I had a promising future in TV when I was detained under the Mental Health Act. In therapy, I came to terms with the trauma of my experiences as a mixed-race kid – and gained a new sense of creativity and identity
‘I love myself and I want to die.” Twenty-four years later, I still remember those first words I uttered to the psychiatrist on duty at the Maudsley hospital in London. I had been escorted there that morning by two police officers after being found on the platform of Brixton tube acting, in their words, “suspiciously”.
I was detained under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act for the next 28 days while they tried to work out what was wrong with me: a conveyor belt of plausible-sounding illnesses that came with an accompanying smörgåsbord of pacifying drugs.
