I remember this young man very well. I got phone calls from his mother about one hour before we close for 3-4 days continuously. The mother said she was bringing him back for review, but they didn’t turn up at the end.

Till that afternoon they showed up just before we closed. The psychiatrist was still seeing a patient so they had to wait for a bit. This young man went into the toilet, and spent at least 20 minutes in there, till the nurse was calling his name several times, looking for him in the waiting area and outside, still hadn’t found him. The mother said he was in the washroom. When the door was opened, he went back into the basin and continue with washing, washing his face and hands. We tried to stop him, telling him that doctor wanted to see him right now. It took another 5 to 10 minutes till he was literally dragged out from the washroom and into the consultant room.

Before he left, he stood there and wave to us as we said goodbye to him. He was there waving for like 10 minutes. The mother seemed to have given up, just stood by the clinic door to wait till he’d done.

This is the one and only time I see this young man with obsessive compulsive disorder, doing massive washing and arranging rituals.

Till recently, about two months later from when I first saw him, I met another very similar case and recalled this young man, wondering why he hadn’t come back for review, I decided to make a call to him, just to know how he has been recently.

He picked up the call, and when I asked “Good afternoon, are you Mr Chan?”, he answered, “I’m Mr Chan Ah Meng” (pseudonym). I stated where I’m calling from, and that I merely wanted to know how he’s been doing, why I haven’t seen him for such a long time. He said he has stopped schooling, now helping his father, he’s seeing another psychiatrist now, still repeating, so disabling that he had to stop schooling. When he said he was still repeating, he repeated it a few times. Other than that he’s been doing ok. I informed him if there’s of anything we can help him, he can call us back, then I hung up the phone.

Later I was busy with other work, my colleague told me that he called me back. So I rang him back, again he had to identify himself as Mr Chan Ah Meng. He said “nothing important now, nothing important now, nothing important now…” So he thanked me for calling and I said you’re welcome, I hung up again. Within few minutes he rang again, “what did you last say just now?” I said I couldn’t really remember, then he answered, “you said ‘you’re welome’, you said ‘you’re welcome'”… Then he thanked me again and I hung up.

And I hung up.

And I hung up.