Funny Tales 2. (John)

As I’m about to perform the show in a variety of places in the coming months I’ve started to write and reminisce about other potentially humorous tales.

I mentioned in my last humorous story that I’ve been reminiscing about potential new material for my Delusions Stand Up Comedy Show. I was just pottering about with some writing last night when this particular tale came to mind. Again I say please don’t take too seriously and please don’t feel I’m laughing at mental health… but as we go along on these journeys funny things do happen…

For a 9 month period in my life I worked as a nursing assistant in The Royal Edinburgh Psychiatric hospital. This was about a year after I’d had my own first admission to Aberdeen’s psychiatric hospital. Incidentally I had my second admission to a psychiatric hospital  during this period. Quite sensibly it was decided I should go to a different hospital as it wouldn’t be the best thing to send me to the one where I worked. I did eventually get a short tenure at the Royal Ed a few years later. But that’s not the story I’m here to tell…

In my show I joke about Bipolar delusions of grandeur. I say BP people can often think we’re on a special mission to save the world or get a bit messianic. In short we can get a bit Jesusy. It can be quite amusing as you can often have three messiahs kicking about a ward on any given day. As soon as they get one of us better another one takes over the shift. Brian will be in the corner pouring Ribena into a jug of water going, ‘I’m doing it, I’m doing it.’ and I’ll be running around hiding any stray nails in a drawer. (Joking)

Anyhoo one day at work a fairly posh chap arrived who’d been picked up in an airport in Spain making fairly unusual claims. He told us he was the Editor of the Financial Times, that people were out to get him and they had been waiting for him at said airport. At first we went, ‘Ooh that’s new, we’ve never had an Editor of the Financial Times before, how fancy.’ Now please understand that people with our condition it’s not like the films where we run around thinking we’re Napoleon. So for those very reasons it was important to get this chaps background checked out as quickly as possible. I think you can guess what’s coming next…Yup he was the editor of the financial times.

A few days later I was asked to escort our editor friend for an eye test. Was sending a person who had, had delusions of conspiracy along with a chap who was experiencing delusions of conspiracy for a day out the best idea? Perhaps not, but at the time the hospital didn’t know much of my past. Anyhoo on the way to the eye clinic our editor did spot a couple of men in suits and become a bit agitated saying we were being watched. Trust me I didn’t join in with the idea and did my best to reassure him nothing underhand was going on. But that wasn’t exactly what I was thinking…Thing is to this day he’s one of the few people who I’ve met with delusions of conspiracy who may not have had delusions of conspiracy. I mean he was the bloody editor of the financial times. I’m pretty certain that very publication can be highly influential in the world of global economies and big business. If ever sinister forces would be out to get someone then it may be a person like him. Of course he probably was a bit unwell. That’s where I stand on this in the official report. I mean it’s not like we live in a world of spies and nerve agent attacks or prominent journalists faking their own deaths…Now is it? 😉