Unlawful

This time last year I was a mess. A complete and utter suicidal wreck, and exactly a year ago today I was unlawfully detained by the police because of my mental illness. I've had a lot of really positive experiences with the police (and I definitely will write about them soon) but it's a year later and I'm still having the most horrific nightmares about this one.

I was absolutely trollied on a bad idea cocktail of a whole bottle of shitty wine and 4 cans of cider, so you'd think I wouldn't remember this but I remember every single detail. I was in a bad way because this time of year is a bad time for my PTSD anyway, and when one of my friends called the police because they were concerned about me I was expecting it to be buisiness as usual. I'd already been detained a couple times that week and mental health services had put together their typical lack-of-care plan for me, which surprisingly was about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

From the get go the police officers who turned up were overwhelmingly confrontational with me. I sat down on a bench and was having a panic attack, and instead of allowing me the tiniest bit of space to self regulate and calm down put me in handcuffs. This was the second time in my entire life that I've been put in cuffs by police officers and it was distinctly unhelpful. I wasn't a risk to myself or anyone else, I was just sat down on a bench sobbing my eyes out and the next thing I knew some man was slapping me in handcuffs and dragging me down the street. No conversations, no how are you - I didn't even know their names. When I'm having an anxiety attack one of the things that helps me regulate is rubbing my earlobes and lightly scratching my nails up and down my arms - this is a behaviour that is common among autistics called stimming - and those actions are impossible to do with your hands stuck behind your back. Suppressing or not being able to engage in stim behaviours physically hurts me sometimes too, so the whole situation sent me into an autistic meltdown, on top of the distress I was already experiencing.

The whole way down the high street the police officers alternated between mocking me - calling me stupid/crazy/silly and a whole host of other names - and making me sit down/stand up/sit down/stand up. Whatever I did was wrong. It was like a very confusing and distressing game of musical chairs. From there the police officers took me home, and I thought that would be that.

Unfortunately it wasn't.

I was sat in my living room, still distressed, and the police decided to detain me under section 136 of the mental health act. If you're not familiar with this part of the law - here's a short explanation I ripped straight from the College of Policing website:

Under section 136 MHA 1983, if a person appears to be suffering from a mental disorder and in immediate need of care or control, a constable may, if they think it’s necessary to do so in the interests of that person or for the protection of others, remove the person to a place of safety or, keep the person at a safe place.

Section 136(1A) allows this power to be exercised in any public or private place other than:

• a house
• flat or room where that person, or another person lives
• any yard
• garden garage or outhouse that is used in connection with the house, flat or room, other than one used in connection with one or more houses, flats or rooms.

But I was in my living room so they couldn't detain me under that part of the law, right? Right.

But they still did. I told them repeatedly that it was unlawful, and I begged them to check with their control room that they weren't making a mistake - they refused to. And I get it, I really do! The police deal with members of the public telling them how to do their jobs and saying that they "know their rights" day in day out, when really they're just taking the piss. Why would a drunk 18 year old be any different?

I learnt very quickly that day that freedom really is just an illusion when you're mentally ill. 

Even if you're right, nobody will believe you. The law is allegedly there to protect us, but screaming "you can't do this, this isn't legal" at a group of police officers as they're dragging you out of your house at 2am really doesn't achieve anything. Sure, you can get an apology afterwards. I know I did - I apparently wrote the longest complaint that the inspector receiving it had ever seen - but that really doesn't take away from what happened, or make anything better.

It took a long time for me to feel safe in my house again, I was scared that the police were going to come and drag me out of it for no reason. They'd done it before, what would stop them doing it again? A lot of my pre-existing trauma included being trapped somewhere/not able to leave/having people keep or take me somewhere, so this whole experience added fuel to the fire.

To make things worse, when they took me to A&E (there were no 136 suites available) the emergency department nurses refused to even let us sit in the waiting room - another thing that shouldn't have been allowed to happen that night.

I spent 12 hours sat in the cell part of a cold dirty police van, with a bruised head, a concussion that nobody got checked out until I got taken to a place of safety and a massive hangover. I didn't even know it was possible to get a hangover while still being awake, but it definitely is!

I don't think I'll ever do justice to how horrific that experience was.

In case you're wondering what happened when I had a mental health act assessment that time - they sent me home with no further support. No surprises there!