Mental Illness Suspected in "Fairy Abduction"

On October 25, family members of a 22-year old Malaysian woman reported her disappearance to police and that the woman had sent them a text message stating that she was being held captive by orang bunian (fairies).  

This was not the first disappearance for Siti Balqis Mohd Noor of Kampon Gong Nanka, Malaysia.  She had previously reported multiple "strange experiences" in which she apparently vanished into thin air and was later found in unexpected places, including the roof of her house, a nearby cement mixer, and a cemetery ten kilometers from her home.   After all of these occurrences, Siti would report that she had no memory of what had happened.   She has stated that, "“I can’t seem to recollect what happened or how I ended up at those places. There were times I could see my family next to me, calling out my name.  I shout out to them or try to touch them, but I seem to be invisible to them. Once, I ended up in an abandoned house. My uncle was just next to me but he could not hear or feel me.”  She said the cemetery episodes were the scariest thus far.

When her family learned to recognize the pattern of her disappearances, they arranged to keep her under constant watch.  As her mother has stated, "all it takes is to look away for a split second, and she's gone".  Although the family engaged the serviees of a number of bomohs (shamans) to deal with the disappearances, Deputy Committe Chairman Datuk Din Adam has gone on record as speculating that Siti suffers from schizophrenia and likely needed a psychiatrist.

Police later traced the text message to a friend's house in the town of Jelebu, 600 kilometers away where she had travelled by bus on her own.    A police team has been sent to bring her home.

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Comments

[Neuroskeptic]

Those are not the symptoms of schizophrenia. No paranoia, no thought disorder, at least not from what's stated in the article... there seems to be no reason to diagnose her with that beyond the fact that she's obviously got something wrong with her.

the episodes of memory loss and wandering sound more like some kind of non-convulsive seizure. though they would have to be very long ones.

If she were asleep when it happened, it could also be REM behavioural disorder, i.e. acting out your dreams. The hallucinations sound very dreamlike.

[Romeo Vitelli]

The schizophrenia diagnosis is what armchair clinicians typically seem to favour in sight-unseen patients since it's the most well known mental disorder. Whether she has a major mental illness, a neurological condition, or even a dissociative disorder is something that only a qualified mental health professional should determine after seeing her. Pity they're in short supply in that part of the world.

[Mary Murphy]

ah, the beauty of technology, it can add real teeth to the "liar, liar pants on fire" accusation.

[Zabella]

From the way the story sounds its nothing to do with mental illness, i believe its more of a supernatural thing, the sad thing is that if she remembers these episodes of abduction and tells someone where shes being abducted to, it could be either an alien which i doubt, or fairies, goblins, changlings but they only abduct babies, and/or elfs nobody on this earth would believe her. I wish she could remember where is she being taken, because if she ends up somewhere else naked than i know its to fairyland, if she comes back home and feel nausaus, dizzy, strong migraine, some nose bleeds, or any kind of dotted marking on her skin than its definitely aliens,,, but i have a feeling its to fairyland she's being taken to. You guys i dare for you to insult this comment, i believe and i wish i could communicate with her in person, but if anyone insults this issue i gaurantee that the same thing may happen to you or even worse, so pray that your blood type is not negative because you will be taken away from aliens....