{"id":115,"date":"2014-09-24T17:14:21","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T17:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/?p=115"},"modified":"2016-04-28T19:07:19","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T19:07:19","slug":"115","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html","title":{"rendered":"Humour and Depression"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"humor\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Humour. You don\u2019t know how good humour is until you\u2019ve lost it. When you start slipping into depression, humour leaves with all other positive emotions. I didn\u2019t realize how much I missed humour until I started coming out of the darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always thought my brother was more humorous than me. As kids he\u2019d make us laugh even at the stupidest jokes. He\u2019d use humour to heal us after our alcoholic father went on an emotional rampage. Of course there were times my brother\u2019s sense of humour annoyed me and I\u2019d tell him to be more serious. I used to measure my sense of humour against his and in my mind, I always fell short. So I got used to the idea that I was the serious one and he was the funny one.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I started sliding into depression, I noticed my sense of humour leaving me. I\u2019d get annoyed more than usual with my brother. I\u2019d argue with him about the silliness of what he just said, which in hindsight never made any sense. TV comedies seemed outright stupid, not funny. I hated laugh tracks. I should know when I want to laugh, right? Comedians I once liked now became people I avoided. I\u2019d critically analyze anything that was comedy. Want to tell me a joke? How about instead I tell you about everything that\u2019s wrong and bad with this world or my life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually my humour was gone. I didn\u2019t laugh. I cried. I bawled. I raged against my life and being alive. I attempted suicide. Then, after much inner turmoil and anguish, I started to see hope. I began to believe in myself. I started to love myself. Somewhere inside me, humour returned.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first I thought it was sarcasm. I\u2019d make a comment or two and think, \u201cOkay, now the fireworks will start.\u201d Instead, people laughed and remarked on my terrific sense of humour. I slowly started watching comedy again and it didn\u2019t annoy me. I actually got the jokes.<\/span><\/p>\n

I still remember the first time I laughed after years of silence. For me, it was like a joyful sound had burst out from my stomach, sort of like the critter in Alien. My muscles weren\u2019t used to laughter anymore and I ached. Then I realized I couldn\u2019t stop laughing. I kept on laughing until tears rolled down my cheeks. It was relief mixed in with joy. I\u2019d never had such a profound moment caused by laughter. It was as if a light had turned back on inside the darkness and I had full control over when to turn it off or on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Humour helps me deal with depression and it lets me connect with the world. You don\u2019t realize how valuable humour is until it\u2019s gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Humour. You don\u2019t know how good humour is until you\u2019ve lost it. When you start slipping into depression, humour leaves with all other positive emotions. I didn\u2019t realize how much I missed humour until I started coming out of the darkness. I\u2019ve always thought my brother was more humorous than me. As kids he\u2019d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,102,105],"tags":[5,2,4,12,6],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression-help-2","category-motivation","category-personal-growth","tag-beliefnet","tag-depression","tag-depression-help","tag-emotional-health","tag-terezia-farkas"],"yoast_head":"\nHumour and Depression - Depression Help<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Humour and Depression - Depression Help\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  Humour. You don\u2019t know how good humour is until you\u2019ve lost it. When you start slipping into depression, humour leaves with all other positive emotions. I didn\u2019t realize how much I missed humour until I started coming out of the darkness. I\u2019ve always thought my brother was more humorous than me. As kids he\u2019d…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Depression Help\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/on.fb.me\/1zSE4WB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-09-24T17:14:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-04-28T19:07:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/09\/humor-300x105.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Terezia Farkas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@tereziafarkas\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Humour and Depression - Depression Help","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Humour and Depression - Depression Help","og_description":"  Humour. You don\u2019t know how good humour is until you\u2019ve lost it. When you start slipping into depression, humour leaves with all other positive emotions. I didn\u2019t realize how much I missed humour until I started coming out of the darkness. I\u2019ve always thought my brother was more humorous than me. As kids he\u2019d…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html","og_site_name":"Depression Help","article_author":"http:\/\/on.fb.me\/1zSE4WB","article_published_time":"2014-09-24T17:14:21+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-04-28T19:07:19+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/09\/humor-300x105.jpeg"}],"author":"Terezia Farkas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@tereziafarkas","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html","name":"Humour and Depression - Depression Help","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/09\/humor-300x105.jpeg","datePublished":"2014-09-24T17:14:21+00:00","dateModified":"2016-04-28T19:07:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#\/schema\/person\/d6c2df0b7a25217ed4853f2aec0340c9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/09\/humor-300x105.jpeg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/09\/humor-300x105.jpeg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/09\/115.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Humour and Depression"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/","name":"Depression Help","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Terezia Farkas","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#\/schema\/person\/d6c2df0b7a25217ed4853f2aec0340c9","name":"Terezia Farkas","description":"Terezia Farkas is an international bestselling author in depression and grief. Terezia is a reiki master, psychic medium, and certified channeller. Visit Terezia Farkas on Twitter @tereziafarkas Website: http:\/\/www.tereziafarkas.com Honours: Alberta Lt. Governor Circle on Mental Health and Addictions award. Bell Let's Talk Social Media Ambassador 2017. CAMH (Canadian Addictions and Mental Health) 150 Difference Makers nominee. 2014 Global Crisis of Depression Summit at Kings Place in London on November 25, 2014, which included speakers Kofi A Anan, the 7th former Secretary General of the UN.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.tereziafarkas.com","http:\/\/on.fb.me\/1zSE4WB","https:\/\/x.com\/tereziafarkas"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/author\/tfarkas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}