Unnecessary Laughing

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Do you think unnecessary laughing is sign of mental illness?
I often laugh unnecessarily and when the situation demands serious attitude there i laugh
I have noticed that colleagues or other people dont laugh in scenario where i tend to laugh
Also when i am reading any abuse story i tend to laugh instead of feeling sad or serious
For eg. i was reading about a girl being beaten up by her mothers boyfriends
but i was laughing so much reading that

Is this some serious sickness or its normal>>

[quote="namaste"]Do you think unnecessary laughing is sign of mental illness?
I often laugh unnecessarily and when the situation demands serious attitude there i laugh
I have noticed that colleagues or other people dont laugh in scenario where i tend to laugh
Also when i am reading any abuse story i tend to laugh instead of feeling sad or serious
For eg. i was reading about a girl being beaten up by her mothers boyfriends
but i was laughing so much reading that

Does it make you LOOK abnormal?

Damned right!

Does it mean that you ARE abnormal?

Not necessarily.

I knew a kid in highschool who said that years earlier when he was a child that he "couldnt stop laughing when he heard Kennedy was shot". He didnt even know why. But a shrink said that he did it "because unconsciously he was glad that it didnt happened to he himself." That could be why you laugh at that girl being abused. Or one of any number of other reasons. I get the impression that you're not the most popular nor happy person in the world yourself (dont know if you actually get abused) -but maybe you're unconsciously happy to see another girl brought down to your own level of misery ( I might laugh too if i were in your shoes- not trying to sound accusatory).

I talk aloud to myself- sometimes on my job. The job can be mindless and repititive- so sometimes my head goes off into other things - like rehearsing alternate ways to explain things to folks I have had past conversations with. And sometimes my inner dialogue gets verbalized. Obviously I am not really hallucinating that other people are talking to me- but thats how it can look. So ofcourse I work at putting a lid on it ( and have succeeded in squashing the habit to some degree). If your not crazy thats all the more reason not to look crazy.

So two points: should you stop laughing inappropriately? Yes- appearances count in the real world.

Should you be ashamed of yourself for doing it? Not ashamed, but you might benifit from stopping to think about why you do it.

A lot of people laugh nervously at inappropriate times. I do this. It can be a sign of anxiety and awkwardness, not necessarily of severe mental illness. I do have an anxiety disorder, I should mention, to be fair but it doesn't have to be a sign of a disorder at all.

Read something years ago about reactions to things and in particular laughing.

Basically everyone does it to a degree, it's much more enjoyable to laugh at something than take it seriously if you feel uncomfortable.

Apparently it is in particular a British trait. Someone dies a horrible death, pretty quickly you hear people making jokes about it and laughing it off. They are not laughing at the incident, just uncomfortable with such a serious subject so feel relief it they can make light of it

Good logical possible explanations by above posters.

I don't think inappropriate laughing is necessarily a sign of mental illness.

I sometimes see in public places some people laughing very loudly for no reason in a rather crazy-sounding way. I do think they probably have some kind of mental illness.

I have a colleague at work who laughs very often when there's nothing funny. I know he's not crazy but I sense he's rather nervous to talk with people. If his feeling nervous to the point of laughing inappropriately (possibly trying to cover his nervousness) is considered as some kind of anxiety/mental disorder, then yes, we can say "he has a mental disorder". I think this kind of "mental disorder" is quite common.

I've had a colleague who often laughed for no reason. Honestly she looked creepy because she was laughing when she was by herself and doing nothing. She was looking in the air and just laughing. I thought she had some mental disorder, but she was harmless and was never rude or anything. I never understood her laughing.

Any way, one thing I notice is people who laugh inappropriately tend to be treated not very well by other people. Both people in my two examples above were regarded as strange people and the second one was pretty badly bullied. So if you recognize that your laughing is inappropriate, then you might need to suppress it just for the sake of preventing misunderstanding by other people.

Severe mental illness? No, not necessarily. Mental anomaly? Quite likely.

It's a documented AS trait to show incorrect emotions, facial expressions, laughter etc for the present moment. Sometimes it's that you might find something funny that others don't, or something serious may remind you of something funny and you can't help but impulsively laugh at the thought, other times it may be due to nervousness & not knowing what to do so you just laugh, other times it may be that you're thinking of something else and having a laugh at that thought while others who are focused on the present moment can't comprehend why someone would possibly laugh in whatever the serious or unfunny situation may be.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

I don't laugh unnecessarily, as i rarely laugh. But i notice that some people constantly laugh even where the place/occasion does not lead to this, by people who appear to be extreme extroverts and must be constantly making some form of noise from their mouths.

Yes I do this sometimes. I notice that what most people find funny I find lame and immature. It's not that I don't "get" their humor. I get it, it's just not funny.

Not like this.

It's common to laugh when you're supposed to be serious, it's got nothing to do with AS as far as I'm aware.

Laughter first came about to let others know that someone has been hurt, but over time it changed to mean something different. This change didn't occur in everyone though, so there are still a fair amount of people who laugh when at funerals and things. So you laughing at a newspaper article like that hasn't got to do with AS .

I think it depends on what the reason for the unnecessary laughing is. I'll list 3 potential reasons for unnecessary laughing.

1. Nullification - Lightening the mood by finding humor in the situation.

2. Satire - Making fun of the people involved in the situation and/or the reactions of people to the situation.

3. Malice - Sadistically enjoying the misfortune of people involved in the situation.

The first reason is normal, but it's not always appropriate and people are likely to take it the wrong way.

The second reason is also normal, as long as you're not indifferent to serious situations. If you're completely indifferent to serious situations, and enjoy making fun of the people involved (including victims) and the reactions of people to the situation, you're probably schizoid.

The third reason is never really normal. If you sadistically enjoy the misfortune of people, you're probably either a sociopath or a narcissist.

Laughing is good. I like laughing.

Sometimes in Autism inappropriate laughing and smiling is common; the expression of emotion is different I think, somehow.

Or, just not being able to control facial expressions

Or just manic reactions to emotional stimuli, even the morbid or upsetting??

Just a few thoughts

Two work related instances.

I physically count stuff in stores for an inventory company for our retail clients.

One store that always takes longer than expected took even more longer than expected.

We were stopped at one point while our surpervisers conversed with the store supervisors about some issue that came up.

Was already too exhuasted to follow what they were saying- some kind of problems. More long hours whatever. Then my mind wandered off to some unrelated thing that struck me as funny-then I started laugh aloud. The store manager got pissed and barked "you may think its funny... but I dont think its funny. blah, blah,...."

It occurred to me to say " I wasnt even paying attention and was thinking about something totally not related (implying that he and his troubles arent even important enough for me to laugh at). I opted to just keep my mouth shut!


Another time I worked as a salesclerk at a drugstore change. We had a young lady from Botswanna, a frumpy but sweet dispositioned african peasant woman on our staff whom everyone liked . She did some task incorrectly. So stepped out from the behind the register to instruct. She responded by covering her mouth and kinda giggling. At first I started to get angry (like she wasnt taking me seriously). As I got more angry she laughed even more, which baffled and angered me even more. She isnt a mean person-why she laughing at me?

But then the words of a lady anthopology professor from years before drifted into my head. The professor told us that people in non western cultures laugh, but they laugh "not because they find something 'funny'. They laugh because they are embarrassed, or other reasons..."

So then I realized that she was laughing not because she was amused, but because she was embarrassed. And that she probably was taking me TOO seriously ( OMG... I shoulda known better) So I told her...well...you didnt know the right way before...so now you do know (like its no big deal). She noded like she understood, and stop giggling. We both went back to work. And a fight caused by a cultural misunderstanding was avoided.

I laugh a lot. It's either because I'm amused (life is extremely amusing) or I'm nervous (I'm always nervous). So really, it's both.

Anyone get set off by something really small after eating a meal containing some sugar? And then it just keeps escalating until you are laughing both because you are laughing and because others are not? A few months ago I was in the car with my husband and a friend. They were in the front, I was in the back seat. I had drank a can of YooHoo and had the giggles for around 15 minutes while they just chatted, totally ignoring me. The more they ignored me, the harder I laughed.