Don’t use humor to cover up other emotions

Humor and shared playfulness help you stay resilient in the face of life’s challenges. But there are times when humor is not healthy—when it is used as a cover for avoiding, rather than coping with, painful emotions. Laughter can be a disguise for feelings of hurt, fear, anger, and disappointment that you don’t want to feel or don’t know how to express.

You can be funny about the truth—but covering up the truth isn’t funny. When you use humor and playfulness as a cover for other emotions, you create confusion and mistrust in your relationships. The following are examples of misplaced humor:

Mike is a constant jokester. Nothing ever seems to get him down and he never takes anything seriously. No matter what happens to him or to anyone else, he makes a joke out of the situation. In reality, Mike is scared to death of dark feelings, conflict, and intimacy. He uses humor to avoid uncomfortable feelings and to keep other people at arm’s length.

Sharon is often jealous and possessive with her boyfriend Kevin. But she has never learned to openly discuss her insecurities and fears. Instead, she uses what she thinks is humor to express her feelings. However, her "jokes” usually having a biting, almost hostile edge and do not seem at all funny to Kevin, who responds with coldness and withdrawal.

For cues as to whether or not humor is being used to conceal other emotions, ask yourself the following questions:

•     Do nonverbal communication signals— such as tone of voice, intensity, timing—feel genuinely humorous to you, or do you experience them as forced or "not right” somehow?
•     Is humor the only emotion you routinely express, or is there a mixture of other emotions that at least occasionally includes sadness, fear, and anger?