(This is a story I told at THE MOTH StorySlam on July 23, 2019, at RichMix in London in front of approximately 300 people.)
When I left my apartment to take a little walk through my neighborhood in Manhattan that evening, I plugged in my earphones and chose to listen to a soothing sad album from one of my favorite guitar players. As I waited for the elevator, my phone suddenly switched songs to Big Trouble by John Lurie. I don’t know how, but it happened. It felt like someone had hacked into my phone. I’m in trouble, big, big trouble. It reminded a little of an episode I had during a couple weeks in July and August 1996, where I was convinced a film director was following me all around town and filming me with hidden cameras without my consent, I loved that!
I knew there was a camera in the elevator, and engaged in the BOLD theory again…that there is a film producer following me, and positioned myself in the elevator in a way so that the film crew could get great footage of me. PAUSE. As I walked towards the park under the gaze of all the hidden cameras it dawned on me, that I was heading towards one of the best protected parks in town, with many surveillance cameras all around, because the mayor of New York City lives in this park. With the help of the film crew controlling my phone, I was guided to different beautiful spots to dance in the park, simply by switching the song to an irresistible song to dance while I was walking, I knew that was my cue to stop and dance for that song at that specific spot. The park turned into my stage.
On my way home from the park, a couple of my fans approached me, my fans were three police officers and instead of asking me for an autograph, they asked me to get into the emergency car standing in the second row. I thought now I’m going to finally meet my film director, and got into the car and ended up in their film studio, which was in a hospital.
My blood was drawn and I was asked to give them all the cloths I was wearing and my belongings and they brought me to a bedroom in a closed mental ward. Instead of flowers, the psychiatrists gave me Clonazepan and Risperidone, which I refused to take.
Once my mother found out what had happened and where I was, she drove into town every day to visit me and repeatedly asked for my immediate release. She wanted to take me to her quiet lakefront home in Mountain Lakes, NJ, surrounded by many trees. The psychiatrists refused to let me even go home with my mother. They insisted that I needed to stay locked up under their care.
After refusing to take their medication for 7 days, they threatened to go to court with me, to get the order from a judge, so they could force me to take medications. Nice try.  My gut said they’d never be successful. But it did scare me, so I hired an attorney to represent me in court.
Then my mother dropped off a written statement with the Director of Psychiatry at the hospital, and also gave a copy of this statement to the the psychiatrists on my ward, explaining why she thinks there is absolutely no reason to keep me locked up in such an unhealthy environment. The director then scheduled a meeting with me and after being locked for 14 days … I was discharged without a court hearing. The hospital received $80,000 from my health insurance for this.
Under the present laws in the state of New York, I can easily get locked up again.
I’m deeply in love with New York City, but given the circumstances it made perfect sense for me to move back to Berlin. In Berlin the laws are different, no one can be kept locked up longer than 48 hours without an order from a judge. After arriving back in Berlin, I slowly tested the waters how people in public would react to my dancing. I knew I was protected by law, and gave it a go. I’d dance to the same songs I danced to on that tragic evening, wearing the same dress and making similar moves. Only the people in Berlin didn’t feel threatened. Quite the opposite. A couple people even gave me their thumbs up or filmed me with their phones.