Not sure people explicitly realise this, but when somebody is hurting and opens up and talks about it, one of the most hurtful things the other conversant(s) can do is reorient the topic to be about them and/or to be about jocular takes on the topic.
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HOWEVER, you are right that people carrying the same pain often make jokes. It's part of their coping strategy — and the jokes-are-OK environment is negotiated between them because they are in an informed and consensual jokes-are-our-coping-tactic zone.
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Those jokes are not offensive, but are indeed part of the healing process. It's important to know that like the word "that" refers to dramatically different things as a fraction of context, pragmatics plays a great role in when a joke is OK or not.
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If you think a joke isn't appropriate — if you are not sure — don't make it.
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*as a __function__ of context
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Oh, absolutely, sharing in turn is not a jocular situation. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this btw. Acting well in such sensitive situations is super important and this is very helpful.
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You are super welcome.
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