Porter looking forward to the future

Former model and tv presenter Gail Porter London - Arabstoday   It’s been six months since Gail Porter was forcibly admitted to a psychiatric hospital suffering from a shattering nervous breakdown. But the former model is now looking forward to the future and already making light of the mental illness that left her locked away in a mental institution for several weeks. Speaking to the Sunday Mirror about her recent drama, Gail said: “This has been the worst year I have ever had but if I have learned, anything it is that you can make light out of any ­situation. Obviously being, sectioned is not the best thing to happen, but a lot of funny things ­happened too. I am old and ­knackered, bald and mental... but at least I can laugh about it.” She also told the newspaper that she can't keep alcohol around the house or she'll drink it. Gail said: “I try to stay away from booze, too. I have never actually been alcohol-­dependent but it has been an issue for me. If I do drink I usually end up in tears anyway. We don’t keep alcohol in the house. I couldn’t have a bottle of wine in the house because I would drink it.” The former model and TV presenter has suffered from depression since her teens and six years ago lost her long blonde hair to stress-related alopecia. Over the past couple of years she has been driven to breaking point by the deaths of her mother, two of her ­grandparents and two close friends. It all came to a head in April while she was out walking after a sleepless night and sent a despairing text to her partner, rock musician Jonny Davies. He feared she was about to attempt suicide and called the police, who found her at a London pub and took her to hospital. “ I don’t think I would have really hurt myself but I was in a bad way,” says Gail. “It was my lowest moment yet and I have had some low ­moments. In some ways it feels like it hasn’t really happened, as if it happened to someone else. I don’t really remember the first day in the hospital but the rest was horrific.” On May 17, three weeks into her sectioning, Gail was told she would be allowed to go home after a third doctor assessed her and decided she could continue her treatment as a day patient at the Tavistock Centre, her local mental health centre. This she did until the end of July when she felt her condition hadn’t improved enough and she decided to fly to Thailand for a two-week rehabilitation programme at Chiang Mai clinic. Gail said it was the process there that allowed her to see the light at the end of the tunnel.