Inappropriate Laughter

Thank you so much for the responses to my first column. I wasn’t expecting much of a response if any at all.  We got many emails and comments, which made me happy but also very impressed and even a little intimidated. Every single correspondence was insightful, sweet, interesting or otherwise and it made me want to know more about all of you.

I’m excited to hear more so by all means, keep it coming.  Thoughts, ideas, cacti, stories, suggestions, comments; anything you want.  Send it to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). 

Definitely send origami animals—sign yours in small print somewhere— and I’ll start a Spectrum Magazine origami collection.  (Lots of instructions online about making them.)

One reader, Kay, mentioned she liked my sense of humor and very thoughtfully said that if it hadn’t been intended to be funny she didn’t mean to offend me.  No worries, I just write and if something amuses me try not to think about if it’s funny to others cause I often don’t know… 

(And Kay, your origami giraffe you would of sent if you could is alive and well and living in my liver.  She’s happy as can be, eating lots of leaves and such. )

Humor and Asperger’s: A whole book could be written about it.  I enjoy books on the subject of laughter, but it’s still not quite understood why humans do it.  Like many Aspies I have my own sense-of-humor, as does everyone else.  But some people with Asperger’s though have a very unique and often misunderstood sense-of humor.  Aspies often laugh at things that others don’t and fail to see the humor in other supposedly funny things even if we “get it” in theory.  And then there’s the often humiliating and out-of-the-blue brand of uncontrollable laughter, which actually causes physical pain, not to mention emotional torment, and yet you cannot stop it.

Aspies: Send me your best/ worst inappropriate laughter stories!  Once we’ve gathered enough of them we can make our own little Inappropriate Laughter Monologues.

In high school I had only one friend who was also very awkward and almost never spoke unless I was forced to.  I had already been so traumatized by earlier humiliations that I turned timid, visibly afraid, and “soft-spoken” as people called it. I was told to “speak up!” on a regular basis. Today, I am proud to report, I am often told to “quiet down!”  I do of course but a little piece inside me always grins with glee.  I never dreamed that someday I’d have the capacity to be loud again.  For me I think it’s a sign of being able to stand my ground in the always-present fight with fear.

One day we had an assembly in the auditorium—3,000 students in a space that echoed—for the usual school spirit and such.  They had a giant projection screen and on it was a photo of a wheelchair-bound boy who had attended our school and just passed away.  The principal spoke and asked for everyone to bow his or her heads for a moment of silence.  I thought, “Oh God, this would be a really bad time to have a laughter attack….” I totally lost it in a fit of hysterical laughter. 

At least today, looking back on it, it’s actually funny.  And after all, my favorite stories have always been those that manage to be both funny and sad, all at once.