The Paradox of the Sad Clown
Information presented in this article may upset some people. If you’re having suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.
"I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy. Because they know what it feels like to feel absolutely worthless and they don't want anybody else to feel like that."—Robin Williams
For mental health awareness month last year, I wrote a four-part series on Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) awareness (living with glass armor, what is splitting, navigating your loved one with BPD, and abandonment). It’s not fun to write about suffering from the “leprosy of mental illness” when the world’s already a tough place to walk around in and people are often insensitive, but when I read Reddit posts by those in the same boat, it helps me fight the stigma and feel less alone.
Since coming out at 52 a few years ago I’ve also written about being queer. Constantly trying to mask the combination of mental illness and queerness to fit into a “normal straight world,” is often exhausting, the reason I isolate myself the majority of the time, and why I don’t choose to let many people get close to me.
This year, I’ll write the BPD series again in May so I’m thinking about some different topics and angles. What I’ve noticed in the Venn diagram across BPD/queer/ADHD communities is that masking with humor is a commonality.
The ”sad clown paradox” is the contradictory association, in performers, between comedy and mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. When childhood includes negative feelings of deprivation and isolation, comedy evolves as a release for tension, removing feelings of suppressed anger through a verbal outlet. A series of psychological experiments first published in 1981 by the psychologist Seymour Fisher indicated certain behavioral traits exclusive to comedians and not matched in regular actors, suggesting use of a coping mechanism to hide trauma and use humor as a way of forming relations and gaining acceptance.
One BPD author Megan Glosson writes candidly about her struggles:
“Sometimes, on my most difficult days, my friends would see me smiling, laughing, and enjoying life. I also became quite adept at using self-deprecating humor as a way to express my true feelings about myself, but in a way that was more digestible for the majority of other people. Keeping up this type of show is exhausting, though, and it usually makes me feel even more isolated and empty.”
The pain of BPD is dark, including the symptom of suicidality. Research has shown that about 75 percent of people with BPD will make at least one suicide attempt in their lifetime, and many will make multiple attempts. People with BPD are also more likely to complete suicide than individuals with any other psychiatric disorder. Up to 10 percent of people with BPD complete suicide, which is more than 50 times the rate in the general population.
Because we spend so much of our time masking symptoms, those of us who suffer with the disorder in general don’t go around discussing suicidality with those close to us which might trigger our main fear: abandonment. This leads to the cycle we end up trapped in: performativeness and masking—whether it’s humor, perfectionism, high productivity or other coping mechanisms to “seem normal” when many days it is nearly impossible to get out of bed.
Author Karen Mae Vister writes:
“Masking borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a high-wire act, teetering between societal acceptance and personal exhaustion. It's an everyday performance where I suppress traits that might draw judgment, becoming a chameleon to blend into what's deemed acceptable. Borderline personality disorder masking is draining, leaving me feeling like I've been hit by a truck by the time I get home.
I'm still fumbling through the coping strategies for masking BPD. It's an endless learning curve, figuring out when it's safe to drop the mask. I've found a couple of safe people to be real with. They're the ones who have been raw with me, who get my specific triggers, or who are just good with words and validation.”