Laughing

It's strange to me that there's one innate action that can bring either the most joy or the most pain. Laughing can make awkward situations comfortable, unhappy people happy, and empty hearts full again. But laughing when in a context where others have found a situation hilarious that isn't funny to you at all, can reverse all of the joy that should be laughing's only purpose.

I always kid around, always try and make people laugh, always enjoy being told a good joke. One of my favorite things in the world is seeing someone smile and knowing that I'm the one who put it there. But laughing also has a dark side. Or maybe I should say cackling...or sneering or snickering or smirking. When people laugh at someone. That hurts. And, though I wish it weren't true, I think everyone has been in a situation where they were that someone.

I guess growing up with a brachial plexus injury put me in a lot of those situations. Most of them, people didn't realize they were laughing at me. I had never let on the difficulty of living with BPI or my embarassment because of it or how much I wished I could've just been normal like them and because I didn't show any of that, people didn't think they were laughing at me because they thought I thought it was funny too. They didn't think about living every day with such limitations like I did. I don't think a lot of them even knew the extent of my limitations because I didn't really talk about it and I tried to hide it as much as possible. But for me it felt a lot like being laughed at and it did hurt sometimes. In those situations I think you have two good options.

Option one: You stay serious and explain to them why it's not funny. You can show them that having a life-long injury isn't a joke at all no matter how weird it looks when you run or how funny they think it is that you can't play Pattycake. If you don't think it's funny, it's not and that means they have no right to laugh and you have every right to show them reason to stop. I'm not saying everyone will understand because they won't but if you stand up for yourself, that should give you enough strength inside to stop caring that they're still laughing. Because then it becomes their problem, not yours. This is the brave option and I'd be lying if I told you I was brave most of the time.

Option two (the road I usually took): You laugh with them. I know it sounds bad but if the situation is one a lot like the ones I often faced, the laughers aren't trying to be mean. They honestly don't understand and that's okay because this is a really difficult concept to wrap one's head around. And because of that, I often thought laughing with them was alright because if I was honest with myself, I really did look funny when I ran and my arm just hung by my side and it's kinda funny that I can't snap with my left hand. Those are things that I can live with. Being able to laugh at yourself is an ability I took a long time to learn but it's one that I attribute to gaining through my growth with my BPI.

Everyone has their own theories of deflection and dealing with certain situations like these and I hope you all can find what works for you so that ignorant people don't get to you for silly reasons. Let's keep laughing for joy :)