This Is How Humor Helps Us Survive Trauma
It helps you keep going in the times where pressing on seems impossible.
“Gentlemen, why do you not laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die.” — Abraham Lincoln
As a teacher in an inner-city environment, I make a lot of jokes I probably shouldn’t, as well do I hear jokes that probably shouldn’t be uttered by other teachers. I have heard police officers in Baltimore do the same, as well as mental health professionals and emergency room doctors all make seemingly rude, insensitive jokes about their patients. I have seen TV shows and movies of military members making extremely crass jokes about their jobs.
All of these professions, from law enforcement, to teaching, to counseling, to the military, to medicine, are high-trauma professions where people have to deal with daily, constant stress. My job requires handling a lot of my students’ trauma and seeing the way that trauma plays out in classroom behavior.
So is it really rude to make insensitive jokes? And when people out of touch with my daily reality, that don’t see what I deal with and go through every day, criticize me for being insensitive and offensive, but sometimes, humor is the best coping mechanism, especially when in life’s worst…
