Can Uncontrolled Inappropriate Laughter Be a Personality Disorder?

Anxiety disorders come in all shapes and sizes. Most of us are familiar with the most common symptoms of anxiety. Palpitations and chest discomfort often accompany a feeling of breathlessness. Sweaty palms, trembling and weakness is also standard. The feeling of impending doom is another common symptom of panic disorder and anxiety in general. This is the, "what if"? skipping recorded that sometimes plays over and over in the sufferers mind. "What if I can't breath"? "What if my car goes off the road"? "What if my legs don't hold me up"? Halting the "what if" thoughts are a good behavior modification tool to head off an anxiety attack.

Now, I have a "what if"? for you myself. "What if you were at a funeral home and just as you approach the casket you collapse into a fit of laughter"? Seriously, this can happen and sometimes does. Hysterical laughter can be a symptom of anxiety and it usually occurs at the most inappropriate times. It is not necessarily a personality disorder trait. It can be solely a part of the persons anxiety response. A person that experiences these attacks in truth do not find anything funny at all. When they are able to finally get themselves under control they are often exhausted and embarrassed. These episodes cause the sufferer to be misunderstood and sometimes interferes with work and relationships.

I first witnessed such an episode when I was a young teen. My best friend and I went to a horror movie that left all of the movie goers cringing behind splayed fingers and screaming at the blood fest. Not my friend, she was the only person who was hysterically laughing at the top of her lungs. She ended up causing quite a stir and we got more than our share of "shushes" and sneers. After the movie I asked her what she found so funny in a slasher film. This was a new side of her that I had never witnessed. It made me wonder how she would react if I ever were attacked in front of her by a knife wielding maniac. I could picture myself bleeding out on the sidewalk and her rolling around in my blood and shrieking with wild eyed laughter. She explained to me that she didn't know why she laughed or giggled when she was nervous or afraid. It was a wave that passed over her along with the rush of adrenalin that accompanied the event that caused her to be anxious. Even though I didn't understand it at the time I accepted her explanation because I valued her as a friend and someone who new me when we were knee high.

Years went by and I never witnessed another person who displayed hysterical laughter when stressed out until two years ago. I secured a new job in a very small office. I worked in close proximity to my boss as we manned a two person office in her home. Little by little we shared bits of our lives and we had many things in common. Until the day I told her about a terrifying experience that one of my sons had at the middle school years before. He had been stabbed in the arm by another student although it was superficial it caused quite a bit of concern. There were a few other boys stabbed at that time and one had a more serious injury. It was lunch time and we were sitting at her small table in the kitchen. I just about got my story out when she fairly covered me in Coke Zero. It came flying out of her mouth projectile fashion and then came the fit of laughter. A little dazed and confused I said, "are you laughing at the fact that my kid got stabbed"? Then the movie incident and all the rest of my best friends' nervous giggling and leg buckling displays of hilarity came back to me.

My boss said she didn't know why she laughed like that when something made her nervous. I told her she suffered from "hysterical laughter stress response". Which is a name I gave to my friends weird outbursts and it seemed to fit my boss too. I didn't understand it very much. However, since I now knew two people who by all accounts were functioning pretty well in the world that shared the same affliction I felt that the explanation had some fact behind it. I wanted to explore what this was and I asked my boss to "Google" it. What we discovered was that there was a link between anxiety and laughter.

Most of the information referred to it as"nervous laughter". Unfortunately, nervous laughter is not a relief for the person. It actually causes them to be more tense and stiff when it is over. The term, "hysteria" dates way back to 400 B.C. and the time of Hippocrates. It is rooted in the Greek word hystera which means uterus or womb.Anxiety-Panic.com/dictionary/en-dicth.htm That would explain why only women get labeled as hysterical and not men. Think about the last time that someone may have accused you of being hysterical. It was probably a man who was pointing that finger but I am needlessly musing here. Let's look at the actual physiology of laughter. Laughter is caused when the epiglottis constricts the larynx.Wikipedia.org The person who is laughing is frantically trying to catch their breath. There seems to me that there is a fine line between laughter and terror. Don't get me wrong, laughter is very healing. It helps release tension and produces those nice endorphins but it has to be the right kind of laughter. Laughter that occurs as a response to anxiety has the opposite affect.

What is a person to do if they experience this kind of laughter. I would suggest checking in with a doctor or counselor if you have never explored the possibility that you may be dealing with an anxiety disorder. If you know you do indeed have anxiety and it has never been addressed then perhaps it is worth looking into. If this type of out of balance laughter is getting in the way of work or relationships it is worth the effort to delve into professionally. Because I knew my boss well enough and had witnessed this nervous burst of laughter in the past I did not feel offended. That being said, if I ever have to attend a funeral it will not be with her unless she is fully sedated. I remember a certain Seinfeld episode where Jerry attends to a sick friend in the hospital. He proceeded to entertain the sick buddy with his stand up routine. Unfortunately, the poor sap laughed himself to death. Only Jerry Seinfeld could get set off a fit of laughter amongst his viewers by causing a death due to hysterical laughter. Maybe more of us have a touch of the nervous laughter afterall, myself included.