April 29, 2021 • 47 mins
Harvey and Pen discuss how mentally ill and neurodivergent people often turn to humor as a form of coping.
Featuring: Mental health jokes: The good, the bad, and the unhealthy; What's "deviant" changes with context; The surprising relevance of a speech Pen competed with two years ago; "Wanna hear what I took my Zoloft with tonight?"; My brain is not your punchline; & stay tuned for Harvey's TikTok audio at the very end
Note: We discuss jokes about being suicidal and having suicidal thoughts at several points in this episode. Though we make none of the jokes ourselves, phrases like "I want to kill myself" do pop up in the discussion.
Suicide Hotline & Resources for Trans People:
USA Suicide Prevention:
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
International Suicide Hotlines:
https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
Suicide Hotline & Resources for LGBTQ+ Young People:
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
Ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources:
https://linktr.ee/blacklivesmatte
Resources to support AAPI (Asian-American & Pacific Islander) communities:
https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/
https://stopaapihate.org/
Resources for US Immigrants:
https://www.informedimmigrant.com/
Resources to Support Undocumented Immigrants in the US:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pen (00:12):
Welcome to Beyond introspection, a podcast about
mental health, neurodivergenceand how it impacts our life in
literally every aspect.
Harvey (00:19):
All of them.
Pen (00:21):
I'm Pen.
Harvey (00:21):
And I'm Harvey.
Pen (00:23):
And they just spoken to a glass that had water in it. That
was what that sound was.
Harvey (00:29):
I have to be funny every time I say, "all of them."
Pen (00:32):
Well, you're very naturally funny. And--oh! Oh, did you mean
for that to be the segue than itis into what the episode topic
is?
Harvey (00:39):
Not at all.
Pen (00:40):
Well, we're talking about jokes.
Harvey (00:43):
And not just any kind of jokes, the jokes that
neurodivergent people make. Thegood, the bad and the unhealthy.
Pen (00:50):
And also, I think, jokes about neurodivergence and mental
illness more broadly, which doesinclude, sometimes, the jokes
that neurotypical people makethat are, like, what's the word,
bad?
Harvey (01:04):
Cmo se dice (ENG
Pen (01:07):
Yeah, yeah, where it's just--don't.
Harvey (01:10):
Shut up.
Pen (01:12):
Okay, I have some--well, when I say notes, I'll show you,
there are four bullet points,and they're all one line.
Harvey (01:20):
Now, there are four bullet points, and then there's
a fifth that's a sub-bulletpoint.
Pen (01:24):
Yeah. And they're all--that's not many words.
Harvey (01:27):
No, that's okay.
Pen (01:27):
When I say, 'notes,' I just mean general things that I
intended to talk about.
Harvey (01:32):
But! But, but, but.
Pen (01:33):
Oh, right. Yeah.
Harvey (01:36):
You sounded--you sounded so upset. Disappointed.
Pen (01:38):
No, I'm not upset. I'm not upset.
Harvey (01:41):
Pen.
Pen (01:42):
Harvey.
Harvey (01:42):
Will you tell me about your Wahoo! Moment of the Week?
I know. I didn't say it in thefun voice. I'm sleepy.
Pen (01:49):
So are you--are you, is it too sleepy to do it in the fun
voice?
Harvey (01:53):
Wahoo!
Pen (01:53):
Thank you. Does that have a genuinely impact? Like, if
you're tired, then that's--
Harvey (02:00):
It takes more effort when I'm tired.
Pen (02:02):
You know what? That's fair.
That's fair. I appreciate you.
Yeah, so it wasn't technicallythis week, because I believe it
was last Sunday.
Harvey (02:09):
Whatever, time's fake.
Pen (02:12):
I have ADH, and let me say, it is. Oh, God it is. But
yeah, so it was technically lastweek. But who cares? I dyed my
hair, which makes me very, veryhappy when I do it.
Harvey (02:29):
It's green.
Pen (02:30):
It's green now, which I wasn't--I didn't go into dyeing
my hair intending for it to begreen. But through a series of
events, it became green, whichis--I like dyeing my hair, so it
made me go hmm.
Harvey (02:42):
Hmm.
Pen (02:43):
Oh, that's happy sound, for people who--I smile when I make
that sound.
Harvey (02:47):
Yes. That's true.
Pen (02:49):
For our--for everyone who can't see us, which is everyone
who's listening to this.
Harvey (02:53):
Except me.
Pen (02:54):
Except Harvey. Harvey, what's your Wahoo! Moment of the
Week?
Harvey (02:58):
What is my Wahoo! Moment of the Week?
Well, you did see your boyfriendso Shut up. Yes, I did see my
boyfriend. I've beentalking--so, I'm polyamorous.
I've got three now. I've justbeen collecting boyfriends.
Pen (03:14):
"Gotta catch 'em all," is a joke I made yesterday...
Harvey (03:16):
Yes.
Pen (03:17):
...when we went on a walk.
Harvey (03:17):
It was a joke that you made yesterday. Oh! We did go on
a walk, and it was extremelynice.
Pen (03:21):
It was nice. We went to a local forest preserve.
Harvey (03:24):
And it was very cool, and we saw some fish.
Pen (03:26):
We did! Oh, right, I forgot about the fish. The fish were
cool.
Harvey (03:29):
And then we saw some kind of construction happening
that we definitely weren'tsupposed to be near, but like...
Pen (03:35):
We weren't supposed to go on the other trail that was,
like, leading to it.
Harvey (03:39):
It just happened to loop around, and that doesn't seem
like my problem.
Pen (03:43):
That's certainly not mine.
Harvey (03:45):
But yeah, outside, three boyfriends. I'm so powerful.
Pen (03:51):
You say while so, so tired.
Harvey (03:55):
It's true. I can definitely imagine how
accentuated my under-eye bagslook, considering I don't have
my glasses on.
Pen (04:04):
Oh, wow, now that you point it out, I do see them a bit. I
want you to know I wasn't goingto see him before, because ADHD
stands for "I Don't Have EyesDisease." It doesn't match up.
It doesn't.
Harvey (04:15):
I was--it almost does.
Pen (04:16):
It almost does, but no, no, it's just--
Harvey (04:18):
ADHED.
Pen (04:20):
Means "I haven't seen anything in," checks watch, "23
years."
Harvey (04:24):
So I said ADHED, because if there was the E, it would
say--it would say "I Don't HaveEyes Disease," but, well.
Pen (04:33):
Well.
Harvey (04:34):
Well.
Pen (04:35):
Well.
Harvey (04:36):
Anyway.
Pen (04:37):
Anyway, jokes. Jokes that we make, and the jokes that are
made at us.
Harvey (04:45):
And about us.
Pen (04:45):
And about us.
Harvey (04:48):
Ah, Pen thinks I'm very funny.
Pen (04:51):
I--mm, let me--let me just real quick, Pen knows that
you're very funny.
Harvey (04:57):
All of this to say, I make many, many jokes, all the
time, which are sometimes at theexpense of my neurodivergence,
not always at the expense, butinvolving.
Pen (05:07):
Yes, yeah. Which is--which is an important distinction, I
think, like, in talking aboutjokes that have to do with
neurodivergence and mentalillness, because, you know, that
separation, I think, isparticularly notable when it
comes to depression and beingsuicidal, versus, like, I'm
gonna joke about my ADHD allday.
Harvey (05:25):
Yeah.
Pen (05:25):
And that feels distinctly different than when I used to
joke about being suicidal, whichwas not a healthy coping
mechanism.
Harvey (05:32):
No, but it's a very common one.
Pen (05:35):
An extremely common one. I did a speech on it when I was in
forensics.
Harvey (05:40):
Oh, that's right.
Pen (05:40):
Yeah, it was after dinner speaking, which is a speech
that's a little bit humorous.
And I was like, I want to talkabout suicide jokes. And
everyone in the room was like,"Okay,"
Harvey (05:50):
After--I will never get over just how specific forensics
categories are.
Pen (05:55):
It's like, you know, if you go to some kind of event, and
then someone comes up, and theygave a little speech, and it's
meant to be like, oh, everyoneenjoyed that. Like, kind of a
pleasant enjoyable. Yet, in thein the lower, I think when
you're in high school, it'scalled STE, speech to entertain,
which makes so much more sense.
Harvey (06:14):
We didn't even have that category.
Pen (06:16):
Well, well. Anyway.
Harvey (06:19):
Look, I did--I did poetry, and a touch of
impromptu, and that's it.
Pen (06:27):
I did so many things.
Harvey (06:29):
And I also was in speech team for, like, two months, and
then I left because I had apanic attack at a--at an event.
Pen (06:36):
That's pretty good reason.
Harvey (06:37):
Yeah.
Pen (06:38):
But that, too, to say, like, suicide jokes, very
common.
Harvey (06:41):
Yeah.
Pen (06:42):
Jokes in general. Oh, yeah.
The distinction in, when weare--oh, it was something with
joking about mental health,versus joking about
neurodivergence, and, like, thejokes that are--jokes that are
made by other people, versus thejokes that we make ourselves.
Harvey (07:03):
Yeah.
Pen (07:05):
Is--is a very important sort of thing. Oh, it was when
you said "at the expense of."
Harvey (07:09):
Right.
Pen (07:09):
Versus just sort of about.
Harvey (07:12):
Like, it's--it's sort of the--it's sort of the difference
between me--like, in the contextof me being gay, it's sort of
the difference between callingmyself a fruit, and saying,
like, "Yeah, and I hate myself,I'm going to hell," you know?
Like, those feel very different.
Pen (07:32):
Yes. I--in one of my my small notes--oh, this is like a
line and a half. It's 44 words.
I checked. That jokes aboutneurodivergence in mental health
can be positive, which is, like,healthy coping mechanisms,
negative, which is unhealthycoping mechanisms, and then more
neutral, which is when they are,I would say, primarily just
(07:54):
observational, but turned,like--you know, humor is
the--one of the definitions ofit is, like, saying the
unexpected, and that sort ofthing, and we've talked before
about how that makesneurodivergent people sometimes
just very funny, naturally,because we have to be so aware
of what is and is not expected.
Harvey (08:15):
Yeah. So that makes us really, really good at
subverting those expectations,both in substantive and
meaningful ways, and also injust being really, really funny.
Pen (08:24):
We're just telling a funny joke. And, like, if I joke about
my ADHD, it's going to besomething unexpected for
neurotypical people, I canguarantee you that. None of
y'all understand what my brainis, and we can both just sit in
that.
Harvey (08:38):
That's fine. I don't even know if you understand what
your brain is.
Pen (08:41):
I understand some parts of my brain, but other parts of it
are left to a mystery. That'spart of ADHD, is where some of
your brain just doesn't make anysense to you, either.
Harvey (08:50):
It's just a big 'ol shrug.
Pen (08:52):
Turns out dopamine sometimes is used for gla--brain
glasses, where you can see yourbrain in it.
Harvey (09:00):
I respect the effort.
Pen (09:02):
Thank you.
Harvey (09:02):
I meant that in a loving way
Pen (09:04):
Oh, no. I know, I know. It was not as good.
Harvey (09:07):
I love you.
Pen (09:08):
Nah, nah, but, like, yeah, there are definitely things I
don't understand about my ownbrain.
Harvey (09:13):
Ah, there are plenty of things I don't understand about
my brain.
Pen (09:17):
You don't like when I call it squishy, I know that.
Harvey (09:19):
Uh, no. No, I don't. I mean, the thing is that you are
factually correct.
Pen (09:28):
See--see that's not the kind of thing that people are
supposed to say, but it's alsonot funny because Harvey hates
it.
Harvey (09:34):
Well, no, I mean, objectively, it is funny to call
a brain squishy. I'm just gonnahate it.
Pen (09:39):
Yeah, no, that's fair.
Harvey (09:41):
But there was--there was a joke I made last night
over--over text with Pen that wegot into a brief discussion
about. I call my--I call myantidepressants Don't Kill
Yourself Candy.
Pen (09:56):
Made me laugh last night, too.
Harvey (09:58):
Which is legitimately the reason--I mean, my
antidepressants are legitimatelythe reason that I don't want to
kill myself anymore. So then Ithought, "Hey, you know what
would be really funny? If Icalled them candy."
Pen (10:08):
That's--see, that's the part of it for me. And we
did--we did talk about it a bit,on whether that sort of falls
under, like, a slightly morenegative, or a more neutral. I
see it as more neutral, at leastin comparison to a lot of jokes
that I've come across thathave--that have the phrase,
"kill yourself." And I'm notjust talking about, like, the
(10:30):
awful things that people say andclaim where, like, "Oh, I was
just kidding." And it's like,no, you can't tell someone to
kill themselves and it's a joke.
That's not how it works.
Harvey (10:37):
I'm going to bite you.
I'm going to bite your ankles.
Pen (10:40):
Bite, bite, bite.
Harvey (10:41):
Violence, violence, violence.
Pen (10:43):
Cross-stitch that. But yeah, it's like--calling pills
candy is funny, because they'renot.
Harvey (10:57):
They're not candy. They taste like garbage.
Pen (10:59):
Oh, they're so bad. If they dissolve in your mouth a little
bit, it's, like, the worst.
Harvey (11:05):
Awful, awful.
Pen (11:06):
Yeah, very, very bad. If my lamotrigine dissolves in my
mouth, it tastes like a NintendoSwitch cartridge.
Harvey (11:16):
Okay, see? That's funny.
Pen (11:17):
Yeah, that's funny. If I take [Laughter]
Hades--Hades--Supergiant's Hadesand lamotrigine are both mood
stabilizers, and they tastethesame.
Harvey (11:33):
Oh, wow. I mean, yeah. I guess--I guess in that way--I
guess in that way, Zoloft isana--is analogous to Skittles,
because Skittles make me notwant to kill myself. That's less
funny. But, like.
Pen (11:51):
Sorry, I really got myself with that one.
Harvey (11:53):
No, that's a good--that's a good one.
Pen (11:56):
That's an example of a joke that very, very directly has to
do with my neurodivergence. Bothways, actually. Because the
reason I like Hades so much isbecause I hyperfixated on it, or
vice versa there.
Harvey (12:09):
Yes. I wonder how much of this episode is just going to
be us cracking jokes?
Pen (12:13):
I mean, that's still good.
We're very, very funny.
Harvey (12:17):
We are, we are.
Pen (12:19):
What were you gonna say?
Harvey (12:20):
No, go ahead.
Pen (12:22):
But you know, that's--like, that is--I am acknowledging in
that joke, my neurodivergence,and also the fact that I'm on
meds, and I--I kind of likemaking observational jokes about
those sorts of things, becauseit's something that is kind
of--the social view of it isthat it's something you're not
necessarily supposed to talkabout, or that it's shameful,
(12:45):
and that's why, sometimes, if Iwere to make a joke about being
on medication,people--I--neurotypical
people--sometimes get kind ofuncomfortable, like, "Oh--I...
oh, okay."
Harvey (12:57):
I like making neurodivergence
folks--er--jokes, that makeneurodivergent--I like making
neurodivergence jokes that makeneurotypical people
uncomfortable.
Pen (13:07):
It is a small joy in life.
Harvey (13:10):
And also, I like to subvert expectations.
Pen (13:12):
Yeah, that's--and that's the kind of thing is, we live
subverting expectations, becausewe don't get to set the
expectations, even though, Iswear, they would make more
sense if we did.
Harvey (13:22):
It would be easier for neurotypical people, too.
Pen (13:25):
That's what I'm saying! If I ask questions like, "Hey, why
do we do it this way?" They'reall like, "You know what? I'm
not sure." And I'm like, "Thenstop!"
Harvey (13:32):
Then just don't, heart.
Pen (13:33):
Heart. But yeah, whereas sometimes we make these jokes
and they're nice, because it's away of saying, "No, I'm not
ashamed of this thing. Like,there's nothing you can do or
say, that's gonna make me golike, 'Oh, no,' I'm so sorry to
mention that I'm on a moodstabilizer in polite company,"
like, leave me alone.
Harvey (13:54):
Like, I'm so sorry that I take medicine so that I don't
kill myself. Like...
Pen (13:58):
Like, I take a medicine and my brain goes, "Oh, all right,
we can chill out a little bitmore. Doesn't that sound nice?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, that doessound nice!"
Harvey (14:06):
It's like, my brain's like, "Serotonin moment."
Pen (14:12):
Yeah, I take Adderall.
Harvey (14:15):
You're on Speed!
Pen (14:16):
I'm on Speed, a little bit.
Harvey (14:17):
Just a little bit of Speed.
Pen (14:19):
On partial Speed.
Harvey (14:20):
As a treat.
Pen (14:21):
As a treat.
Harvey (14:21):
I hand it to you, and I go "Pspspspspspsps."
Pen (14:27):
Yeah, I take a little bit of Speed, and it makes my brain
go, "Oh, I get it now. Oh, so wejust do things? They were right
all along. Why don't you just doit?" And I'm like...
Harvey (14:40):
And then you wake up the next morning, and they're like,
"No! No!"
Pen (14:45):
It's 24 hours out of my system.
Harvey (14:47):
Um, but, I mean, that is very different from the way that
I used to joke, because amajority of my humor, when I
was, like. 16 and 17, nd some ofthat was was influenced by the
people that I was around.
Because, in high school--thiswas also--because I was in high
school in 2017 and 2018.
Pen (15:06):
Ah, high school.
Harvey (15:08):
And we--there were-- a lot of folk joked around about,
"Oh, I want to kill myself" likeany time they were mildly
inconvenienced. And then itended up being something that I
internalized, and I didn'trealize until years later that
it was actually true. That I waslightheartedly joking about the
fact that I wanted to killmyself.
Pen (15:27):
Oh, I have--do you mind if I bring up a quote or two from
that speech?
Harvey (15:34):
Sure.
Pen (15:35):
Because there is actually something that is very, very,
very directly related to that.
Let's see. Ah, okay. So one ofthe points that was part of it
is normalizing the experience,essentially, of being suicidal,
or making jokes about it.
Harvey (15:53):
Yeah.
Pen (15:56):
Let's see... the, like, source citation was about
"That's what she said" jokes,and how that genuinely
contributes to a cycle thatquote, "Reinscribes rape culture
by normalizing discourses thatdismiss and silence rape
victims." It's an article fromCommunication and Critical Flesh
Cultural Studies Journal.
"Normalization of negativeexperiences through humor isn't
exclusive to sexual misconduct.
(16:18):
Imagine that you're feelingawful, you hear 'I hate myself,'
and can't imagine anything moretrue, and yet you have no idea
how to broach the subject. Soyou laugh. You joke, even though
you just said, 'This makes mewant to kill myself,' and meant
it. Here's the thing that makesit really awful: other people
are laughing, too. Suicidalthoughts aren't healthy. They're
not a joke. But what they dobecome with their increasing
(16:41):
reference in social mediaculture is normalized.
Harvey (16:45):
Yeah, that is--that is very succinct, and a very good
way of describing it.
Pen (16:52):
Thank you. I took this to competitions, so my coaches made
it that way.
Harvey (16:57):
Fair enough.
Pen (16:59):
But yeah, that is part of the thing is, when it becomes a
normalized experience, then itstops having it stops being
recognized as something thatcould be harmful. And also, I
think, like, one of the thingsthat was very important to me in
writing this and performing it,is like, how it kind of removes
(17:22):
or negates possible healthycoping mechanisms, because it's
such a common thing like, oh,yeah, I'm just gonna make this
joke about hating myself forbeing suicidal, and people are
gonna laugh and then I'm notgonna learn any healthy coping
mechanisms, because I've gottenpositive feedback from this
unhealthy one.
Harvey (17:37):
That's operant conditioning, baby!
Pen (17:40):
Harvey psych major moment.
Harvey (17:42):
Yeah.
Pen (17:43):
Which is good. Excellent.
Harvey (17:45):
I'm just a little--I'm just a little creature.
Pen (17:47):
That's it.
Harvey (17:48):
I cannot change this.
Pen (17:51):
There's some other things that sort of, up on here. One of
them was about sort of the brainpathways thing, you know? Where
you think something enough andit just--your brain follows that
path.
Harvey (18:02):
Yeah, that's just how neuroplasticity works.
Neuroplasticity is the brain'sability to create paths in the
brain, like Pen was saying, withneural firing. As--as one brain
cell fires off, it learns thatthere is a connection between
two different brain cells firingoff, and so it creates a chain.
Pen (18:22):
Excellent. I'm happy for them. I'm proud of them.
Harvey (18:25):
Only when it's, like, a good chain.
Pen (18:27):
Well, I'm very proud of them for how hard they work.
Harvey (18:29):
Yes.
Pen (18:30):
They're doing their best.
Harvey (18:31):
They're just following instructions.
Pen (18:33):
And they're doing so good.
Harvey (18:34):
They are! Sometimes that works against us.
Pen (18:39):
Here's an example of that.
This speech is becomingconvenient. The last edit was
made on February 16th, 2019, andit's becoming convenient over
two years later.
Harvey (18:49):
How about that?
Pen (18:49):
It's weird. Big shoutout to Jess and Matt, who were great
coaches.
Harvey (18:56):
Yeah!
Pen (18:56):
Thanks, guys. They wrote some of these jokes.
Harvey (18:59):
Love it.
Pen (19:00):
"In 1994 study from the Journal of Basic and Applied
Social Psychology," and yeah,it's old, but like...
Harvey (19:07):
Sometimes those classical studies are relevant.
Pen (19:10):
"The study asked participants to read disparaging
jokes about lawyers to test--tosee if choosing to make the
jokes would lead to lessfavorable attitudes towards
lawyers. And it did. It's notbecause lawyers are soulless
monsters. The effect ofcognitive dissonance separated
the participants from thereality of the statements.
Joking about wanting to killyourself isn't the same as
(19:31):
saying lawyers are terrible, butthe effect of dissonance still
applies, creating an audiencequicker to dismiss these warning
signs than congress is on sexualassault charges."
Harvey (19:40):
Boof.
Pen (19:40):
Yeah, that joke, I don't remember which one--which one of
the three of us wrote it, but itsure was 2019.
Harvey (19:50):
Golly gee, that was even before Kavanaugh.
Pen (19:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But all of that--all of
that said, humor does still havepositive impacts on mental
health treatment? I actually didhave a study on that as well.
Harvey (20:05):
Oho!
Pen (20:05):
Yeah! 2009 article, Journal of Evidence-Based,
Complimentary, and Alternativemedicine. Complimentary is the
more functional one there, butthis is not the episode where
I'm talking about that. Anyway.
Harvey (20:19):
Anyway.
Pen (20:21):
Observations were done on an open group in which
psychiatric patients wereencouraged to participate in
humor based activities, youknow, calls for jokes, and an
activity in which group membersreplayed a funny occurrence.
Another section offered groupmembers a chance to directly
addressed the destructivepotential that humor can carry.
(20:41):
The patients who attended thatfelt it was an opportunity for
connection, as well as improvedcommunication and social skills.
So both of them together is whatmade it work. The one where it
was just legitimately abouthumor, and, like, having that
positive, and then also directlyaddressing it. And not only did
that help them individually feelbetter, it also strengthened
(21:04):
their connection and community,which I think is an impact.
Like, that is a piece of usinghumor, particularly, like, it
does help neurodivergent peopleand mentally ill people relate
to each other. When we makethese jokes, and we're both
laughing, and it's like, oh, youget it.
Harvey (21:17):
Yeah.
Pen (21:18):
You understand what it's like!
Harvey (21:19):
It's like, you understand how this feels? Oh, I
can let my guard down.
Pen (21:22):
Yeah. And the unfortunate thing that sometimes happens is
when there's just that commonthread of things, like jokes
about killing yourself, ordrinking bleach, which was the
thing at the time that we werewriting that, so that was--that
was a part of it.
Harvey (21:38):
Something that our--one of our--something that one of
our roommates liked to jokeabout at the time.
Pen (21:44):
Yeah. And that was--like, that is--there is community that
people find in making thosejokes because, legitimately,
they're coming across people whounderstand what it's like to
feel that awful.
Harvey (21:57):
Right.
Pen (21:58):
Nothing positive is necessarily coming out of that
joke, though.
Harvey (22:02):
No, and--and the positivity that comes from
community only goes so far. Itreally kind of depends on, like,
the purpose for which thatcommunity was created, and also
their values, because,like--okay, I'm going to go for
an extreme example (22:17):
neonazis.
They bond over their hatred ofBIPOC and Jewish people. They
sure as heck bond over that, butI also want to kick their teeth
in. They're not doing anythinggood.
Pen (22:33):
BIPOC being Black-identified people of
color, yes?
Harvey (22:37):
Black and Indigenous, People of Color.
Pen (22:38):
Black and Indigenous--okay, that's--see, now I'm glad I
asked, because now I know that,too, but...
Harvey (22:43):
Yeah, Black and Indigenous, People of Color.
Pen (22:45):
Got it. Yes. What was I thinking? Actually, yeah, I do
have thoughts on that kind ofthing, and, like, where there is
positivity and not incommunities that are based on a
negative. And this was somethingthat I thought about when I was
taking that interculturalcommunication class 1000 years
ago. It was an evening classthat met once a week for three
(23:09):
hours.
Harvey (23:10):
Oh, right.
Pen (23:10):
So it's amazing that I had any thoughts left in my head
afterwards.
Harvey (23:14):
Head empty.
Pen (23:15):
Head empty disease. Disease where you are alive. No
thoughts.
Harvey (23:28):
Alexa, play "Help, I'm Alive" by Metric. Anyway.
Pen (23:33):
So yeah, yeah, groups that are based on negativity, or the
desire for something to nolonger exist, like neonazis. The
bond is not a strong I--I sortof--I see, and I observe and
think, in those, because it isbased on either a lack of
(23:53):
something, or an inherentlynegative thing
Harvey (23:57):
Right.
Pen (23:58):
There is not really a positive, something, being
formed there, and if there ispositivity being formed, then
it's likely more from, like,being around people who share
your values. And maybe you findother things that you're bonding
over, but even that, like,sharing of values, like, it's
not so much a value, assomething you dislike.
Harvey (24:19):
Yeah.
Pen (24:19):
So, it's, like, at best, shaky ground in what you're able
to positively bond over in--inthose communities, which means
they're not actually doinganything for you.
Harvey (24:29):
No.
Pen (24:30):
They are negatively influencing your brain, which,
like, neonazis don't needsympathy on any basis. Like...
Harvey (24:40):
No.
Pen (24:42):
If you hate Jewish people, that's it. No, bad job. You did
a bad job.
Harvey (24:47):
Bite, bite, violence.
Pen (24:49):
But it's also not helping anybody, much less you,
Harvey (24:53):
And I do want to be very clear, mentally ill people who
joke about killing themselvesare not as bad as neonazis.
Pen (24:58):
No, no, no. It is--that would be a false equivalency.
Harvey (25:02):
It was just a useful analogy.
Pen (25:04):
Yes. And in these--in the circles where the main part of
the bonding that mentally illpeople are finding is other
people who also are feelingsuicidal, like, there's not
necessarily a positive copingmechanism that's being formed.
Like, if you're all reinforcingyour suicidal thoughts in each
(25:24):
other, it's actually making itworse for all of you.
Harvey (25:27):
And I'll tell you what, I would like to think
that--well, with--with our corefriend group, the four of us
now, being all of us beingmentally ill, I think, and at
least three of the four of usbeing neurodivergent, if not all
of us, I found that I--that,like, the community that we
(25:50):
have, and the bond that we have,with the goal of healing, is
much stronger than anything Iever had with anybody in high
school who joked about killingthemselves all the time, and how
depressed they were.
Pen (26:05):
There's no stability to be found there.
Harvey (26:07):
No.
Pen (26:07):
There's no--
Harvey (26:09):
There's no support.
Pen (26:10):
Yeah. It's hard to find support when, like--those jokes
are made, because you needsupport.
Harvey (26:16):
Yeah, because you need help.
Pen (26:18):
Yes. Which is, and we talked about this in the episode
on being suicidal. that's notsomething to make a judgment
call over, and that's notsomething to dismiss, like, if
someone's joking about suicide,it means that there is a
problem. I would hope that isobvious. The way to solve that
problem is not to shame people,but it's also not to reinforce
(26:39):
those thoughts. Which can bereally, really difficult to deal
with individually, especiallywhen you are a teenager, and
everything is hard. And I meanthat genuinely, like, it is very
hard to be a teenager. Yourbrain? Oh, no.
Harvey (26:53):
It's hard, and nobody understands.
Pen (26:55):
Nobody understands. It's hard growing up, it's hard, and
no one understands.
Harvey (27:01):
Homestuck.
Pen (27:04):
But legitimately, your brain is working so hard. And
it's so not--it's not donelearning how to be a brain.
Harvey (27:12):
It's still baking.
Pen (27:13):
But you're under so much stress constantly, all the time.
Harvey (27:16):
And it's only getting worse as time goes on. We
keep--and I've mentioned thisin--in episodes before--that we
are putting more and morepressure on our youth. And
that's making it--and that isleading to genuine--like, yes,
some of the reason that we areseeing higher rates of mental
illness in youth is because weare becoming more aware of what
(27:39):
that can look like. It's alsobecause we are putting a
tremendous amount of pressure onour youth to perform, to be
perfect children, and so on.
Pen (27:51):
And there is--like, there are some distinctions. We are
legitimately getting better atrecognizing what depression and
anxiety can look like, and howthat's not just the one way that
we kind of assume.
Harvey (28:00):
Right.
Pen (28:01):
We're also getting better at understanding what things
like ADHD and autism can looklike. Increases in those
diagnoses are because we'regetting better at understanding
what it looks like, and alsobecause they're being put more
to the forefront of beingrecognized as society gets
bigger, and louder, and harderto exist in for people like us.
Harvey (28:22):
ADHD and autism are things that you are born with.
Pen (28:24):
Yes. And they're not things that have just come to be now.
Like, we're getting better atseeing them, and they also are
being put up more because--or,recognized more, because, like,
everything's louder now than itwas 200 years ago.
Harvey (28:40):
Yeah.
Pen (28:42):
So an ADHD person then is gonna feel, I think, a little
bit less overwhelmed on aday-to-day basis than I am.
Harvey (28:49):
Yeah. And, you know, keep in mind when we--when we
talk about diagnosis andtaxonomies, a major part of
determining what does getconsidered a mental illness or
neurodivergence is based onwhether or not it produces
deviant behavior or cognition.
And because our society keepschanging, that changes how those
taxonomies are considered. Thatchanges what's included in those
(29:15):
taxonomies. That changes whattaxonomies exist. And you'll
find that--that certain thingslike--for example, psychosomatic
symptoms. That is a legitimatedisorder in--at least in the
United States--which isessentially physical illness
from something that doesn't seemto have a physical basis.
(29:38):
Physical illness from apsychological basis.
Pen (29:42):
Or just pain.
Harvey (29:43):
Yeah, or just pain. In South American countries,
though, in Spanish-speakingcountries, especially with
grief, it is actually quitenormal to experience signs of
physical distress, or it'sconsidered very normal to
consider--to experiencephysiological distress based on
(30:03):
a psychological stressor. Soin--
Pen (30:06):
So it's not considered a mental illness or... okay.
Harvey (30:11):
Correct. So in Chile, if somebody felt really sick,
because they are under a ton ofstress, that's not considered
unusual, that's considered partof the stress response. Whereas
if that goes too far in theUnited States, then we give
somebody another disorder. And Idon't think that diagnosis is a
bad thing. I'm not going to gettoo off track here. I don't
(30:32):
think diagnosis is inherently abad thing. I think it's really
useful. But I think it makes aninteresting point about how
these things vary. And tyingthat back into jokes, it--you
know, that changes, what kind ofjokes are going to be funny,
frankly.
Pen (30:48):
It also changes the necessity of coping.
Harvey (30:50):
Yeah.
Pen (30:50):
If something is just considered normal, and isn't
going to be pointed out asparticularly deviant, and
therefore something that needsspecial addressing, there
doesn't have to be a copingmechanism figured out for it,
because it's already part ofexpected social behaviors, which
means that there's probablyalready a form of social
support. Like, if you areexperiencing psychosomatic
(31:14):
illness or pain as a result ofgrief, and that's considered
normal, presumably, there arealready things in place for
helping to support you in thatbecause it's considered normal
that you're going to experienceit. But when we consider it so
deviant, like, you have to turnto something else. You have to
kind of figure it out.
Harvey (31:33):
Yeah, there's--the people who are going to be there
for you are the people who getit already. Which, for a lot of
folks, that support system isnot in place.
Pen (31:42):
Exactly. And there can be humor that comes from things
that are already considered likenormal or typical.
Harvey (31:50):
Of course.
Pen (31:50):
But a lot of, you know, coping with mental health and
neurodivergence, if it comesdown to humor, a fair bit of it
is because we are having tofigure out how to deal with it.
Harvey (32:00):
And sometimes, I know, for me, a lot of why I turned to
humor and continues to turn tohumor. Humor is genuinely one of
the main ways that I cope, and Ilike to think that I have a
healthier relationship with itnow than I used to, but...
Pen (32:15):
Not that I knew you when you were in high school.
Harvey (32:17):
But you knew me when I was 18.
Pen (32:19):
Yes.
Harvey (32:19):
And I was a very different person three years
ago.
Pen (32:23):
Three years.
Harvey (32:24):
Sorry.
Pen (32:24):
No, it's okay, you can keep talking.
Harvey (32:27):
So you know, all of that to say, like, part of why I cope
through humor is becausegenuinely, you know, I'm not
ashamed to be mentally ill, I'mnot ashamed to be
neurodivergent. The crushingweight of living in the world,
and the crushing weight ofknowing that I'm being judged
and misunderstood every singleday of my life, means that I
(32:49):
really just don't have themental capacity to beat down on
myself further. So, you knowwhat? Yeah, why not joke about
the fact that I don't killmyself because I'm on meds? And
why not joke about the fact thatI will literally never
understand sarcasm in my life,because I'm autistic? Why not
reclaim the R-slur? Like, life'stoo short, I've been beaten down
(33:11):
entirely too much.
Pen (33:13):
Exactly. Yeah, I think that that's very powerful, and that's
real. And I think there's also,like, when it comes to humor as
a positive coping mechanism,people laughing at a joke you
made is a very positive kind offeedback, and a very positive
form of reinforcement. And,like, you do get some of that
reinforcement when you're jokingabout negative things like being
(33:34):
suicidal, or hating yourself,but it doesn't--it still doesn't
feel good. Like, it's stillcoming from a negative source.
And so in my experience, like,when I would joke about those
negative things, and, like,people would laugh, or I'd get
some kind of positive responseis very, very different than
when it feels like now when Ijoke about my ADHD, or say
(33:55):
things like "Hades andlamotrigine are both mood
stabilizers" because, like, Idon't feel bad about any of
that. None of that is comingfrom a place of pain for me.
Harvey (34:05):
Yeah, and it's a similar thing where, like, you know,
when I was a teenager, like,"God, we had to stay later for
theatre, I want to kill myself,"versus Don't Kill Yourself
Candy. They're both the sametopic, but, like, one feels very
different.
Pen (34:21):
Yeah, like, I think the source of them matters a lot, as
well as the context.
Harvey (34:25):
Because like, I'm joking about the fact that, like, "Hey,
look at that! I'm doing better!Ha, look at the reason I'm doing
better."
Pen (34:32):
Let's call it candy even though it's not. Haha, silly!
Harvey (34:35):
Haha, funny. Joke.
Pen (34:38):
Joke. So I think there is that, like, the context I think
impacts...
Harvey (34:45):
Sorry, I started laughing because--like, under my
breath, because I--I've alsomade jokes before about what I
take my antidepressants with.
Pen (34:55):
Oh, is it the--things in your dinner that just makes
sense?
Harvey (34:58):
Oh, that's a good one, but no.
Pen (35:00):
It's a good one, I like it a lot.
Harvey (35:01):
So I once--we could probably include the audio from
this one, but there was--therewas a TikTok I--I recorded once
where I--okay, so several monthsback, probably six months ago at
Pen (35:12):
Also, like, your expression, and how calmly you
this poin, I developed this,like, massive, just, mass on my
neck, which turned out to be,like, a cyst, that went away wit
antibiotics. But I got putn these just gigantic horse pill
. And because they were so bi, I had to take them a food. So
(35:34):
recorded a TikTok that said,Things in my dinner tonight that
just makes sense (35:38):
three ibuprofen and amoxicillin." An
it also--it cut off beforeI finished "amoxicillin," whic
is part of why it's fusaid all of it, and, like,
tucked a hair behind your ear.
Harvey (35:52):
Yes.
Pen (35:52):
It was really good.
Harvey (35:54):
I'm gonna--I'm gonna have to--we're gonna have to
include the audio. But yeah, Imean, like, so, no, not that
joke, but I've also made jokesabout, like, some--just some
really awful things thatI've--I've used to take my
antidepressants. Redbull is upthere.
Pen (36:10):
When did you drink Red Bull?
Harvey (36:12):
I drink Red Bull sometimes.
Pen (36:13):
You drink Red Bull sometimes?
Harvey (36:15):
Very, very rarely. It's usually...
Pen (36:17):
What does it taste like?
Harvey (36:18):
Not good. Um, like, kind of, okay, I was about to compare
it to piss, but I've alsonever--I've never put piss in my
mouth, which is for the best.
I'm gonna say it's kind of like,if you let, like, a good handful
of pennies sit in apple juicefor a little while.
Pen (36:40):
Sorry for==I've never had Red Bull, even when I had energy
drinks a lot, I never went forRed Bull, so I've always been
kind of curious to what ittastes like, but not curious
enough to open a can of RedBull.
Harvey (36:51):
You ever had Monster?
Pen (36:53):
Yeah.
Harvey (36:53):
It's a lot like Monster, but without the gross
aftertaste.
Pen (36:57):
I could never--Monster just tasted like sugar to me.
Harvey (37:01):
Sugar and chemicals.
Pen (37:02):
Like dissolved Pixie Sticks that were also fizzy, and I hate
that.
Harvey (37:06):
That's mean to Pixie Sticks.
Pen (37:08):
Well, Pixie Sticks are kind of boring on their own. Like,
the flavor's barely there.
Harvey (37:12):
That's not true!
Pen (37:14):
I never found it to be much flavor.
Harvey (37:16):
That's--that's fair.
Pen (37:16):
But anyway, I that's why I always had Monster Rehab,
because you know what thattastes like? Iced tea, and also
something else that's a littlebad, but that's the energy.
Harvey (37:25):
And 2% milk, also, is something that I've used to take
my antidepressants.
Pen (37:29):
I thought you meant that Monster tasted like 2% milk
also, and I was like, where?!
Harvey (37:35):
No.
Pen (37:36):
Where is the milk?
Harvey (37:37):
No, the difference is that--well, one, I'm white, so I
drink milk sometimes because I'mbrain dead. But number two, no,
the difference between MonsterEnergy Drink and 2% milk is that
I will drink 2% milk. PutMonster--put Monster in front of
me...
Pen (37:56):
You shouldn't drink either one of them.
Harvey (38:00):
Listen, okay? I got nothing. No, you're right.
You're absolutely right.
Pen (38:05):
You're lacked--you're lack toast--
Harvey (38:06):
Lack toes in toddler ants.
Pen (38:08):
Toast! None of it! No! No milk.
Harvey (38:13):
I'm gonna keep drinking milk.
Pen (38:14):
I know you're gonna keep drinking milk.
Harvey (38:16):
Anyway.
Pen (38:18):
But yeah, jokes like that.
All of that was joking aboutwhat you take your
antidepressants with.
Harvey (38:25):
It's--you know what it is?
Pen (38:26):
Tell me.
Harvey (38:27):
It's about making--rather than keeping my
mental illness as somethingdeviant, it's about making it
mundane.
Pen (38:35):
Yeah! Yes, yes, yes.
Normalizing it feels so good,because it is this aspect of
ourselves that we are expectedto, like, keep down and, like,
removing the shame from thingsfeels so nice.
Harvey (38:48):
Yeah, and it's moving the jokes away from "Haha, I'm
depressed," to, "Hey, want tohear what I took my Zoloft with
tonight?"
Pen (38:57):
And that's funny. That's funny, folks. That's all there
is to it.
Harvey (39:02):
We are approaching the 40 minute mark. So, Pen, do you
have any closing thoughts aboutjokes and mental illness?
Pen (39:16):
I know that we--sort of, our conversation was a bit
winding in this one. We talkedabout a lot of different things.
So I think, in the end, it wasmore about like coping
generally, and humor as a partof that.
Harvey (39:28):
Yeah. I think we're tying it back in.
Pen (39:33):
Yeah, yeah. And I think that what it kind of comes down
to is, when you have a mentalillness, and/or are
neurodivergent, it is difficultto find the healthy ways to
cope, especially when you areyounger or when it's sort of the
beginning of it.
Harvey (39:51):
Or if you don't have any support system.
Pen (39:52):
Yes. And trying to find that sometimes leads to humor as
a negative coping mechanism. Andalso, finding ways for humor to
be a positive coping mechanism,not only is that just, like,
objectively better...
Harvey (40:08):
Yeah.
Pen (40:09):
...because it's--it's, you know, healthy.
Harvey (40:10):
Healthy coping skills are better than [stammering]
unhealthy coping skills.
Pen (40:15):
Thank you for coming to our TED Talk. This whole podcast has
been leading up to, um...
Harvey (40:20):
We would have been kicked off the stage a while
ago.
Pen (40:23):
Oh, they can try and move me. They can try. I-I can make
it more embarrassing for themthan for me, guarantee. That is
inadvertently a joke about mymental illnesses and
neurodivergences. Yep! Anyway,finding those positive things.
Not only is it just nicer, it'salso a way to build better
(40:47):
community, and something that'smore fulfilling, and that can
reduce shame, that is based inin mental health and
neurodivergence. And that'snice, just normalizing it, and
getting to talk about it, alsowithout it feeling super heavy.
Harvey (41:03):
Yeah.
Pen (41:03):
Like, this is lighthearted.
We're just making little jokes.
Harvey (41:06):
We're just making little jokes about how sometimes I take
my antidepressants with milk.
Pen (41:12):
Oh, and we never actually got around to, if you're not
mentally ill or neurodivergent,don't make jokes about it.
Harvey (41:18):
Yeah, don't.
Pen (41:19):
I did have this one--the littler bullet point, which is,
"I am not your punchline, andneither is my brain."
Harvey (41:27):
Nope.
Pen (41:28):
When I make jokes about my neurodivergence, I am not the
punch line. My brain is not thepunch line. My ADHD is not the
punch line. How weird my lifesometimes seems to people from
the outside is occasionally thepunch line, or the things that
my ADHD makes me do. I am not apunch line.
Harvey (41:47):
Yeah, like, I'll make jokes all day about being super
oblivious to flirting becauseI'm autistic, despite having
three boyfriends. If--if aneurodivergent person, or even
allistic person who wasn'tdivergent made that joke, I
wouldn't jive with it.
Pen (42:02):
No, because, like, you making your own observational
humor is very different.
Harvey (42:07):
Kind of like how I can call myself a retard, but I
would not be cool with it if anallistic person did that.
Pen (42:13):
Yeah, no, that would not be... uh-uh.
Harvey (42:17):
Yeah. So I think there is, also, that element of
reclamation, in reclaiming whathas been used against you, and
just being like, no, this ismine. I'm making it funny.
Pen (42:28):
I think, also, sometimes, like, reclaiming things that we
have used against ourselves.
Harvey (42:34):
That, too.
Pen (42:35):
I can joke about how I have absolutely debilitating social
anxiety now, and it doesn'tinclude phrases like I hate
myself or I want to die. Itincludes phrases--includes
phrases like "I would just loveto walk into a grocery store and
feel fine, and not thinkabout--" I--if I didn't have to
(42:56):
come up with a little script,for what, like, generic, but
still pleasant, thing to say toa cashier, that would be--that
sounds so soothing. That's mybath bomb.
Harvey (43:08):
That is your--that is your self care in the wild,
lions wearing face masks.
Pen (43:12):
Yeah! Walk into a Lush and it's just, like, feeling calm
when someone asks you about theweather on the street. And I'm
like, "Oh, I want more. Give itto me."
Harvey (43:25):
Hand it over.
Pen (43:26):
Yes. Yeah. Do you have--did I ask if you have closing
thoughts? Or did you just sortof...
Harvey (43:32):
You didn't, but...
Pen (43:33):
Do you have clothe thought?
Harvey (43:35):
Haaa. I'm sorry. That was nothing.
Pen (43:41):
Neither was mine.
Harvey (43:42):
Do I have closing thoughts? Um, I'm funny.
Pen (43:47):
God, God, you're funny.
Harvey (43:48):
Pen's also really funny.
Pen (43:50):
Oh, thank you!
Harvey (43:51):
Yeah!
Pen (43:52):
You know what a gift it is whenever you laugh at one of my
jokes? Because, genuinely, I amnot joking, I have said this so
many times, and on this podcast,too: you're the funniest person
I've ever met in my entire life.
Harvey (44:04):
Which is still hard to believe, but, like, you are not
the first person who has saidthat to me.
Pen (44:08):
You're really--
Harvey (44:08):
I'm apparently just really funny.
Pen (44:10):
If you are neurodivergent, one, your brain is so big.
Harvey (44:14):
I'm also gay. I'm also trans.
Pen (44:17):
Like, what do you want?
Harvey (44:18):
Like, I'm the funniest person alive. That's not true. I
guarantee you, there's someoneout there who is funnier than
me, but...
Pen (44:26):
Maybe there's someone out there who has a bigger platform
than you, and so more peoplerecognize that they're funny,
but like you might be.
Harvey (44:34):
You know, I've thought about doing stand up.
Pen (44:36):
I think that would be so great. I would love that so
much.
Harvey (44:40):
All right. Well, stick around for just a few more
moments. We'll tell you a littlebit more about how this podcast
is run, and our Patreon.
Pen (44:48):
Wahoo!
Harvey (44:48):
Wahoo!
Pen (44:50):
Yay!
Harvey (44:52):
Beyond Introspection is an independently-run podcast by
Pen Novus and Harvey LaFord.
Music by Girl Lloyd. You canfind us on Twitter and Instagram
at ByndPodcast or you can emailus at
beyonddotpodcast@gmail.com.
That's beyond d-o-t podcast, nospaces. We publish on
Buzzsprout, iTunes, Spotify orwherever you get your podcasts.
(45:12):
You can find the links to oursocial media and email in the
podcast description.
Pen (45:17):
We also have a Patreon. You can find us at
patreon.com/beyondintrospection.
That's all one word. We alsohave links to it on our site and
on our social media. Our podcastis entirely independent, so we
pay for hosting fees andtranscript service subscriptions
out of pocket. This is a passionproject that we're really happy
to do, and any support you'reable to give us would really
make a difference. On our
P (45:37):
$2, which gives you access to test audio and other bloopers;
$5 which will give you access tobonus episodes that will make in
the future, on topics like howangry we are Freud, our
frustrations with our respectivefields of studies and even guest
episodes; $10 will get you adirect line and priority access
to request episode topics andnew bonus content; and $15,
(45:58):
which will give you access tomonthly AMAs--that's ask me
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out what to record, more indepth questions about our
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benefits from lower tiers ofcourse. And also just to note,
unlike our regular episodes,Patreon bonus content is likely
(46:19):
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know that ahead of time. We'dalso love it if you're able to
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possible.
Harvey (46:33):
Got feedback for us?
Want to request an episodetopic? Just feel like saying
hello? Feel free to reach out onsocial media, or via email. We'd
love to hear from everyone. Takecare of yourselves.
Welcome to Beyond introspection, a podcast about
mental health, neurodivergenceand how it impacts our life in
literally every aspect.
Harvey (00:19):
All of them.
Pen (00:21):
I'm Pen.
Harvey (00:21):
And I'm Harvey.
Pen (00:23):
And they just spoken to a glass that had water in it. That
was what that sound was.
Harvey (00:29):
I have to be funny every time I say, "all of them."
Pen (00:32):
Well, you're very naturally funny. And--oh! Oh, did you mean
for that to be the segue than itis into what the episode topic
is?
Harvey (00:39):
Not at all.
Pen (00:40):
Well, we're talking about jokes.
Harvey (00:43):
And not just any kind of jokes, the jokes that
neurodivergent people make. Thegood, the bad and the unhealthy.
Pen (00:50):
And also, I think, jokes about neurodivergence and mental
illness more broadly, which doesinclude, sometimes, the jokes
that neurotypical people makethat are, like, what's the word,
bad?
Harvey (01:04):
Cmo se dice (ENG
Pen (01:07):
Yeah, yeah, where it's just--don't.
Harvey (01:10):
Shut up.
Pen (01:12):
Okay, I have some--well, when I say notes, I'll show you,
there are four bullet points,and they're all one line.
Harvey (01:20):
Now, there are four bullet points, and then there's
a fifth that's a sub-bulletpoint.
Pen (01:24):
Yeah. And they're all--that's not many words.
Harvey (01:27):
No, that's okay.
Pen (01:27):
When I say, 'notes,' I just mean general things that I
intended to talk about.
Harvey (01:32):
But! But, but, but.
Pen (01:33):
Oh, right. Yeah.
Harvey (01:36):
You sounded--you sounded so upset. Disappointed.
Pen (01:38):
No, I'm not upset. I'm not upset.
Harvey (01:41):
Pen.
Pen (01:42):
Harvey.
Harvey (01:42):
Will you tell me about your Wahoo! Moment of the Week?
I know. I didn't say it in thefun voice. I'm sleepy.
Pen (01:49):
So are you--are you, is it too sleepy to do it in the fun
voice?
Harvey (01:53):
Wahoo!
Pen (01:53):
Thank you. Does that have a genuinely impact? Like, if
you're tired, then that's--
Harvey (02:00):
It takes more effort when I'm tired.
Pen (02:02):
You know what? That's fair.
That's fair. I appreciate you.
Yeah, so it wasn't technicallythis week, because I believe it
was last Sunday.
Harvey (02:09):
Whatever, time's fake.
Pen (02:12):
I have ADH, and let me say, it is. Oh, God it is. But
yeah, so it was technically lastweek. But who cares? I dyed my
hair, which makes me very, veryhappy when I do it.
Harvey (02:29):
It's green.
Pen (02:30):
It's green now, which I wasn't--I didn't go into dyeing
my hair intending for it to begreen. But through a series of
events, it became green, whichis--I like dyeing my hair, so it
made me go hmm.
Harvey (02:42):
Hmm.
Pen (02:43):
Oh, that's happy sound, for people who--I smile when I make
that sound.
Harvey (02:47):
Yes. That's true.
Pen (02:49):
For our--for everyone who can't see us, which is everyone
who's listening to this.
Harvey (02:53):
Except me.
Pen (02:54):
Except Harvey. Harvey, what's your Wahoo! Moment of the
Week?
Harvey (02:58):
What is my Wahoo! Moment of the Week?
Well, you did see your boyfriendso Shut up. Yes, I did see my
boyfriend. I've beentalking--so, I'm polyamorous.
I've got three now. I've justbeen collecting boyfriends.
Pen (03:14):
"Gotta catch 'em all," is a joke I made yesterday...
Harvey (03:16):
Yes.
Pen (03:17):
...when we went on a walk.
Harvey (03:17):
It was a joke that you made yesterday. Oh! We did go on
a walk, and it was extremelynice.
Pen (03:21):
It was nice. We went to a local forest preserve.
Harvey (03:24):
And it was very cool, and we saw some fish.
Pen (03:26):
We did! Oh, right, I forgot about the fish. The fish were
cool.
Harvey (03:29):
And then we saw some kind of construction happening
that we definitely weren'tsupposed to be near, but like...
Pen (03:35):
We weren't supposed to go on the other trail that was,
like, leading to it.
Harvey (03:39):
It just happened to loop around, and that doesn't seem
like my problem.
Pen (03:43):
That's certainly not mine.
Harvey (03:45):
But yeah, outside, three boyfriends. I'm so powerful.
Pen (03:51):
You say while so, so tired.
Harvey (03:55):
It's true. I can definitely imagine how
accentuated my under-eye bagslook, considering I don't have
my glasses on.
Pen (04:04):
Oh, wow, now that you point it out, I do see them a bit. I
want you to know I wasn't goingto see him before, because ADHD
stands for "I Don't Have EyesDisease." It doesn't match up.
It doesn't.
Harvey (04:15):
I was--it almost does.
Pen (04:16):
It almost does, but no, no, it's just--
Harvey (04:18):
ADHED.
Pen (04:20):
Means "I haven't seen anything in," checks watch, "23
years."
Harvey (04:24):
So I said ADHED, because if there was the E, it would
say--it would say "I Don't HaveEyes Disease," but, well.
Pen (04:33):
Well.
Harvey (04:34):
Well.
Pen (04:35):
Well.
Harvey (04:36):
Anyway.
Pen (04:37):
Anyway, jokes. Jokes that we make, and the jokes that are
made at us.
Harvey (04:45):
And about us.
Pen (04:45):
And about us.
Harvey (04:48):
Ah, Pen thinks I'm very funny.
Pen (04:51):
I--mm, let me--let me just real quick, Pen knows that
you're very funny.
Harvey (04:57):
All of this to say, I make many, many jokes, all the
time, which are sometimes at theexpense of my neurodivergence,
not always at the expense, butinvolving.
Pen (05:07):
Yes, yeah. Which is--which is an important distinction, I
think, like, in talking aboutjokes that have to do with
neurodivergence and mentalillness, because, you know, that
separation, I think, isparticularly notable when it
comes to depression and beingsuicidal, versus, like, I'm
gonna joke about my ADHD allday.
Harvey (05:25):
Yeah.
Pen (05:25):
And that feels distinctly different than when I used to
joke about being suicidal, whichwas not a healthy coping
mechanism.
Harvey (05:32):
No, but it's a very common one.
Pen (05:35):
An extremely common one. I did a speech on it when I was in
forensics.
Harvey (05:40):
Oh, that's right.
Pen (05:40):
Yeah, it was after dinner speaking, which is a speech
that's a little bit humorous.
And I was like, I want to talkabout suicide jokes. And
everyone in the room was like,"Okay,"
Harvey (05:50):
After--I will never get over just how specific forensics
categories are.
Pen (05:55):
It's like, you know, if you go to some kind of event, and
then someone comes up, and theygave a little speech, and it's
meant to be like, oh, everyoneenjoyed that. Like, kind of a
pleasant enjoyable. Yet, in thein the lower, I think when
you're in high school, it'scalled STE, speech to entertain,
which makes so much more sense.
Harvey (06:14):
We didn't even have that category.
Pen (06:16):
Well, well. Anyway.
Harvey (06:19):
Look, I did--I did poetry, and a touch of
impromptu, and that's it.
Pen (06:27):
I did so many things.
Harvey (06:29):
And I also was in speech team for, like, two months, and
then I left because I had apanic attack at a--at an event.
Pen (06:36):
That's pretty good reason.
Harvey (06:37):
Yeah.
Pen (06:38):
But that, too, to say, like, suicide jokes, very
common.
Harvey (06:41):
Yeah.
Pen (06:42):
Jokes in general. Oh, yeah.
The distinction in, when weare--oh, it was something with
joking about mental health,versus joking about
neurodivergence, and, like, thejokes that are--jokes that are
made by other people, versus thejokes that we make ourselves.
Harvey (07:03):
Yeah.
Pen (07:05):
Is--is a very important sort of thing. Oh, it was when
you said "at the expense of."
Harvey (07:09):
Right.
Pen (07:09):
Versus just sort of about.
Harvey (07:12):
Like, it's--it's sort of the--it's sort of the difference
between me--like, in the contextof me being gay, it's sort of
the difference between callingmyself a fruit, and saying,
like, "Yeah, and I hate myself,I'm going to hell," you know?
Like, those feel very different.
Pen (07:32):
Yes. I--in one of my my small notes--oh, this is like a
line and a half. It's 44 words.
I checked. That jokes aboutneurodivergence in mental health
can be positive, which is, like,healthy coping mechanisms,
negative, which is unhealthycoping mechanisms, and then more
neutral, which is when they are,I would say, primarily just
(07:54):
observational, but turned,like--you know, humor is
the--one of the definitions ofit is, like, saying the
unexpected, and that sort ofthing, and we've talked before
about how that makesneurodivergent people sometimes
just very funny, naturally,because we have to be so aware
of what is and is not expected.
Harvey (08:15):
Yeah. So that makes us really, really good at
subverting those expectations,both in substantive and
meaningful ways, and also injust being really, really funny.
Pen (08:24):
We're just telling a funny joke. And, like, if I joke about
my ADHD, it's going to besomething unexpected for
neurotypical people, I canguarantee you that. None of
y'all understand what my brainis, and we can both just sit in
that.
Harvey (08:38):
That's fine. I don't even know if you understand what
your brain is.
Pen (08:41):
I understand some parts of my brain, but other parts of it
are left to a mystery. That'spart of ADHD, is where some of
your brain just doesn't make anysense to you, either.
Harvey (08:50):
It's just a big 'ol shrug.
Pen (08:52):
Turns out dopamine sometimes is used for gla--brain
glasses, where you can see yourbrain in it.
Harvey (09:00):
I respect the effort.
Pen (09:02):
Thank you.
Harvey (09:02):
I meant that in a loving way
Pen (09:04):
Oh, no. I know, I know. It was not as good.
Harvey (09:07):
I love you.
Pen (09:08):
Nah, nah, but, like, yeah, there are definitely things I
don't understand about my ownbrain.
Harvey (09:13):
Ah, there are plenty of things I don't understand about
my brain.
Pen (09:17):
You don't like when I call it squishy, I know that.
Harvey (09:19):
Uh, no. No, I don't. I mean, the thing is that you are
factually correct.
Pen (09:28):
See--see that's not the kind of thing that people are
supposed to say, but it's alsonot funny because Harvey hates
it.
Harvey (09:34):
Well, no, I mean, objectively, it is funny to call
a brain squishy. I'm just gonnahate it.
Pen (09:39):
Yeah, no, that's fair.
Harvey (09:41):
But there was--there was a joke I made last night
over--over text with Pen that wegot into a brief discussion
about. I call my--I call myantidepressants Don't Kill
Yourself Candy.
Pen (09:56):
Made me laugh last night, too.
Harvey (09:58):
Which is legitimately the reason--I mean, my
antidepressants are legitimatelythe reason that I don't want to
kill myself anymore. So then Ithought, "Hey, you know what
would be really funny? If Icalled them candy."
Pen (10:08):
That's--see, that's the part of it for me. And we
did--we did talk about it a bit,on whether that sort of falls
under, like, a slightly morenegative, or a more neutral. I
see it as more neutral, at leastin comparison to a lot of jokes
that I've come across thathave--that have the phrase,
"kill yourself." And I'm notjust talking about, like, the
(10:30):
awful things that people say andclaim where, like, "Oh, I was
just kidding." And it's like,no, you can't tell someone to
kill themselves and it's a joke.
That's not how it works.
Harvey (10:37):
I'm going to bite you.
I'm going to bite your ankles.
Pen (10:40):
Bite, bite, bite.
Harvey (10:41):
Violence, violence, violence.
Pen (10:43):
Cross-stitch that. But yeah, it's like--calling pills
candy is funny, because they'renot.
Harvey (10:57):
They're not candy. They taste like garbage.
Pen (10:59):
Oh, they're so bad. If they dissolve in your mouth a little
bit, it's, like, the worst.
Harvey (11:05):
Awful, awful.
Pen (11:06):
Yeah, very, very bad. If my lamotrigine dissolves in my
mouth, it tastes like a NintendoSwitch cartridge.
Harvey (11:16):
Okay, see? That's funny.
Pen (11:17):
Yeah, that's funny. If I take [Laughter]
Hades--Hades--Supergiant's Hadesand lamotrigine are both mood
stabilizers, and they tastethesame.
Harvey (11:33):
Oh, wow. I mean, yeah. I guess--I guess in that way--I
guess in that way, Zoloft isana--is analogous to Skittles,
because Skittles make me notwant to kill myself. That's less
funny. But, like.
Pen (11:51):
Sorry, I really got myself with that one.
Harvey (11:53):
No, that's a good--that's a good one.
Pen (11:56):
That's an example of a joke that very, very directly has to
do with my neurodivergence. Bothways, actually. Because the
reason I like Hades so much isbecause I hyperfixated on it, or
vice versa there.
Harvey (12:09):
Yes. I wonder how much of this episode is just going to
be us cracking jokes?
Pen (12:13):
I mean, that's still good.
We're very, very funny.
Harvey (12:17):
We are, we are.
Pen (12:19):
What were you gonna say?
Harvey (12:20):
No, go ahead.
Pen (12:22):
But you know, that's--like, that is--I am acknowledging in
that joke, my neurodivergence,and also the fact that I'm on
meds, and I--I kind of likemaking observational jokes about
those sorts of things, becauseit's something that is kind
of--the social view of it isthat it's something you're not
necessarily supposed to talkabout, or that it's shameful,
(12:45):
and that's why, sometimes, if Iwere to make a joke about being
on medication,people--I--neurotypical
people--sometimes get kind ofuncomfortable, like, "Oh--I...
oh, okay."
Harvey (12:57):
I like making neurodivergence
folks--er--jokes, that makeneurodivergent--I like making
neurodivergence jokes that makeneurotypical people
uncomfortable.
Pen (13:07):
It is a small joy in life.
Harvey (13:10):
And also, I like to subvert expectations.
Pen (13:12):
Yeah, that's--and that's the kind of thing is, we live
subverting expectations, becausewe don't get to set the
expectations, even though, Iswear, they would make more
sense if we did.
Harvey (13:22):
It would be easier for neurotypical people, too.
Pen (13:25):
That's what I'm saying! If I ask questions like, "Hey, why
do we do it this way?" They'reall like, "You know what? I'm
not sure." And I'm like, "Thenstop!"
Harvey (13:32):
Then just don't, heart.
Pen (13:33):
Heart. But yeah, whereas sometimes we make these jokes
and they're nice, because it's away of saying, "No, I'm not
ashamed of this thing. Like,there's nothing you can do or
say, that's gonna make me golike, 'Oh, no,' I'm so sorry to
mention that I'm on a moodstabilizer in polite company,"
like, leave me alone.
Harvey (13:54):
Like, I'm so sorry that I take medicine so that I don't
kill myself. Like...
Pen (13:58):
Like, I take a medicine and my brain goes, "Oh, all right,
we can chill out a little bitmore. Doesn't that sound nice?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, that doessound nice!"
Harvey (14:06):
It's like, my brain's like, "Serotonin moment."
Pen (14:12):
Yeah, I take Adderall.
Harvey (14:15):
You're on Speed!
Pen (14:16):
I'm on Speed, a little bit.
Harvey (14:17):
Just a little bit of Speed.
Pen (14:19):
On partial Speed.
Harvey (14:20):
As a treat.
Pen (14:21):
As a treat.
Harvey (14:21):
I hand it to you, and I go "Pspspspspspsps."
Pen (14:27):
Yeah, I take a little bit of Speed, and it makes my brain
go, "Oh, I get it now. Oh, so wejust do things? They were right
all along. Why don't you just doit?" And I'm like...
Harvey (14:40):
And then you wake up the next morning, and they're like,
"No! No!"
Pen (14:45):
It's 24 hours out of my system.
Harvey (14:47):
Um, but, I mean, that is very different from the way that
I used to joke, because amajority of my humor, when I
was, like. 16 and 17, nd some ofthat was was influenced by the
people that I was around.
Because, in high school--thiswas also--because I was in high
school in 2017 and 2018.
Pen (15:06):
Ah, high school.
Harvey (15:08):
And we--there were-- a lot of folk joked around about,
"Oh, I want to kill myself" likeany time they were mildly
inconvenienced. And then itended up being something that I
internalized, and I didn'trealize until years later that
it was actually true. That I waslightheartedly joking about the
fact that I wanted to killmyself.
Pen (15:27):
Oh, I have--do you mind if I bring up a quote or two from
that speech?
Harvey (15:34):
Sure.
Pen (15:35):
Because there is actually something that is very, very,
very directly related to that.
Let's see. Ah, okay. So one ofthe points that was part of it
is normalizing the experience,essentially, of being suicidal,
or making jokes about it.
Harvey (15:53):
Yeah.
Pen (15:56):
Let's see... the, like, source citation was about
"That's what she said" jokes,and how that genuinely
contributes to a cycle thatquote, "Reinscribes rape culture
by normalizing discourses thatdismiss and silence rape
victims." It's an article fromCommunication and Critical Flesh
Cultural Studies Journal.
"Normalization of negativeexperiences through humor isn't
exclusive to sexual misconduct.
(16:18):
Imagine that you're feelingawful, you hear 'I hate myself,'
and can't imagine anything moretrue, and yet you have no idea
how to broach the subject. Soyou laugh. You joke, even though
you just said, 'This makes mewant to kill myself,' and meant
it. Here's the thing that makesit really awful: other people
are laughing, too. Suicidalthoughts aren't healthy. They're
not a joke. But what they dobecome with their increasing
(16:41):
reference in social mediaculture is normalized.
Harvey (16:45):
Yeah, that is--that is very succinct, and a very good
way of describing it.
Pen (16:52):
Thank you. I took this to competitions, so my coaches made
it that way.
Harvey (16:57):
Fair enough.
Pen (16:59):
But yeah, that is part of the thing is, when it becomes a
normalized experience, then itstops having it stops being
recognized as something thatcould be harmful. And also, I
think, like, one of the thingsthat was very important to me in
writing this and performing it,is like, how it kind of removes
(17:22):
or negates possible healthycoping mechanisms, because it's
such a common thing like, oh,yeah, I'm just gonna make this
joke about hating myself forbeing suicidal, and people are
gonna laugh and then I'm notgonna learn any healthy coping
mechanisms, because I've gottenpositive feedback from this
unhealthy one.
Harvey (17:37):
That's operant conditioning, baby!
Pen (17:40):
Harvey psych major moment.
Harvey (17:42):
Yeah.
Pen (17:43):
Which is good. Excellent.
Harvey (17:45):
I'm just a little--I'm just a little creature.
Pen (17:47):
That's it.
Harvey (17:48):
I cannot change this.
Pen (17:51):
There's some other things that sort of, up on here. One of
them was about sort of the brainpathways thing, you know? Where
you think something enough andit just--your brain follows that
path.
Harvey (18:02):
Yeah, that's just how neuroplasticity works.
Neuroplasticity is the brain'sability to create paths in the
brain, like Pen was saying, withneural firing. As--as one brain
cell fires off, it learns thatthere is a connection between
two different brain cells firingoff, and so it creates a chain.
Pen (18:22):
Excellent. I'm happy for them. I'm proud of them.
Harvey (18:25):
Only when it's, like, a good chain.
Pen (18:27):
Well, I'm very proud of them for how hard they work.
Harvey (18:29):
Yes.
Pen (18:30):
They're doing their best.
Harvey (18:31):
They're just following instructions.
Pen (18:33):
And they're doing so good.
Harvey (18:34):
They are! Sometimes that works against us.
Pen (18:39):
Here's an example of that.
This speech is becomingconvenient. The last edit was
made on February 16th, 2019, andit's becoming convenient over
two years later.
Harvey (18:49):
How about that?
Pen (18:49):
It's weird. Big shoutout to Jess and Matt, who were great
coaches.
Harvey (18:56):
Yeah!
Pen (18:56):
Thanks, guys. They wrote some of these jokes.
Harvey (18:59):
Love it.
Pen (19:00):
"In 1994 study from the Journal of Basic and Applied
Social Psychology," and yeah,it's old, but like...
Harvey (19:07):
Sometimes those classical studies are relevant.
Pen (19:10):
"The study asked participants to read disparaging
jokes about lawyers to test--tosee if choosing to make the
jokes would lead to lessfavorable attitudes towards
lawyers. And it did. It's notbecause lawyers are soulless
monsters. The effect ofcognitive dissonance separated
the participants from thereality of the statements.
Joking about wanting to killyourself isn't the same as
(19:31):
saying lawyers are terrible, butthe effect of dissonance still
applies, creating an audiencequicker to dismiss these warning
signs than congress is on sexualassault charges."
Harvey (19:40):
Boof.
Pen (19:40):
Yeah, that joke, I don't remember which one--which one of
the three of us wrote it, but itsure was 2019.
Harvey (19:50):
Golly gee, that was even before Kavanaugh.
Pen (19:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But all of that--all of
that said, humor does still havepositive impacts on mental
health treatment? I actually didhave a study on that as well.
Harvey (20:05):
Oho!
Pen (20:05):
Yeah! 2009 article, Journal of Evidence-Based,
Complimentary, and Alternativemedicine. Complimentary is the
more functional one there, butthis is not the episode where
I'm talking about that. Anyway.
Harvey (20:19):
Anyway.
Pen (20:21):
Observations were done on an open group in which
psychiatric patients wereencouraged to participate in
humor based activities, youknow, calls for jokes, and an
activity in which group membersreplayed a funny occurrence.
Another section offered groupmembers a chance to directly
addressed the destructivepotential that humor can carry.
(20:41):
The patients who attended thatfelt it was an opportunity for
connection, as well as improvedcommunication and social skills.
So both of them together is whatmade it work. The one where it
was just legitimately abouthumor, and, like, having that
positive, and then also directlyaddressing it. And not only did
that help them individually feelbetter, it also strengthened
(21:04):
their connection and community,which I think is an impact.
Like, that is a piece of usinghumor, particularly, like, it
does help neurodivergent peopleand mentally ill people relate
to each other. When we makethese jokes, and we're both
laughing, and it's like, oh, youget it.
Harvey (21:17):
Yeah.
Pen (21:18):
You understand what it's like!
Harvey (21:19):
It's like, you understand how this feels? Oh, I
can let my guard down.
Pen (21:22):
Yeah. And the unfortunate thing that sometimes happens is
when there's just that commonthread of things, like jokes
about killing yourself, ordrinking bleach, which was the
thing at the time that we werewriting that, so that was--that
was a part of it.
Harvey (21:38):
Something that our--one of our--something that one of
our roommates liked to jokeabout at the time.
Pen (21:44):
Yeah. And that was--like, that is--there is community that
people find in making thosejokes because, legitimately,
they're coming across people whounderstand what it's like to
feel that awful.
Harvey (21:57):
Right.
Pen (21:58):
Nothing positive is necessarily coming out of that
joke, though.
Harvey (22:02):
No, and--and the positivity that comes from
community only goes so far. Itreally kind of depends on, like,
the purpose for which thatcommunity was created, and also
their values, because,like--okay, I'm going to go for
an extreme example (22:17):
neonazis.
They bond over their hatred ofBIPOC and Jewish people. They
sure as heck bond over that, butI also want to kick their teeth
in. They're not doing anythinggood.
Pen (22:33):
BIPOC being Black-identified people of
color, yes?
Harvey (22:37):
Black and Indigenous, People of Color.
Pen (22:38):
Black and Indigenous--okay, that's--see, now I'm glad I
asked, because now I know that,too, but...
Harvey (22:43):
Yeah, Black and Indigenous, People of Color.
Pen (22:45):
Got it. Yes. What was I thinking? Actually, yeah, I do
have thoughts on that kind ofthing, and, like, where there is
positivity and not incommunities that are based on a
negative. And this was somethingthat I thought about when I was
taking that interculturalcommunication class 1000 years
ago. It was an evening classthat met once a week for three
(23:09):
hours.
Harvey (23:10):
Oh, right.
Pen (23:10):
So it's amazing that I had any thoughts left in my head
afterwards.
Harvey (23:14):
Head empty.
Pen (23:15):
Head empty disease. Disease where you are alive. No
thoughts.
Harvey (23:28):
Alexa, play "Help, I'm Alive" by Metric. Anyway.
Pen (23:33):
So yeah, yeah, groups that are based on negativity, or the
desire for something to nolonger exist, like neonazis. The
bond is not a strong I--I sortof--I see, and I observe and
think, in those, because it isbased on either a lack of
(23:53):
something, or an inherentlynegative thing
Harvey (23:57):
Right.
Pen (23:58):
There is not really a positive, something, being
formed there, and if there ispositivity being formed, then
it's likely more from, like,being around people who share
your values. And maybe you findother things that you're bonding
over, but even that, like,sharing of values, like, it's
not so much a value, assomething you dislike.
Harvey (24:19):
Yeah.
Pen (24:19):
So, it's, like, at best, shaky ground in what you're able
to positively bond over in--inthose communities, which means
they're not actually doinganything for you.
Harvey (24:29):
No.
Pen (24:30):
They are negatively influencing your brain, which,
like, neonazis don't needsympathy on any basis. Like...
Harvey (24:40):
No.
Pen (24:42):
If you hate Jewish people, that's it. No, bad job. You did
a bad job.
Harvey (24:47):
Bite, bite, violence.
Pen (24:49):
But it's also not helping anybody, much less you,
Harvey (24:53):
And I do want to be very clear, mentally ill people who
joke about killing themselvesare not as bad as neonazis.
Pen (24:58):
No, no, no. It is--that would be a false equivalency.
Harvey (25:02):
It was just a useful analogy.
Pen (25:04):
Yes. And in these--in the circles where the main part of
the bonding that mentally illpeople are finding is other
people who also are feelingsuicidal, like, there's not
necessarily a positive copingmechanism that's being formed.
Like, if you're all reinforcingyour suicidal thoughts in each
(25:24):
other, it's actually making itworse for all of you.
Harvey (25:27):
And I'll tell you what, I would like to think
that--well, with--with our corefriend group, the four of us
now, being all of us beingmentally ill, I think, and at
least three of the four of usbeing neurodivergent, if not all
of us, I found that I--that,like, the community that we
(25:50):
have, and the bond that we have,with the goal of healing, is
much stronger than anything Iever had with anybody in high
school who joked about killingthemselves all the time, and how
depressed they were.
Pen (26:05):
There's no stability to be found there.
Harvey (26:07):
No.
Pen (26:07):
There's no--
Harvey (26:09):
There's no support.
Pen (26:10):
Yeah. It's hard to find support when, like--those jokes
are made, because you needsupport.
Harvey (26:16):
Yeah, because you need help.
Pen (26:18):
Yes. Which is, and we talked about this in the episode
on being suicidal. that's notsomething to make a judgment
call over, and that's notsomething to dismiss, like, if
someone's joking about suicide,it means that there is a
problem. I would hope that isobvious. The way to solve that
problem is not to shame people,but it's also not to reinforce
(26:39):
those thoughts. Which can bereally, really difficult to deal
with individually, especiallywhen you are a teenager, and
everything is hard. And I meanthat genuinely, like, it is very
hard to be a teenager. Yourbrain? Oh, no.
Harvey (26:53):
It's hard, and nobody understands.
Pen (26:55):
Nobody understands. It's hard growing up, it's hard, and
no one understands.
Harvey (27:01):
Homestuck.
Pen (27:04):
But legitimately, your brain is working so hard. And
it's so not--it's not donelearning how to be a brain.
Harvey (27:12):
It's still baking.
Pen (27:13):
But you're under so much stress constantly, all the time.
Harvey (27:16):
And it's only getting worse as time goes on. We
keep--and I've mentioned thisin--in episodes before--that we
are putting more and morepressure on our youth. And
that's making it--and that isleading to genuine--like, yes,
some of the reason that we areseeing higher rates of mental
illness in youth is because weare becoming more aware of what
(27:39):
that can look like. It's alsobecause we are putting a
tremendous amount of pressure onour youth to perform, to be
perfect children, and so on.
Pen (27:51):
And there is--like, there are some distinctions. We are
legitimately getting better atrecognizing what depression and
anxiety can look like, and howthat's not just the one way that
we kind of assume.
Harvey (28:00):
Right.
Pen (28:01):
We're also getting better at understanding what things
like ADHD and autism can looklike. Increases in those
diagnoses are because we'regetting better at understanding
what it looks like, and alsobecause they're being put more
to the forefront of beingrecognized as society gets
bigger, and louder, and harderto exist in for people like us.
Harvey (28:22):
ADHD and autism are things that you are born with.
Pen (28:24):
Yes. And they're not things that have just come to be now.
Like, we're getting better atseeing them, and they also are
being put up more because--or,recognized more, because, like,
everything's louder now than itwas 200 years ago.
Harvey (28:40):
Yeah.
Pen (28:42):
So an ADHD person then is gonna feel, I think, a little
bit less overwhelmed on aday-to-day basis than I am.
Harvey (28:49):
Yeah. And, you know, keep in mind when we--when we
talk about diagnosis andtaxonomies, a major part of
determining what does getconsidered a mental illness or
neurodivergence is based onwhether or not it produces
deviant behavior or cognition.
And because our society keepschanging, that changes how those
taxonomies are considered. Thatchanges what's included in those
(29:15):
taxonomies. That changes whattaxonomies exist. And you'll
find that--that certain thingslike--for example, psychosomatic
symptoms. That is a legitimatedisorder in--at least in the
United States--which isessentially physical illness
from something that doesn't seemto have a physical basis.
(29:38):
Physical illness from apsychological basis.
Pen (29:42):
Or just pain.
Harvey (29:43):
Yeah, or just pain. In South American countries,
though, in Spanish-speakingcountries, especially with
grief, it is actually quitenormal to experience signs of
physical distress, or it'sconsidered very normal to
consider--to experiencephysiological distress based on
(30:03):
a psychological stressor. Soin--
Pen (30:06):
So it's not considered a mental illness or... okay.
Harvey (30:11):
Correct. So in Chile, if somebody felt really sick,
because they are under a ton ofstress, that's not considered
unusual, that's considered partof the stress response. Whereas
if that goes too far in theUnited States, then we give
somebody another disorder. And Idon't think that diagnosis is a
bad thing. I'm not going to gettoo off track here. I don't
(30:32):
think diagnosis is inherently abad thing. I think it's really
useful. But I think it makes aninteresting point about how
these things vary. And tyingthat back into jokes, it--you
know, that changes, what kind ofjokes are going to be funny,
frankly.
Pen (30:48):
It also changes the necessity of coping.
Harvey (30:50):
Yeah.
Pen (30:50):
If something is just considered normal, and isn't
going to be pointed out asparticularly deviant, and
therefore something that needsspecial addressing, there
doesn't have to be a copingmechanism figured out for it,
because it's already part ofexpected social behaviors, which
means that there's probablyalready a form of social
support. Like, if you areexperiencing psychosomatic
(31:14):
illness or pain as a result ofgrief, and that's considered
normal, presumably, there arealready things in place for
helping to support you in thatbecause it's considered normal
that you're going to experienceit. But when we consider it so
deviant, like, you have to turnto something else. You have to
kind of figure it out.
Harvey (31:33):
Yeah, there's--the people who are going to be there
for you are the people who getit already. Which, for a lot of
folks, that support system isnot in place.
Pen (31:42):
Exactly. And there can be humor that comes from things
that are already considered likenormal or typical.
Harvey (31:50):
Of course.
Pen (31:50):
But a lot of, you know, coping with mental health and
neurodivergence, if it comesdown to humor, a fair bit of it
is because we are having tofigure out how to deal with it.
Harvey (32:00):
And sometimes, I know, for me, a lot of why I turned to
humor and continues to turn tohumor. Humor is genuinely one of
the main ways that I cope, and Ilike to think that I have a
healthier relationship with itnow than I used to, but...
Pen (32:15):
Not that I knew you when you were in high school.
Harvey (32:17):
But you knew me when I was 18.
Pen (32:19):
Yes.
Harvey (32:19):
And I was a very different person three years
ago.
Pen (32:23):
Three years.
Harvey (32:24):
Sorry.
Pen (32:24):
No, it's okay, you can keep talking.
Harvey (32:27):
So you know, all of that to say, like, part of why I cope
through humor is becausegenuinely, you know, I'm not
ashamed to be mentally ill, I'mnot ashamed to be
neurodivergent. The crushingweight of living in the world,
and the crushing weight ofknowing that I'm being judged
and misunderstood every singleday of my life, means that I
(32:49):
really just don't have themental capacity to beat down on
myself further. So, you knowwhat? Yeah, why not joke about
the fact that I don't killmyself because I'm on meds? And
why not joke about the fact thatI will literally never
understand sarcasm in my life,because I'm autistic? Why not
reclaim the R-slur? Like, life'stoo short, I've been beaten down
(33:11):
entirely too much.
Pen (33:13):
Exactly. Yeah, I think that that's very powerful, and that's
real. And I think there's also,like, when it comes to humor as
a positive coping mechanism,people laughing at a joke you
made is a very positive kind offeedback, and a very positive
form of reinforcement. And,like, you do get some of that
reinforcement when you're jokingabout negative things like being
(33:34):
suicidal, or hating yourself,but it doesn't--it still doesn't
feel good. Like, it's stillcoming from a negative source.
And so in my experience, like,when I would joke about those
negative things, and, like,people would laugh, or I'd get
some kind of positive responseis very, very different than
when it feels like now when Ijoke about my ADHD, or say
(33:55):
things like "Hades andlamotrigine are both mood
stabilizers" because, like, Idon't feel bad about any of
that. None of that is comingfrom a place of pain for me.
Harvey (34:05):
Yeah, and it's a similar thing where, like, you know,
when I was a teenager, like,"God, we had to stay later for
theatre, I want to kill myself,"versus Don't Kill Yourself
Candy. They're both the sametopic, but, like, one feels very
different.
Pen (34:21):
Yeah, like, I think the source of them matters a lot, as
well as the context.
Harvey (34:25):
Because like, I'm joking about the fact that, like, "Hey,
look at that! I'm doing better!Ha, look at the reason I'm doing
better."
Pen (34:32):
Let's call it candy even though it's not. Haha, silly!
Harvey (34:35):
Haha, funny. Joke.
Pen (34:38):
Joke. So I think there is that, like, the context I think
impacts...
Harvey (34:45):
Sorry, I started laughing because--like, under my
breath, because I--I've alsomade jokes before about what I
take my antidepressants with.
Pen (34:55):
Oh, is it the--things in your dinner that just makes
sense?
Harvey (34:58):
Oh, that's a good one, but no.
Pen (35:00):
It's a good one, I like it a lot.
Harvey (35:01):
So I once--we could probably include the audio from
this one, but there was--therewas a TikTok I--I recorded once
where I--okay, so several monthsback, probably six months ago at
Pen (35:12):
Also, like, your expression, and how calmly you
this poin, I developed this,like, massive, just, mass on my
neck, which turned out to be,like, a cyst, that went away wit
antibiotics. But I got putn these just gigantic horse pill
. And because they were so bi, I had to take them a food. So
(35:34):
recorded a TikTok that said,Things in my dinner tonight that
just makes sense (35:38):
three ibuprofen and amoxicillin." An
it also--it cut off beforeI finished "amoxicillin," whic
is part of why it's fusaid all of it, and, like,
tucked a hair behind your ear.
Harvey (35:52):
Yes.
Pen (35:52):
It was really good.
Harvey (35:54):
I'm gonna--I'm gonna have to--we're gonna have to
include the audio. But yeah, Imean, like, so, no, not that
joke, but I've also made jokesabout, like, some--just some
really awful things thatI've--I've used to take my
antidepressants. Redbull is upthere.
Pen (36:10):
When did you drink Red Bull?
Harvey (36:12):
I drink Red Bull sometimes.
Pen (36:13):
You drink Red Bull sometimes?
Harvey (36:15):
Very, very rarely. It's usually...
Pen (36:17):
What does it taste like?
Harvey (36:18):
Not good. Um, like, kind of, okay, I was about to compare
it to piss, but I've alsonever--I've never put piss in my
mouth, which is for the best.
I'm gonna say it's kind of like,if you let, like, a good handful
of pennies sit in apple juicefor a little while.
Pen (36:40):
Sorry for==I've never had Red Bull, even when I had energy
drinks a lot, I never went forRed Bull, so I've always been
kind of curious to what ittastes like, but not curious
enough to open a can of RedBull.
Harvey (36:51):
You ever had Monster?
Pen (36:53):
Yeah.
Harvey (36:53):
It's a lot like Monster, but without the gross
aftertaste.
Pen (36:57):
I could never--Monster just tasted like sugar to me.
Harvey (37:01):
Sugar and chemicals.
Pen (37:02):
Like dissolved Pixie Sticks that were also fizzy, and I hate
that.
Harvey (37:06):
That's mean to Pixie Sticks.
Pen (37:08):
Well, Pixie Sticks are kind of boring on their own. Like,
the flavor's barely there.
Harvey (37:12):
That's not true!
Pen (37:14):
I never found it to be much flavor.
Harvey (37:16):
That's--that's fair.
Pen (37:16):
But anyway, I that's why I always had Monster Rehab,
because you know what thattastes like? Iced tea, and also
something else that's a littlebad, but that's the energy.
Harvey (37:25):
And 2% milk, also, is something that I've used to take
my antidepressants.
Pen (37:29):
I thought you meant that Monster tasted like 2% milk
also, and I was like, where?!
Harvey (37:35):
No.
Pen (37:36):
Where is the milk?
Harvey (37:37):
No, the difference is that--well, one, I'm white, so I
drink milk sometimes because I'mbrain dead. But number two, no,
the difference between MonsterEnergy Drink and 2% milk is that
I will drink 2% milk. PutMonster--put Monster in front of
me...
Pen (37:56):
You shouldn't drink either one of them.
Harvey (38:00):
Listen, okay? I got nothing. No, you're right.
You're absolutely right.
Pen (38:05):
You're lacked--you're lack toast--
Harvey (38:06):
Lack toes in toddler ants.
Pen (38:08):
Toast! None of it! No! No milk.
Harvey (38:13):
I'm gonna keep drinking milk.
Pen (38:14):
I know you're gonna keep drinking milk.
Harvey (38:16):
Anyway.
Pen (38:18):
But yeah, jokes like that.
All of that was joking aboutwhat you take your
antidepressants with.
Harvey (38:25):
It's--you know what it is?
Pen (38:26):
Tell me.
Harvey (38:27):
It's about making--rather than keeping my
mental illness as somethingdeviant, it's about making it
mundane.
Pen (38:35):
Yeah! Yes, yes, yes.
Normalizing it feels so good,because it is this aspect of
ourselves that we are expectedto, like, keep down and, like,
removing the shame from thingsfeels so nice.
Harvey (38:48):
Yeah, and it's moving the jokes away from "Haha, I'm
depressed," to, "Hey, want tohear what I took my Zoloft with
tonight?"
Pen (38:57):
And that's funny. That's funny, folks. That's all there
is to it.
Harvey (39:02):
We are approaching the 40 minute mark. So, Pen, do you
have any closing thoughts aboutjokes and mental illness?
Pen (39:16):
I know that we--sort of, our conversation was a bit
winding in this one. We talkedabout a lot of different things.
So I think, in the end, it wasmore about like coping
generally, and humor as a partof that.
Harvey (39:28):
Yeah. I think we're tying it back in.
Pen (39:33):
Yeah, yeah. And I think that what it kind of comes down
to is, when you have a mentalillness, and/or are
neurodivergent, it is difficultto find the healthy ways to
cope, especially when you areyounger or when it's sort of the
beginning of it.
Harvey (39:51):
Or if you don't have any support system.
Pen (39:52):
Yes. And trying to find that sometimes leads to humor as
a negative coping mechanism. Andalso, finding ways for humor to
be a positive coping mechanism,not only is that just, like,
objectively better...
Harvey (40:08):
Yeah.
Pen (40:09):
...because it's--it's, you know, healthy.
Harvey (40:10):
Healthy coping skills are better than [stammering]
unhealthy coping skills.
Pen (40:15):
Thank you for coming to our TED Talk. This whole podcast has
been leading up to, um...
Harvey (40:20):
We would have been kicked off the stage a while
ago.
Pen (40:23):
Oh, they can try and move me. They can try. I-I can make
it more embarrassing for themthan for me, guarantee. That is
inadvertently a joke about mymental illnesses and
neurodivergences. Yep! Anyway,finding those positive things.
Not only is it just nicer, it'salso a way to build better
(40:47):
community, and something that'smore fulfilling, and that can
reduce shame, that is based inin mental health and
neurodivergence. And that'snice, just normalizing it, and
getting to talk about it, alsowithout it feeling super heavy.
Harvey (41:03):
Yeah.
Pen (41:03):
Like, this is lighthearted.
We're just making little jokes.
Harvey (41:06):
We're just making little jokes about how sometimes I take
my antidepressants with milk.
Pen (41:12):
Oh, and we never actually got around to, if you're not
mentally ill or neurodivergent,don't make jokes about it.
Harvey (41:18):
Yeah, don't.
Pen (41:19):
I did have this one--the littler bullet point, which is,
"I am not your punchline, andneither is my brain."
Harvey (41:27):
Nope.
Pen (41:28):
When I make jokes about my neurodivergence, I am not the
punch line. My brain is not thepunch line. My ADHD is not the
punch line. How weird my lifesometimes seems to people from
the outside is occasionally thepunch line, or the things that
my ADHD makes me do. I am not apunch line.
Harvey (41:47):
Yeah, like, I'll make jokes all day about being super
oblivious to flirting becauseI'm autistic, despite having
three boyfriends. If--if aneurodivergent person, or even
allistic person who wasn'tdivergent made that joke, I
wouldn't jive with it.
Pen (42:02):
No, because, like, you making your own observational
humor is very different.
Harvey (42:07):
Kind of like how I can call myself a retard, but I
would not be cool with it if anallistic person did that.
Pen (42:13):
Yeah, no, that would not be... uh-uh.
Harvey (42:17):
Yeah. So I think there is, also, that element of
reclamation, in reclaiming whathas been used against you, and
just being like, no, this ismine. I'm making it funny.
Pen (42:28):
I think, also, sometimes, like, reclaiming things that we
have used against ourselves.
Harvey (42:34):
That, too.
Pen (42:35):
I can joke about how I have absolutely debilitating social
anxiety now, and it doesn'tinclude phrases like I hate
myself or I want to die. Itincludes phrases--includes
phrases like "I would just loveto walk into a grocery store and
feel fine, and not thinkabout--" I--if I didn't have to
(42:56):
come up with a little script,for what, like, generic, but
still pleasant, thing to say toa cashier, that would be--that
sounds so soothing. That's mybath bomb.
Harvey (43:08):
That is your--that is your self care in the wild,
lions wearing face masks.
Pen (43:12):
Yeah! Walk into a Lush and it's just, like, feeling calm
when someone asks you about theweather on the street. And I'm
like, "Oh, I want more. Give itto me."
Harvey (43:25):
Hand it over.
Pen (43:26):
Yes. Yeah. Do you have--did I ask if you have closing
thoughts? Or did you just sortof...
Harvey (43:32):
You didn't, but...
Pen (43:33):
Do you have clothe thought?
Harvey (43:35):
Haaa. I'm sorry. That was nothing.
Pen (43:41):
Neither was mine.
Harvey (43:42):
Do I have closing thoughts? Um, I'm funny.
Pen (43:47):
God, God, you're funny.
Harvey (43:48):
Pen's also really funny.
Pen (43:50):
Oh, thank you!
Harvey (43:51):
Yeah!
Pen (43:52):
You know what a gift it is whenever you laugh at one of my
jokes? Because, genuinely, I amnot joking, I have said this so
many times, and on this podcast,too: you're the funniest person
I've ever met in my entire life.
Harvey (44:04):
Which is still hard to believe, but, like, you are not
the first person who has saidthat to me.
Pen (44:08):
You're really--
Harvey (44:08):
I'm apparently just really funny.
Pen (44:10):
If you are neurodivergent, one, your brain is so big.
Harvey (44:14):
I'm also gay. I'm also trans.
Pen (44:17):
Like, what do you want?
Harvey (44:18):
Like, I'm the funniest person alive. That's not true. I
guarantee you, there's someoneout there who is funnier than
me, but...
Pen (44:26):
Maybe there's someone out there who has a bigger platform
than you, and so more peoplerecognize that they're funny,
but like you might be.
Harvey (44:34):
You know, I've thought about doing stand up.
Pen (44:36):
I think that would be so great. I would love that so
much.
Harvey (44:40):
All right. Well, stick around for just a few more
moments. We'll tell you a littlebit more about how this podcast
is run, and our Patreon.
Pen (44:48):
Wahoo!
Harvey (44:48):
Wahoo!
Pen (44:50):
Yay!
Harvey (44:52):
Beyond Introspection is an independently-run podcast by
Pen Novus and Harvey LaFord.
Music by Girl Lloyd. You canfind us on Twitter and Instagram
at ByndPodcast or you can emailus at
beyonddotpodcast@gmail.com.
That's beyond d-o-t podcast, nospaces. We publish on
Buzzsprout, iTunes, Spotify orwherever you get your podcasts.
(45:12):
You can find the links to oursocial media and email in the
podcast description.
Pen (45:17):
We also have a Patreon. You can find us at
patreon.com/beyondintrospection.
That's all one word. We alsohave links to it on our site and
on our social media. Our podcastis entirely independent, so we
pay for hosting fees andtranscript service subscriptions
out of pocket. This is a passionproject that we're really happy
to do, and any support you'reable to give us would really
make a difference. On our
P (45:37):
$2, which gives you access to test audio and other bloopers;
$5 which will give you access tobonus episodes that will make in
the future, on topics like howangry we are Freud, our
frustrations with our respectivefields of studies and even guest
episodes; $10 will get you adirect line and priority access
to request episode topics andnew bonus content; and $15,
(45:58):
which will give you access tomonthly AMAs--that's ask me
anything for those who don'tknow--where we can answer
questions ranging from thepodcast process and we figure
out what to record, more indepth questions about our
neurodivergences, and more. Allof those tiers will include
benefits from lower tiers ofcourse. And also just to note,
unlike our regular episodes,Patreon bonus content is likely
(46:19):
to include swearing, so ifthat's not your vibe, please
know that ahead of time. We'dalso love it if you're able to
share this podcast with peopleyou know. Our only advertising
is word of mouth and we want toreach as many people as
possible.
Harvey (46:33):
Got feedback for us?
Want to request an episodetopic? Just feel like saying
hello? Feel free to reach out onsocial media, or via email. We'd
love to hear from everyone. Takecare of yourselves.
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