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Iman Muttaqin Yusof

When Cindi suffered her first severe psychotic episode a decade ago, she could no longer tell where reality ended and her imagination began.
“My reality and fantasy [were] all distorted. I had no idea what was real, what was not,” the 38-year-old, who asked to be identified only by her first name, told This Week in Asia.
“It was so severe to the point that I couldn’t even recognise my own family members. My mother was there, my brother was there, but they didn’t feel like my mother or my brother.”
Her experience has taken on new resonance in Malaysia after a court acquitted a 15-year-old boy of murdering his schoolmate Yap Shing Xuen, 16, on the grounds that severe schizophrenia had left him legally insane when he killed her at their school in Bandar Utama, outside Kuala Lumpur, last October.
Yap was found dead in a school toilet after suffering at least 180 stab wounds, according to a forensic report, in a killing that shocked Malaysia and intensified concerns over safety in the country’s schools.

On Monday, the Shah Alam High Court accepted testimony from forensic psychiatrist Ian Lloyd Anthony that the teenager had severe schizophrenia and was incapable of understanding the nature of his actions or that they were wrong.
His lawyer Kitson Foong earlier told This Week in Asia that the boy’s condition had gone untreated for several years before the attack.
“The court held that, because of his illness, the child offender did not know the nature of what he was doing and did not know that it was wrong or against the law,” Foong said.
After his acquittal, the boy was sent to Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta, a psychiatric hospital in Perak state, for treatment, counselling and medication.
Foong said the boy would remain there until he was assessed to no longer pose a threat to society, with any eventual release dependent on medical and psychiatric reports presented to the Sultan of Selangor.
But much of the anger since the ruling has centred on the word “acquitted”, with some Malaysians questioning why the boy should escape a murder conviction and others arguing that an insanity verdict had been mistaken for freedom.
In one online forum, the verdict quickly split opinion. Some users called for the death penalty and invoked “a life for a life”, while others stressed that the boy had not simply walked free and remained in psychiatric custody.
Yap’s mother, Wong Lee Ping, has also urged the public to back a petition calling on Malaysia’s Attorney-General’s Chambers to appeal against the acquittal, saying her family had few avenues of its own to challenge the decision.
“We are neither judges nor prosecutors. We are simply a family who has lost our daughter,” Wong said on social media, adding that the family wanted the proper legal process, including any available right of appeal, to be considered.

Cindi said she understood why the case frightened people because her own first psychotic episode in 2016 took her to a place she still struggles to explain.
At one point, frightened and feeling alone, she took out knives. After her mother locked her in an outside kitchen, Cindi repeatedly stabbed the door trying to get out.
“I felt very out of control, basically,” she said. “It’s like I’m witnessing everything from a different point of view, but I don’t know why or how to explain why I do this. I feel like I’m just looking at what I’m doing, but I cannot stop it … by then it was too late because I’ve already done the action.”
Police eventually took her to a psychiatric ward, where she was observed for about two weeks before being diagnosed with schizophrenia.
She then went seven years without another psychotic episode and today works, raises a five-year-old son and attends therapy, although severe stress can still trigger symptoms.
During a recent episode, Cindi called a crisis hotline and told her family she needed their help. As someone on the line talked her through what she was experiencing, she said the negative voices gradually stopped and she began to feel normal again.
“With the right intervention, with the right medication, with the right support, we are just as normal as anyone else,” she said.
Diagnosis in the dock
About 27 million people worldwide, or roughly one in every 300, live with schizophrenia, according to the World Health Organization, which lists persistent delusions and hallucinations among symptoms that can profoundly alter how a person perceives reality.
Mariani Md Nor, a psychologist and vice-chancellor of SEGi University, said severe psychosis could seriously impair judgment and a person’s understanding of their actions, but that was not the experience of everyone diagnosed with schizophrenia.
“We should not assume that schizophrenia means violence. Most people with schizophrenia are not violent,” she told This Week in Asia.
“The risk may increase when someone is experiencing severe untreated psychosis, particularly when other factors such as alcohol or drug misuse are involved. In fact, people with serious mental illness can also be victims of violence, discrimination and stigma.”
We need to be careful about taking one case and allowing it to shape how we see everyone living with schizophrenia
Chua Sook Ning, clinical psychologist
A review published last year examining 47 longitudinal studies involving more than 203,000 people with psychosis found that a previous criminal history had the strongest association with later violence, followed by substance misuse, with many treatment-related factors linked to a lower risk.
Clinical psychologist Chua Sook Ning, founder of mental health organisation Relate Malaysia, said the danger after a case such as the Bandar Utama killing was that the diagnosis itself could become the explanation for what happened.
“A diagnosis can become a very easy one to reach for. That can make schizophrenia sound as though it explains the violence by itself,” she said.
“Most people with mental illness aren’t violent, and acts of violence can occur in the absence of mental illness, so we need to be careful about taking one case and allowing it to shape how we see everyone living with schizophrenia.”
Cindi has felt those assumptions in her own life. She kept her diagnosis private for almost a decade and said the father of her son refused to marry her because his family was afraid of her schizophrenia.
“Schizophrenia is a treatable disease. It’s lifelong, but it’s treatable,” she said, adding that she now had an accepting workplace, supportive friends and continued access to therapy.
Much of her attention now is on raising her son, whom she hopes will never have to experience the same illness and upheaval that have marked the past decade of her life.
“I just hope that my son doesn’t get it. That’s all,” Cindi said. “I don’t want my son to go through the same suffering that I have … so let the struggle end with me.”


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Malaysia

A woman walks against a mural in Kuala Lumpur in August. A Malaysian court has acquitted a 15-year-old boy of murdering his schoolmate on the grounds that severe schizophrenia had left him legally insane. Photo: EPA

Late Malaysian schoolgirl Yap Shing Xuen with her mother Wong Lee Ping in images Wong shared on social media in tribute to her daughter. Photo: Facebook

About 27 million people worldwide, or roughly one in every 300, live with schizophrenia, according to the World Health Organization. Photo: Shutterstock

Malaysian mother honours slain daughter Yap Shing Xuen’s memory

A composite image shows late Malaysian schoolgirl Yap Shing Xuen and her mother Wong Lee Ping in images Wong shared on social media in tribute to her daughter. Photo: Facebook 

Yap Shing Xuen with her mother Wong Lee Ping in a photograph Wong shared on social media in tribute to her daughter. Photo: Facebook

Malaysian teen acquitted of murdering schoolmate Yap Shing Xuen

Yap Shing Xuen, 16, was found dead in a school toilet in Malaysia on October 14, 2025. Photo: Facebook

Pedestrians pass by a mural of the Malaysian national flag in Kuala Lumpur. The killing happened at a time of heightened public scrutiny of student safety and child protection measures in schools across Malaysia. Photo: EPA-EFE

Malaysian boy, 14, charged with murder of Yap Shing Xuen, his 16-year-old schoolmate

Yap Shing Xuen, 16, died at a school in Malaysia on October 14. Photo: Facebook

Malaysia arrests boy, 14, in fatal stabbing of female schoolmate

Police are probing a motive following a stabbing at a school, in Petaling Jaya. Photo: Bernama

Malaysia’s Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek said the ministry would extend its full cooperation in the investigation. Photo: Facebook/fadhlina.datosidek

This Week in Asia

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One woman details her experience of living with schizophrenia, saying ‘I had no idea what was real’ during severe psychotic episodes


One woman details her experience of living with schizophrenia, saying ‘I had no idea what was real’ during severe psychotic episodes.


Mental health

Yap Shing Xuen

Crime

Malaysia confronts complexities of schizophrenia after school killing ruling

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}One woman details her experience of living with schizophrenia, saying ‘I had no idea what was real’ during severe psychotic episodes

One woman details her experience of living with schizophrenia, saying ‘I had no idea what was real’ during severe psychotic episodes