane had crash just miles from where I live, I started to smile. Inside I wasn’t smiling at all, although I got stomachache cramps that I usually experience after there’s been some sort of ‘excitement’ in my life. When I woke up after 9/11, I was both grinning and laughing. Quite a while afterwards I did cry, but only for a short time. I know this particular tragedy probably wont induce tears, though. When my uncle died I did that same thing. Yet at the end of a sad movie is where you would most likely find me red-eyed.
I turned of my television so as to not get too depressed over what has happened. I feel a lot of pain and sadness today, to an extent that it’s made some of the personal problems that I’ve been dealing with recently seem like, just, nothing, (at least for now).
So why does this happen to me?
(I think I’ve heard similar stories as well regarding other people).
There are times where I want to cry. Even on days where I’m just feeling down. I try to induce it but can’t. I was told that it may be a result of antidepressants. Does that hold water? Could antidepressants have anything to do with my reaction to tragedy these days?
The weird thing is, I cried every day, if not multiple times a day in kindergarten. Though it’s personal and embarrassing, I had a crying problem at school that had lasted until the fifth grade. Now there are times where I would give anything to have that release.
I know this sounds silly, but I scream in my car, (only safe place to scream, using the language I do, without anyone calling the cops).
Seriously though, I do it too a little bit (not as bad as you, I think), and I don’t know why. I don’t take antidepressants, and I cry or want to cry very rarely. I never cry at movies, and I usually only cried as a little kid when I was hurt or really angry.
It’s not just you. Not after tragedy, but I frequently laugh when in stressful situations. Happens all the time when arguing. People really don’t like it when you start laughing at them in the middle of a passionate argument, but I can’t help it.
I had a cyst cut out of my ear lobe, and the whole time I was grinning like an idiot, and laughing non stop until the cutting started. I got some pictures taken of the procedure and there I am with my ear taped down with a big smile on my face.
I don’t recall where it came from, and I’m not exactly sure how to google it, but I recall in a psych or soc book in college (eons ago ) seeing a picture of the crowd that gathered for a suicide jumper, and at the moment of impact, there were a few that were smiling/laughing, and it’s just the way some people react to a shocking situation or something. Weird.
I sometimes laugh at very emotional tragedies. I tear up at less emotional events. I’ve never had hysterical uncontrolled laughter. it’s sounds like a small quiet chuckle for something funny. I did this in the emergency room with dad when he had a heart attack and was stable waiting for the helicopter to arrive for transfer. It shocked the doctor, but not dad. He said that’s alright to the doctor.
I got the giggles at my grandpa’s funeral when this horrible singer did two songs. I had just barely controlled not giggling until her singing. I was stressed and she was so bad. The really bad thing was I was in the front row as a pallbearer, and the other 3 guys started to giggle too.
Those were my two worst situations for laughing when I really didn’t want too.
I had this same reaction for most of my life, though in the last 10 or 20 years it seems to have gone away.
For me it was more nearly as the OP and first reply state. Plain and simple, in the first seconds after a very tragic event that saddens me greatly, my face and body would react by smiling and laughing. This was NOT looking for humor, perhaps as a coping mechanism (which I could also imagine). It was a natural response to feel horribly sad and to smile and laugh.
A friend who’s had a psychology practice for something like 40 years now once told me that laughing and crying are very closely related body responses, with the spasmodic and almost choking breathing, the vocalization without consonants, and the tears. He said that the dividing line between the two is vague and messy.
Which reminds me - any Twin Peaks fans remember the episode where Leland Palmer is at the Great Northern walking away from Cooper and Sherriff Truman (I think they just told him Ben Horn was their suspect in Laura’s killing)? He is visibly shaken, trembling, starting to cry but not letting them see. However - the camera comes around in front of him, and we see that he is actually suppressing laughter, not sobbing, probably because his charade is working so well.
That actor did a fantastic job of illustrating the line between laughing and crying, the line that is so faint in spots that it isn’t really there.
I get this at funerals, in fact any occasion where it’s imperative to remain serious and straight-faced gives me an insane and almost irresistible impulse to laugh or chuckle. This used to drop me in deep shit when I was in the army, on parade, some military bigwig passing through the ranks inspecting us. As they drew closer to me I had to literally bite my tongue to stop myself laughing uncontrollably. Sometimes it wasn’t enough and I’d end up on KP or jankers.
I guess it’s internal tension, or nerves, that’s the culprit, but I’ve learned to dodge solemn occasions, I just don’t do well at them.
C’mon, you’ve never heard of “nervous laughter”? Some people use the term to mean “laughter that means the person is nervous and trying to appear relaxed” (i.e., forced laughter), but there are many people who laugh when they’re nervous and because they’re nervous. Laughter is a good mechanism for stress relief; jokes often involve creating tension which is the released with the punch line and the laughter.
) seeing a picture of the crowd that gathered for a suicide jumper, and at the moment of impact, there were a few that were smiling/laughing, and it’s just the way some people react to a shocking situation or something. Weird.