by Rose Wilde

The Covid lockdown was all my fault, or so I thought. I had tickets to the Pet Shop Boys, and Donald Trump had to stop me from seeing them at all costs, so he brought in the pandemic. 

I was mad, delusional. I had got psychosis, unbeknownst to me. It all started in March 2020, and I believed all sorts of strange stuff.

The good stuff is the friends I had- lots of them. They kept appearing out of nowhere, and they were all famous. David Attenborough was one – we used to talk about trees and how to save the planet. Jack Whitehall took me out for a long walk to Coatbridge one day, or so I believed. I had a delusional boyfriend too, Ian – just ask my neighbours, they heard me talking to him.

I even made the silver foil hat like a stereotypical schizophrenic would, and put hundreds of A4 posters on my walls, saying things like ‘I want Size 36D boobs’, ‘Destroy cameras in my head', 'stop Simon Cowell doing his evil shows’, ‘reset the planet’, ‘I will be a stand-up comedian’ and ‘I’m marrying Ian’.

I was suicidal in 2021, I even took an overdose because of what I thought Simon Cowell said. ‘Simon says do it’ – so I did. I became a conspiracy theorist. I believed Covid was all made-up and kept messaging important people who could help me fix the planet, like Hil;ary Clinton, Barack Obama, Nicola Sturgeon, David Icke and Boris Johnson. I have to apologise to everyone I abused on Twitter.

I got help, eventually, in May 2021. It took cutting all my hair off, cutting my knickers up, and setting fire to my clothes. The fire brigade was called. Then I smashed up my house and the police were called. I got sectioned because of that. I was hospitalised for two months. Ian was with me till they put me on medication, then he fucked off without a word.

Then about a month and a half in, I had a eureka moment and suddenly realised I’d made a huge mistake. It was all in my head – including Ian.

This is where comedy comes in. After I was discharged, I was living in a quantum field that I had isolated myself in.  I didn't have a life; I'd lost everything – all my friends apart from two.

But I found this drama group, Fool On, at a local club and decided to go. I attended my first meeting in January 2023. It was a bit bizarre, as it was the group leader’s birthday; they were having a big party for him, but he took more interest in me and my story than the party. I thought that was strange. Or am I that interesting? That never crossed my mind. 

Anyway, he heard my story and looked at the drawings I made during my psychosis. Turns out he had had schizophrenia too, so understands the illness and what I went through.

The group contained a really lovely bunch of friendly people, all different in their own way. I meet autistic people too – a first for me. I have a great understanding of autism now. 

The group encourages people to sing and perform. I am an incredibly shy person and have been brought up to believe it’s bad to show off, so the thought of getting a lot of attention horrified me 

But within three months of first attending Fool On I was singing karaoke – starting with the Pet Shop Boys.

I was not working at this time and had loads of time to kill, so I threw myself into the group and volunteered with them. It was a great self-esteem boost. I now had a community around me; I was part of a tribe, and that was a first for me.

Then one day the leader said he was running a comedy course. In the back of my head, I heard a disco beat. I was thinking, this is a route to me apologising to everyone I had offended on Twitter, where I had been locked out of my accounts so I couldn't delete them or post an apology.   I thought, ‘What the hell? I’ll do the course; my plan might work. I’ve nothing to lose.’

Turns out Raymond Mearns was the comedian teaching us, not that I’d heard of him. For our stand-up, he asked us to tell a story about something embarrassing we had done. Mine was sending a vibrator to Donald Trump at the White House when I was delusional. The set is still on YouTube.

I met Tez Baker on that course and we have become great friends, with Tez being the driving force behind our club night Mischief and Mayhem Comedy.

My confidence was growing and I realised that to cure myself of my guilt I had to tell everyone my story and why I was sorry. I’d tell it through comedy and I started to not give a shit what people thought of me – they haven't been through what I’d been through. How can anyone know how they’d act after psychosis?

The next course I did was with Viv Gee; this is when I did my next set, all about pegging, swinging, landscaping – and home-made strap-ons. 

My next set was another true-life experience. I'd seen Des McLean and had an intense hour-and-a-half of comedy lessons with him. He gave me the confidence to do a set with props. I’d dabbled in escorting/dominatrices in 2017 – it was All the Rage in the community I was in – and I worked hard on a set about that, with a suitcase full of sex toys.

My comedy partner Tez Baker and I have done shows at Edinburgh Fringe, Glasgow International Comedy Festival and Breakneck Comedy in Aberdeen – where I totally forgot my script. I made my excuses and left the stage. My mind totally shut down that day., That incident knocked my confidence a lot. I had to find a solution for my short-term memory and sequencing problems.

I now use a clipboard with cues to my next lines so I don't forget. I felt ashamed about this to start with, as everyone else was doing it from memory. But I couldn't remember my name, let alone a five-minute set.

I can now do what I set out to do and apologise to everyone I offended in my Twitter posts about Covid; to the NHS, the police, my neighbours; and to all the famous people who I had delusional ideas about in my psychosis. With that apology, I feel like one of my missions has been completed.

I've friends now – real ones, not delusional ones – and more than 600 Facebook friends. I've got a job, a hobby, and a life. All thanks to comedy 

And I even finally got to see the Pet Shop Boys in concert last year.

Published: 3 Sep 2026