Hallucinations tormented the mind of a 58-year-old woman,
keeping her from leaving her bathroom in her flat in Jurong West
for two and a half years, reported The New Paper
(TNP).
From 25 March in 2009, 58-year-old Leong Mee Yan mainly sat
naked on the toilet bowl, and slept and ate there, the paper
said.
It was only on 13 September last year that her husband Ong Kian
Ann, who is unemployed, decided to call the police and ambulance,
it reported.
Leong was later admitted into the Institute of Mental Health (IMH)
where she stayed for 18 days.
When asked why it took a while for Ong to seek assistance, he told
TNP that whenever he tried to get his wife to leave the
bathroom, she would refuse because a “force” was holding her
down.
Ong was also reported by the paper as saying that the
hallucinations began affecting his wife in 1991, after one of her
sisters demanded for more money. It was not reported further what
the issue was about.
Since treatment at IMH, her condition has improved and bathroom
visit now last around one or two hours, he told the same
paper.
Psychologist Daniel Koh of Insights Mind Centre told Yahoo!
Singapore that a person suffering from mental disorders such
as schizophrenia or psychosis may experience hallucinations or
delusions, especially when the illness is not treated in its early
stages.
He highlighted that a person under extreme stress or pressure can
also experience hallucinations, which can be categorised as
auditory, visual and tactile.
Under auditory hallucination, one can hear voices telling one to
act or do certain things, including inflicting harm to one’s self.
In visual hallucination, the person tends to see things being
thrown at or a person harassing him or her. For tactile
hallucination, the person can smell or feel certain things, for
example, insects crawling on them, even though none are.
Koh said that family members can also keep a lookout for signs of
hallucinations, which is apparent when the person’s behaviour
starts to change from its usual self, like when they become easily
frightened, tend to panic or show great distress.
On the other hand, they can also turn passive or quiet, which also
indicates that their mental condition might not be stable.
As such, undergoing treatment earlier is the best option as the
chances of recovery are higher, but a delayed treatment, warned
Koh, might result the condition to worsen or become more
concrete.
-- Yahoo!
