13 Funny One-Liners About Having a Mental Illness
Fair warning: the following self-penned jokes may not make you laugh. Some are real groaners to be sure. Some of you may even find them in poor taste. No one should make jokes about being “crazy.” But I live with multiple mental illnesses and have so for years. Since I’ve been there done that, I say I have the right to crack a few jokes. For more of my rules for making fun of mental illness, check my previous post here.
When you read them, think me, a mic, my bipolar, anxiety and psychosis at bay, and a very kind audience. No hecklers, please. Well, hecklers be damned. If I can deal with mental illness, I can deal with hecklers, right?
On a serious note: these are not meant to dismiss the very real pain that we face when dealing with psychiatric illness. It’s meant to help us live with that pain a little more easily.
Laughing helps me heal. Or at the very least it helps pass the time and offers a micro distraction when depression or anxiety has a choke hold on me. I hope it does for you, too.
1. I have bipolar disorder. I keep it in the bottom drawer with my underpants so I always know where it is.
2. I take psychiatric medication — it’s better than stealing it.
3. I have generalized anxiety disorder, but it sucks because it affects me specifically.
4. They say mental illness runs in my family. But in my family, we’re all pretty lazy, so it just sort of meandered its way through the generations.
5. I don’t do drugs. I do therapy. Unfortunately, therapy isn’t as fun and it’s just as expensive.
6. I live with mental illness — which makes my husband really jealous.
7. I have bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety, disordered eating and psychosis — which are more friends than I had in elementary school.
8. I never say I’m bipolar. I like to scream it at the top of my lungs while running around naked at the supermarket.
9. I’m really lucky. I have very little side effects from my meds… they’re less than a centimeter tall.
10. I have an anxiety disorder… which means I get panicky when I’ve done something out of order.
11. What exactly is a serious mental illness? As opposed to what? Carefree, happy-go-lucky ones?
12. I have a lot of people who believe in me — which sort of scares me because I always knew I was real.
13. I have rapid cycling bipolar disorder, which is weird because I can’t pedal that fast. In fact, I don’t even own a bike.
Which one is your favorite? Do you have one? Tweet it out. Or share it in the comment box.
For more corny jokes about mental illness, click here!
This post originally appeared on Psychology Today.
Photo by Jamie Brown on Unsplash
Victoria Maxwell (BFA/BPP*) is a speaker, playwright, actor, researcher and creativity coach. She lives with bipolar disorder, anxiety and psychosis and for more than 15 years been presenting workshops on mental illness and recovery, creativity and wellness. She tours her one person shows about recovering from mental illness across Canada and the States, is a member of CREST.BD, an international research team on bipolar disorder and blogs for Psychology Today. Her most recent play was named one of the top anti-stigma interventions by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. She’s appeared on CNN, in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. And as Victoria likes to say: Sometimes the harder we fall, the higher we bounce. www.victoriamaxwell.com (*Bachelor of Fine Arts / Bi-Polar Princess)
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