reminder that smiling and laughing in response to things that hurt or scare you is a completely normal reaction and doesn& #39;t mean that those things don& #39;t hurt or scare you.
there are different explanations as to why people react in this way.

one is that smiling and laughing is not automatically a display of happiness. that is social convention, not nature. for example, in little children who haven& #39;t learned that yet, smiling can mean shame or fear.
another explanation is that especially in acute shock situations, the body & brain get flooded with a mix of several different hormones.

if a person& #39;s hormone mix includes lots of oxytocin (yeah, that& #39;s what they call the "love hormone") they will get all giddy & laugh.
they might even remember the shock situation with a laugh, or associate it with a pleasant feeling. this does not cancel out any harm incurred in that situation.

(and if someone& #39;s hormone mix includes a lot of endorphins, they might get relaxed and impassive.)
another explanation is that it& #39;s the "fawn" trauma response (sometimes called "friend") response.

people who have internalised this protection strategy will reflexively laugh and smile to relieve tension and to placate whoever they& #39;re interacting with. it& #39;s an automatism.
someone who "fawns" will be very friendly and laugh a lot in situations of stress or anxiety,

but also especially towards dangerous people, and especially when they are terrified or in immense physical or emotional pain.
(there& #39;s also "flop" and "freeze" responses for either the relaxed passive type of response or the seizing terror type of response, and of course the well-known "fight" and "flight". you do not generally get to choose which one your body & brain pick. it& #39;s involuntary.)
so if you see someone talk about their pain while smiling, giggling and laughing, this does not mean that they& #39;re not hurting.

it means that they& #39;re either trying to cover their pain or, for most people traumatised through violence, that they& #39;re trying to protect themselves.
when someone opens up in a serious way and this is accompanied by smiling and laughing, this means they are in such a vulnerable state that the automated part of their brain activates protective measures.

don& #39;t dismiss that honesty just because you don& #39;t know how to read people.
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