Why Are You Laughing, Seriously?

For some reason, I always laugh when I am in a stressful or adverse situation.  Something about the mixing of high strung emotions will elicit laughter from me often times in inappropriate situations.  When a friend tells me about her horrible day, I laugh.  When someone tells me about a terrible natural disaster, I laugh.  When I'm at a funeral for a loved one, I laugh.  I think it is some sort of coping mechanism that I have developed over the years in order to keep from processing my emotions.  

When I was a child I cried when I was upset and laughed when I was happy.  I was always clear when conveying my emotions because my emotions weren't very complex.  Much like in the new Pixar movie Inside Out, I didn't have but a few set of emotions when I was young; however, as I grew up my emotions became more complex and harder to clearly convey.  As I grew I developed ways to cope with high amounts of emotion and for me that was laughter.  I ignore the terrible sorrow I feel and instead giggle because trying to process crushing information is difficult and it is easier to instead laugh.  

Many standup comedians attribute their success to difficult childhoods and good repression or coping of those hard times.  They made jokes when they were growing up as a way to combat the hard life they were living in order to escape the reality of the hard truth. Everyone has different ways of dealing with emotions, what are yours?