So what’s funny about mental illness? Very little. It can be hard to smile, let alone laugh, when every day feels like a wet blanket. When someone makes a joke about mental illness, it often trivialises and dismisses another person’s suffering, revealing how much fear, taboo and misinformation surround the issue. In this context, laughing at mental illness acts as a defence mechanism, a nervous response that protects one person from empathising with another’s pain and anguish.