Are some senses of humor just a little too...macabre?

[EweSheep]

Dispatchers got the front line of things and trying to keep a person calm and dies under your care, its rough.

 

[gryeyes]

Close to 30 years in the Public Safety Communications/9-1-1 environment have made my sense of humor extremely macabre.

Mild versions of topics: motorcycle = donor cycle. Crispy critter for.... Well, fire victims. (sorry!) "ped spread" for auto-pedestrian accident victims. "Bet s/he won't do THAT again!" comments

Totally inappropriate outside one's group of co-workers. But it keeps the horror from digging deep inside you..

 

[EmtheFishLady]

I have an incredibly dark sense of humor. I agree, sometimes if you didn't laugh you'd go crazy.

 

[EweSheep]

yes you would, Em!

Gryeyes, WOW! Those 'names' are wickedly funny...sorry folks that are sensitive. Sometimes you have to stop and think a bit in what they are saying.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Emergency room doctors and nurses too.

Abbreviations so others don't quite pick up on it.

PBAB - pine box at bedside.

The weirdest doctor slang I ever heard is this one -

"Hand bag positive"

This refers to little old ladies who are in later staged of dementia, and insist on always holding their purse right in front of them with a firm grasp whether they are sitting in a chair, on a gurney or in a bed - so they don't forget where they put it.

 

[Funky Feathers]

If not for my macabre sense of humor I would not be here today. I wouldn't have made it past 15. (I am 43).

 

[CoyoteMagic]

I don't have a macabre sense of humor. After some of the stuff I've seen, I'm just plain warped and demented period!

 

[justbugged]

Having lost a daughter that wasn't even a year old, and after a year of knowing that she would die, has made me much more into dark humor. I got myself in trouble here on the forum because of asking what was wrong with it.

I am still rather deeply offend by those people who are overly sensitive about those of us that have a twisted and dark humor. I find that it is much better to deal with things in a humorous manner, than it is to sit around crying all the time. The facts of life are that people are hurt, maimed, and die all the time. I learned the hard way that babies die all the time too. To deny that facts; is like people that think that there are no animals hurt, because they buy their meat at the grocery store.

Just not talking about somethings will not make it go away, except maybe in the heads of people that don't ever try to think about anything more important than what will be on TV next.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Okay - so much macabre humor comes out of the rough stuff of life, and needs to cut the tension, break things up a little bit. War Humor - Emergency Room Humor. Gallows Humor. If ya don't laugh you'll cry.

Okay.......

Do you guys all get the same feeling when that young teen, without the dark spots in life, without the dispatcher job, just out of Barbies - just has that ghastly, ghastly horrid story to tell, and thoroughly enjoys the horror, shock and dismay it causes?

I don't think there's a 'right answer' and I think we'll all feel differently about where to draw the line - how do you view it?

Do you stuff those dark jokes when you picked up clues that suggest, 'Don't go there', when you think someone might be a little extra sensitive? Is church off limits? How about the funeral home?

(yes, I am definitely, definitely on the dark side....REAL dark - I've been told 'Ma Kali must really love you, considering how often she dangles you over the abyss!')

 

[justbugged]

Quote:
It would depend on the kid. I would have to get to know the kid fairly well. One of the ways humans cope with tragedy, is to talk about the experience. So if the event was recent for this teen, then at some point they need to be talking about it in a way that really connects the emotion, and horror of the event. I think a lot of the macabre humor comes later. The jokes should be a shallow cover for the pain of the event. I think that the humor is okay as long as the person can connect with the real emotions that they are feeling about the event. A person that has nothing but jokes about a terrible event is simply not processing the event at all. They are hiding from the pain. A person needs to feel all of the emotions not just the nicer ones. It has to be okay to cry.


I hope that made sense.