I do this too and also sometimes feel conflicted about it because humour is very important to me and, like you, it's a defence/coping mechanism that feels comfortable for me and I enjoy making people laugh and it helps me to get into relationship with people...but sometimes, yeah, it feels like a miss if someone is roaring with laughter about something I am actually feeling serious/concerned/fearful about.
I think a big part of it for me is that I tell stories in a very humorous way and I can make pretty much everything (even very serious things or totally innocent things) sound funny/cheeky. So, even if what I'm actually saying isn't funny in and of itself (in fact, it may be quite the opposite) I do have a habit of performing/telling the story in a way that makes it sound/seem funny so the other person will laugh. It's often very useful if I am trying to avoid something or keep someone at a distance (which is quite a lot of the time!) But in some situations, not so much.
In therapy a few sessions ago I was venting about how I wasn't getting on with my CPAP machine at all after a recent surprise diagnosis of sleep apnea. And I was telling my T about how awful it was - how I wasn't sleeping well at all, how I wish I'd never gone to the sleep clinic in the first place because I now feel like I'm in a worse position than before, how I can't get comfortable in bed because I can't get into my favourite safe sleeping position, how the mask had rubbed a layer of skin off the bridge of my nose, how I sound like Darth Vader in bed now...
And my T burst out laughing and started wiping her eyes. I could see her trying to get a grip and stop and she would...then she'd start giggling again. And she kept apologising and saying "I know it's not funny but you tell it in a way that it is really funny to listen to." And, to start with, I think I enjoyed that she was enjoying my humorous re-telling, so I probably carried on as I was then on a bit of a roll and liking that she was finding me funny. But in the end I felt a bit flat and that she didn't take me seriously. Because then I was thinking "But this isn't funny - I'm telling you because I'm really hating it and am really stressed about it, so you sitting with the giggles isn't helping."
But, when I looked back on it afterwards, I could see that while, yes, some people might say a therapist shouldn't have laughed when I was sharing something that I was finding really hard... I did absolutely set up her response because I really did perform it as a funny story. It wasn't a conscious choice to do that - I didn't actually decide to do it that way and wasn't really aware that that was what I was doing at the time. But, I think it was very much about the way I told it.
And that is a pattern for me. And usually, the more difficult something is for me and the more I want to avoid it, the funnier I will be.
My therapist is aware of this tendency and said to me quite early on in our work together that I don't have to entertain her and that I'm not a performing monkey. But when it's such a huge coping mechanism and such a major way of how I relate to people and get into relationship with them, I think it's very hard to just stop being funny! Not using humour would be very, very anxiety-making, I think...
Of course, a therapist or a medical practitioner should be respectful and have good boundaries around the appropriateness of humour/laughter. But I also think we set the tone and they follow our lead.
My therapist will generally have a little laugh and share the joke with me and then, if needed, she will often say something like, "I know we've just been having a laugh about it but actually..." and then something so we'll talk more about it seriously or at least so we'll acknowledge that it's not really a funny thing.
It's a tricky one. Because, actually, if she didn't laugh when I was doing what I do, I think that would be very stressful and it would feel to me that something wasn't good relationally. Maybe something I need to work on :rolleyes:
A doctor crying with laughter about a medical examination you have been avoiding for five years does sound rather extreme and inappropriate...but I know there have been plenty of times when I've felt very uncomfortable about stuff and, to overcompensate for that, I have made nurses, doctors and surgeons roar with laughter. Only you know what the dynamic of that conversation was and how you may both have contributed to that outcome.
As you know this is a tendency for you and you have posted about it here before (re your T) and you are maybe experiencing a few misses lately with people's responses, perhaps it is time to bring this to therapy and to look more at what's underneath your use of (perhaps reliance on?) humour/entertaining people? Perhaps your recent experiences of when people's responses have missed the mark show some kind of shift that perhaps on some level you are moving towards a readiness to leave the avoidance aside and to speak your truth and be truly heard and taken seriously? I don't know...that's one thing that comes up for me now as I respond to you...though maybe I am actually projecting my stuff onto you!
