Second Thoughts
In his introduction to Dan Keller’s book Humor as Therapy, psychotherapist Gerald Piaget writes about how a juxtaposition of a humorous comment and his client’s contemplation of suicide helped his client have second thoughts about taking her own life. His patient, Carol, told him:
Well, I was feeling terrible. You were gone, my husband was in no mood to hear more bitching, and I was really depressed. So I called Joan (Piaget’s wife and Carol’s best friend) to talk. During our conversation, I mentioned that with my cancer, and the depression, and the uncertainty and all, maybe there was no use in even going on.
I said it sort of casually, but in truth thoughts of suicide had been coming up for a couple of days. Now, Joan knows I’m not the suicidal type, but she got really angry at me.
”Darn it, Carol!” she yelled. “If you dare to kill yourself I swear to Christ I’ll go to that cemetery and piss all over your grave!”
That image hasn’t worn off, at least not yet. You know this hasn’t been a very good week for me. But whenever I think of killing myself, I get this ridiculous image of Joan out there in the graveyard, with her eyes angry and her lower lip stuck out and her skirt hiked up around her waist, just squatting there on my grave…It lightens me up, and I just don’t feel like dying anymore…
- Allen Klein
from The Healing Power of Humor
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