1. Being flooded with people wishing to donate to you because you forgot to brush your hair. Get a bigger money bag, or better, line a supermarket trolley with those plastic disposable bags (so the coins won't drop through).
2. What to do with all those gifts of flowers when you are in hospital - psych hospital? Sell them and buy hooch. Only the truly psychotic eat flowers, and only yellow ones at that.
3. Stem the need to explain why you're smoking, which used to be scorned as a luxury, when someone from the church gives you just enough petrol money to get there and back to home. Sometimes you just have to bite your lip. Stop giving explanations - remember the world is fair now.
4. Keep your beanie on when everyone stops you in the street, saying 'How ARE you?' Use different medical terms for each one. This will alienate them. Say "Transcranially Psychotic" to one, "Abjectly Melancholy" to the next, and "Peripatetic" to the next. Never remove the beanie as it marks you as holding the esteemed status of Nutter.
5. Remind yourself to open the envelope of invitations to job interviews - they all offer an interview, and petrol money to get there.
6. Constructively dismiss yourself. First, move your desk, pens and filing cabinet to the unoccupied outer office or better still, to the tea room. Next, stop talking to yourself. Progressively hide more and more papers from your in-tray. By now, there's no one to talk to, you're isolated, and there's no work to do. Might as well go home!
7. Make people talk about you behind your back. Use your community development skills to fashion a little workshop for the most likely people. Add a reward if the group starts talking about you without you.
(c) Madeleine Kelly. Check out beatbipolar.com
