CRAZIES 101

 I've decided to share some of my insights and tips on crazy people and how to deal with them. If you are offended by the term 'crazy', you're crazy. Everybody else, I hope these tips save you time, energy and mental health when dealing with Crazies...
By Bernadette Pauley (Comedian)

This week's post is another short but hopefully sweet list of helpful hints. In the past I've shared some insights on being the perfect wife and traveling on a proletariat's income. This week I'm sharing a few tips on something I'm extremely well versed in: crazy people. I'm an expert on the crazies for a few reasons: 

1. I live in Los Angeles which is the epicenter of crazy. Yes, New York, you've got your crazies, Boston, Hong Kong, Kansas and Paris you all have your crazies. But I must insist that the degree of crazy here in LA is just untouchable. Pound for pound our homeless crazies, our cop crazies, our histrionic personality disorder crazies, our I-will-sell-my-children-for-more-plastic-surgery crazies just can't be beat. Please don't be offended by this, it's not that other areas are inferior. It's because crazies from all over the world come here to cultivate their crazy, to perfect it. 
   
   
   

   If you want to grow your crazy, this is THE town to do it in. Hollywood is pretty much the fertile crescent of crazy.
2. I'm in entertainment. I am a standup comedian and I sometimes luck out with TV acting and hosting gigs. To the layman this is "exciting" or "brave," but to anyone who is actually in this business or worked around it they know that it's just plain old "crazy." It's not normal and nobody in it is normal. Normal people do not choose a life of perpetual rejection and unemployment. Normal people do not choose to represent these abnormal people as their agents, producers or publicists either. 
3. I'm from a long line of crazies that have passed the crazy gene down from one generation to the next. I am a mixed breed of Scottish and Irish simmered together in Boston and let's just say we have electro shock therapy for breakfast. 
4. I, myself, am crazy, or as My Dad would say, "soft as shit."   

Have you ever caught yourself acting like such a crazy bitch you check your stomach to see if the words "help me" are scrawled across it?

But I like to consider myself 'one of the good ones.' I don't bother other people with my crazy, I just torture myself and make nicey nice with the rest of the world. It just seems the polite thing to do. Nothing drives us good crazies crazier than all of the bad crazies out there who give us a bad rap! 

So, I hope these few nuggets below come in handy the next time you find yourself dealing with one of the bad crazies:
 

• One huge mistake many people make is to try to talk rationally to the crazy person, to deal with their issues, to 'not enable them'. NO I say, this is a huge waste of time. I avoid confrontation at all costs. It's best to just humor them completely then walk away and silently hope they die. 
• When dealing with a self absorbed, narcissistic female who will only hold you captive to talk about herself and try to belittle you in the process, I find the fastest escape route is through my Compliment and Lie Technique. This is a wonderful technique but it must be administered quickly, like a one-two jab in boxing. For example, "OMG Tracy, you look AMAZING. Seriously, what is it you do to look so good and stay so thin --- Oh, I have to grab this call from my mom, she's in jail in Bangkok." Sure, the idea that your mother is in jail in Bangkok is completely ridiculous, but Ms. Narcissistic Personality Disorder will not be able to focus on the ridiculousness of that comment, instead she will be enjoying the admiration from you, her underling and will choose to believe that your mother is in jail in Bangkok over the possibility that there is a human being on earth who wouldn't want to listen to her drone on and on about herself endlessly. *Once again, this technique must be administered quickly or you could get stuck in a one hour, one way conversation about just how amazing and fabulous Ms NPD really is. You must compliment the crazy the moment you spot them and KEEP MOVING.
• When you simply can't get out of spending some time with that crazy friend who is a liability (and you've been meaning to cut out of your life for the past eight years but can't because you have your own damn mental problems) it's best to invite along another crazy ass person. There's a good chance they will cancel each other out. However, there's also a chance that there could be an eruption as crazymakers oftentimes don't like other crazymakers. They prefer to be the loan crazyass, the sun to a universe of not so crazy people rotating around their every whim and tantrum. (Once their hatred of each other is determined it can be quite helpful avoiding them in the future. You can simply tell crazymaker #1 that you already have plans with crazymaker #2 and vice versa. Avoiding the other crazymaker, they will not invite themselves along and instead choose to go glob onto some other poor slob). 
• Last but not least: The Scientology Technique. If that annoying co-worker, boss, toxic friend or neighbor simply refuses to respect your boundries, pull a copy of L Ron Hubbard's Dianetcis out of your bag or pocket, touch them lightly on the arm, look them directly in the eye and tell them that there is something really important and life changing that you've been wanting to talk to them about. 

Sometimes you've just gotta outcrazy the crazies...

Good luck! 

BERNADETTE PAULEY Is a comedian, actor and TV host who, surprisingly, was not nominated for an EMMY this year. Check her site for tour dates! www.BernadettePauley.com
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Comments

[barbarra j Kennedy]

Agreed! Greet post.

[Leah B]

Ahahahaha!!! I love this post sooo much! "Have you ever caught yourself acting like such a crazy bitch you check your stomach to see if the words "help me" are scrawled across it?" - I pee'd. Seriously hilarious and so awsome!

[Bernadette Pauley (Comedian)]

Thank You Barbara Kennedy, so glad you concur!

[Bernadette Pauley (Comedian)]

Leah,
Glad you enjoyed this snarky little post, I pay your dry cleaning bill:-)
Bernadette