I am a white-hot glittery shit show.

There. I said it.

Not every day, thankfully. Some days I am a reasonably functioning adult who remembers where I put my keys, answers emails before they become archaeological artifacts, and manages to leave the house wearing matching shoes.

Other days, my brain has approximately 47 tabs open, three of them are playing music I cannot find, one is frozen, and I have absolutely no idea why I walked into the room I am currently standing in.

And honestly?

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

As a therapist, I talk a lot about coping skills, emotional regulation, anxiety management, self-awareness, resilience, and all those other wonderfully therapeutic words that sound very impressive when they are written in a treatment plan.

But one of my favorite coping skills is something much simpler:

Humor.

I use humor all the time, especially when life becomes chaotic, uncomfortable, embarrassing, or just plain ridiculous. Sometimes I use it to call myself out when I do something completely absurd. Sometimes I use it to create a little emotional distance from something stressful. Sometimes I use it because laughing feels a whole lot better than sitting there staring at the disaster in front of me wondering how exactly I got here.

And sometimes, humor is how I remind myself that being human is messy.

One of the best examples I have of using humor to survive a completely miserable situation happened right after I had knee surgery.

I was feeling incredibly sick from the medications. Being allergic to pain medications makes my stomach particularly unhappy, which meant that while my knee was recovering, my gastrointestinal system had apparently decided it wanted equal billing.

I couldn't walk very well, my right leg was completely immobilized, and I was trying desperately to make it to the bathroom using my walker.

Eventually, my boyfriend at the time picked me up and held me over the toilet while I vomited.

Let that sentence sink in for a moment.

This was not exactly the romantic date night I had envisioned.

While I was puking my guts out, I also peed myself.

Now, in the approximately ten seconds it took me to realize what had happened, my brain went into full crisis-management mode.

Not because I was particularly horrified about having an accident. I was sick, recovering from surgery, and clearly having a very bad day.

My biggest concern was figuring out how I was going to tell the man who was currently holding me over a toilet while I vomited that I had also just peed myself.

I considered my options.

Could I pretend it hadn't happened? Could I somehow clean myself up later? Could I hobble to the bedroom? Could I summon a functional right leg through sheer determination?

Unfortunately, reality won.

There was absolutely no way in hell I was going to hobble myself into the bedroom, find clean clothes, get undressed, clean myself up, and put on fresh clothes while my entire right leg was immobilized.

So there I was.

He eventually sat me down on the side of the bathtub and was wiping my mouth after I had been sick while I tried to figure out how to communicate this latest development without completely losing what little dignity I had left.

Finally, I looked up at him and said:

"I have absolutely no idea how to tell you this in a funny way, so I'm just going to tell you that I peed myself."

He stared at me.

I stared at him.

He looked down at my lap.

Then he looked back at me.

It took him about ten or twelve seconds to process what I had said, which, when you're sitting on the side of a bathtub after knee surgery, feels like approximately seventeen years.

Finally, he said, "Oh, okay," and immediately got to work helping me clean myself up and put on fresh clothes.

Then he told me, "Don't worry about it. I used to be a bartender, and I worked in many places where I held girls' hair back while they vomited and had to clean up lots of other messes. So this is no big deal."

And honestly, that response was exactly what I needed.

Was the situation embarrassing? Absolutely. Was it uncomfortable? Extremely. Was I miserable? Without question.

Was it funny?

Eventually.

And that is the part that sticks with me.

I didn't laugh because the situation wasn't difficult. I laughed because it was difficult, absurd, completely outside my control, and one of those moments where life basically looks at you and says, "Well, let's see what you do with this."

I chose humor.

And, because apparently I have no interest in maintaining even the smallest shred of privacy when there is a good story involved, I posted the entire ridiculous situation on Facebook. Because if I had to live through it, my friends were absolutely going to hear about it. If you can't laugh at yourself, who else will?

There is an important distinction here.

Humor doesn't magically fix the problem.

My knee was still immobilized. I was still sick from medication. I still needed help walking. I still had to change my clothes.

Making a joke did not make any of those things disappear.

What humor did was change my relationship with the moment.

Instead of thinking, "This is horrible and humiliating," I could eventually think, "Well, this is certainly a story."

And sometimes that tiny shift in perspective is enough to help us breathe.

Humor can give us psychological distance from a difficult situation. It can release some of the tension that builds up when we are anxious, overwhelmed, embarrassed, or frustrated. It can create connection with other people, particularly when we realize that someone else has experienced something equally ridiculous and thinks, "Wait, I'm not the only person whose life occasionally goes completely sideways?"

That matters.

Because sometimes laughter is not about denying what hurts.

Sometimes laughter is how we make room for the hurt without allowing it to consume the entire room.

I also use humor to call myself out.

I have no problem recognizing when I have done something ridiculous, overreacted, made a questionable decision, or somehow turned a relatively simple situation into a full production.

If I can laugh at myself, I don't have to spend quite as much energy pretending I have everything figured out.

And let me be clear: laughing at yourself is not the same thing as beating yourself up.

There is a big difference between:

"Wow, I really screwed that up. I'm an idiot."

and:

"Wow. That was spectacularly ridiculous. What the hell was I thinking?"

The first is shame.

The second can be self-awareness.

Humor can help us acknowledge our imperfections without turning every mistake into evidence that we are fundamentally broken.

That is a pretty valuable mental health skill.

I think we put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to appear like we have it all together.

We are supposed to be productive, organized, emotionally regulated, successful, attractive, responsible, patient, financially savvy, physically healthy, socially connected, and somehow capable of remembering everyone's appointments.

Meanwhile, most of us are standing in the kitchen eating something over the sink while trying to remember why we opened the refrigerator.

Nobody has it all together.

We are human beings.

We forget things. We make mistakes. We say the wrong thing. We get overwhelmed. We cry in the car. We send an email and immediately realize we forgot the attachment. We walk into rooms and forget why we are there.

And occasionally, apparently, we pee ourselves while someone is holding us over a toilet.

It happens.

Humor allows us to say, "Yep. That happened," without allowing that moment to define us.

There is a reason laughter can feel like a physical release.

When we are stressed, our bodies respond. Our muscles tense, our thoughts speed up, our breathing can change, and our nervous systems can start behaving like there is a bear chasing us even when the actual emergency is an email from the electric company.

Humor can interrupt that cycle.

A funny comment, ridiculous observation, silly meme, or genuinely absurd story can create a brief pause in the emotional intensity.

That pause can matter.

Sometimes we need enough space to think clearly. Sometimes we need enough space to stop catastrophizing. Sometimes we simply need five minutes where our brains aren't treating everything like an emergency.

And sometimes we need to laugh so hard that our stomach hurts for an entirely different reason.

As a therapist, I would be remiss if I didn't point out the other side of this.

Humor can be healthy.

Humor can also become a defense mechanism.

There are times when we make jokes because something is genuinely funny, and there are times when we make jokes because we absolutely do not want to talk about what is actually happening.

I know this because I do it too.

Sometimes "I'm fine!" followed by a joke really means, "If we stop laughing for thirty seconds, I may have to acknowledge that I'm overwhelmed."

That's worth noticing.

The goal isn't to stop using humor. The goal is to become curious about it.

Ask yourself:

• Am I laughing because this is genuinely funny?
• Am I using humor to gain perspective?
• Am I connecting with someone?
• Am I being compassionate toward myself?

Or...

• Am I making a joke because I don't want to feel what I'm actually feeling?

Sometimes the answer is yes.

That's okay.

Self-awareness isn't about doing everything perfectly. It's about noticing what we're doing and understanding why.

There is also a difference between humor that brings people together and humor that tears someone down.

Healthy humor can be playful, self-aware, silly, and compassionate.

It doesn't require humiliating someone else. It doesn't require making fun of another person's pain. And it doesn't require pretending that serious things aren't serious.

Some of my favorite humor is simply the kind where everyone involved can laugh and nobody has to be the punchline.

That is what I was doing when I shared my post-surgery story.

I wasn't saying, "Look how great it was to be sick and helpless."

I was saying, "This was absolutely horrible, and somehow it was also one of the funniest and most ridiculous things that has ever happened to me."

There is freedom in that.

I want to pause here for a moment, because this is September — and September is National Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month.

And that matters in this conversation.

Because humor is a genuinely powerful coping skill. It can create distance, release tension, build connection, and help us survive some of the most undignified and difficult moments life hands us.

But humor has limits.

There are times when someone is laughing — loudly, constantly, at everything — and what is actually happening underneath that laughter is something much darker. Sometimes the jokes are a way of saying, "I am not okay, and I don't know how to tell you that."

I have sat with clients who were the funniest people in every room they walked into. People who made everyone around them laugh. People who, behind closed doors, were struggling in ways that nobody around them could see.

Humor can be a bridge to connection.

It can also be a wall.

So while I absolutely believe in giving yourself permission to laugh, I also want to say this clearly:

If you are using humor to hold yourself together because you don't know what else to do — that is worth paying attention to.

If someone in your life seems to be laughing a little too hard, a little too often, at things that aren't quite that funny — that is worth a gentle conversation.

And if you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide, please reach out.

Call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

You don't have to be in crisis to call. You don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to pick up the phone.

Because sometimes the bravest thing we can do is stop making jokes for a minute and say, "I actually need some help."

That is not weakness. That is the most important coping skill of all.

Want to learn more about children's mental health, warning signs, and how to start the conversation? Read my full post on Suicide Prevention Month and kids' mental health.

You don't have to turn every difficult experience into a joke. You don't have to be the funny person in every room. You don't have to laugh when something genuinely hurts.

But you can give yourself permission to find humor when it is there.

You can laugh at the ridiculous text you sent. You can laugh when you realize you have been searching for your glasses while wearing them. You can laugh at the parenting moment that absolutely did not go according to plan. You can laugh about the time your carefully organized day turned into a dumpster fire before 9:00 a.m.

And you can eventually laugh about the incredibly undignified moments that life occasionally hands you.

Because sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is acknowledge:

"This really sucks."

And then, when we're ready:

"Okay, but this is also kind of hilarious."

I am still going to take my problems seriously. I am still going to go to therapy when I need it. I am still going to have hard days, anxious days, overwhelmed days, and days when my emotional regulation skills are apparently on vacation.

But I am also going to laugh.

I'm going to call myself out. I'm going to tell ridiculous stories. I'm probably going to post them on social media.

And I'm going to let other people laugh alongside me.

Because life is messy. Being human is messy. And sometimes you have to look at the absolute chaos in front of you, acknowledge that it really does suck, and still find something funny enough to make you laugh.

That doesn't make you weak. It doesn't mean you're avoiding your feelings.

Sometimes, it simply means you're giving yourself a little room to breathe.

And if you happen to be sitting on the side of a bathtub after knee surgery, wearing clothes that desperately need to be changed, while someone is wiping vomit off your face...

Well, you might as well have a good story when it's over.

Even the white-hot glittery shit show gets to laugh.

September is National Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. If you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988. You can also read more about children's mental health, warning signs, and how to start the conversation.