Anxiety humor.
Anxiety.
Have you ever heard about it? I bet you have. That’s only my personal
speculations but I feel like everyone of us has, at least, that one friend who suffers
from social anxiety. That’s the one who always avoids ordering pizza by phone
or buying tickets at the counter. Or that one person who always “have something
to do” when you invite them to go to a party full of strangers. People very
often call them “antisocial” ones, at least that’s what I usually hear among Poles.
When it comes to my group of friends, it’s me who is lucky to be called “antisocial”.
But in my opinion it’s not an appropriate word
for the attitude that I, and a lot of other people, represent. It’s not that I
hate society and don’t want to participate in any social encounter. Believe me,
I enjoy being among people… but only ones that I know and I feel comfortable
with. You have no idea how badly I would like to be that “positive girl who can
speak with anyone about anything and everything”. But then it comes. The anxiety.
You start to analyse you every word, every gesture, every “what if?”, so it’s
easier to stay calm in the corner or actually in your home. You're trying to fall asleep and then your brain reminds you of an awkward situation you've been in couple of years ago. You start to overthink. And that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Social
anxiety is not, strictly speaking, particularly funny. Persistent and recurring
fear of social situations and their potential consequences can wreak serious
havoc on your work, career prospects, social life, and general ability to be a
human being. Eventually, to lead at least partially a normal life, you have to
deal with your anxiety somehow. Obviously, some people handle their anxiety
better than others. How I do it? I make jokes and laugh about it. If you are
gifted with a sense of humor, especially dark humor like I am, some symptoms or
behaviors that you represent can occur pretty funny. Running across the road to
avoid a conversation and narrowly avoiding being run over has its own weird
funny charm. It's like once you learn to laugh at yourself in a way it makes
your skin thicker.
Here you
have some of this “dark, anxiety jokes” that make me laugh at myself and at the
same time keep going in a society. Probably a lot of you won’t find it as funny
as I do, but let’s try!
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