Hijacked: Frank Bruno in his desperate state

Lucky old Frank Bruno, poised to grab triumph from the teeth of despair. Sectioned under the Mental Health Act, the former boxer is in a psychiatric hospital, following what is routinely described as a two-year decline, but was probably a much longer period of illness.

If that doesn't seem much like a stroke of luck, then you're just not looking on the bright side. As soon as Mr Bruno is well, a new career awaits him. Mr Bruno is being lined up as a poster boy for mental illness, a one-man campaign to make us all become more compassionate about disorders from depression to schizophrenia, whether he wants it or not.

The Sun has already launched a fund in Mr Bruno's name, to recognise "the vital work done by the charity Sane". Let's hope, shall we, that when Mr Bruno recovers enough to make his own decisions about what organisations he wants to use his name to endorse, he'll agree with the decision that the tabloid has made on his behalf.

The Sun's great outpouring of sensitivity was prompted by the public revulsion sparked by the same newspaper, when it made front-page news of Mr Bruno's admission to hospital with the pitiless headline "Bonkers Bruno locked up". It was changed for later editions to "Sad Bruno in mental home" - which doesn't actually seem that great to me either - but appears to have been good enough to get Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the charity now receiving the largesse of Sun readers, firmly on the tabloid's campaign team.

Ms Wallace has announced in the paper that "I believe the star's high-profile case gives us a tremendous opportunity to change our perceptions of mental illness. It has brought to the fore a lot of misconceptions and is already encouraging greater understanding".

I can understand that Ms Wallace's opportunism is entirely benign, borne only of frustration at the continuing parlous state of mental health provision in Britain, and hope of a major breakthrough after many years of tireless campaigning for greater understanding of a complex set of issues. Yet I cannot help feeling that it is entirely wrong to be hijacking the man's difficulties in this fashion, at a time when he is unable to speak for himself.

This is particularly worrying when the The Sun still doesn't appear to understand what on earth is going on. In a mawkish editorial, the paper congratulates the 41-year-old for having "done the right thing in getting help". All the signs are though, that Mr Bruno remains in some denial about the idea that he does need help. He is not a voluntary patient, and is being detained, technically at least, against his will for 28 days. His apparent loss of control over his own circumstances is part of the reason why it is so distasteful for others, whatever their motives, to be carving up his present and his future for him in such an unseemly fashion.

Partly this is because we have become schooled in expecting celebrities to translate their personal suffering into charitable effort. The assumption is that a public-spirited man in the public eye, one who has always had plenty of enthusiasm for good causes, will not hesitate, once he is in a position to, to embrace the idea of himself as an ambassador for mental illness.

Mr Bruno, when and if his ordeal ends, will find that such a role is expected of him. If he has any reservations, though, it seems grotesque that his illness may lead to new pressure, of a kind he may find entirely unwelcome, yet at the same time difficult to refuse.

It is actually rather patronising to assume that, given the autobiographical temper of the times, everyone is desperate to turn their personal experience, however ignominious they might find it, into a universal lesson.

For the unpalatable fact is that Mr Bruno may not actually want to dwell on his present difficulties. As Ms Wallace and many others point out, it is wrong for people to feel a sense of shame over mental illness. That in itself, though, doesn't stop people from having negative feelings.

Mr Bruno's public image has always been characterised as "happy-go-lucky", and clearly he was happy with the image he projected of himself as an uncomplicated and cheerful family man. He may find it humiliating that a quite different truth has been revealed in such detail. It may even harm his recovery when he realises just how much anecdotal evidence has been published about his alleged recent bizarre and erratic behaviour.

On the other hand, it may turn out that Mr Bruno can surpass all of Ms Wallace's wildest dreams, emerging as an articulate and powerful advocate for the issues he is already being teed up to represent, and able to do exactly what is hoped of him in provoking a tipping point in attitudes to mental health.

Mr Bruno would certainly be a valuable figurehead in this sort of role. He still commands a great deal of public affection. Reports from inside Goodmayes hospital in Ilford, where he is detained, of piles of well-wishers' bouquets spilling into the corridors, attest to this. Further, Mr Bruno is the sort of celebrity who is only burnished by the revelation of vulnerabilities. His popularity has always been bound up with his unthreatening persona and puppyish innocence. The fact that he was an enormous, powerful heavyweight boxing champion only added a frisson of paradox to the big man's soppy gentle giant enthusiasm. So too, the news of his struggles with depression, will feed into that perception.

The public has been told that it can learn many clichéd lessons from Mr Bruno's illness, the most trite among them the lesson that even people who seem to have it all, have their problems. But Mr Bruno, of course, didn't have it all. His career had ended when he was still a young man, and his marriage had disintegrated not long after that.

The start of Mr Bruno's breakdown is usually traced to his divorce a couple of years ago. But it is possible that his incipient difficulties contributed instead to the end of his relationship. Whatever the truth, one thing is certain. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that Mr Bruno's life was not a fairy tale.

Yet if we are truly to become a society that properly understands and cares about people with mental illness, then Mr Bruno is not necessarily the perfect role model he appears to be. He is being portrayed as a victim of circumstance, a person who did nothing to contribute to his downfall.

Yet for others suffering from mental health problems, the narrative of blame is usually the one that is adopted. The homeless are despised, even though many of them have mental health difficulties, as is the prison population, even though depression, and many other more serious disorders, are rife and largely untreated within the penal system.

Drug addicts are despised as well, even though addiction is a mental illness as real as, or perhaps even a form of, obsessive compulsive disorder. People with eating disorders such as bulimia, even after the advocacy of Diana, Princess of Wales, are regarded with impatience and repulsion.

Perhaps Mr Bruno will emerge from his illness robust and brave enough to speak for all these blighted people, and the many others who cannot find the help they need. However, until he is well enough to decide for himself, no one should behave as though they have power of attorney over his future.

d.orr@independent.co.uk