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At first i had a stereotypical mindset about mental patients that they are crazy. For example, they will just start acting up in public,talking to themselves and causes people around them to feel uncomfortable as it is unusual. This hence led me to distance myself when i see them.

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I felt that they would attack the public whenever they have a breakdown and start threatening others.  I grew up learning that mental illness cannot be cured and that it would only get worse since they are deemed to be in their own world most of the time. I was also taught since young to never criticise a mental patient for their plight, but at the same time i was asked to avoid them as they might "attack" me. The way people isolates them made me grew up thinking that they are dangerous, because even simple actions such as them waving at me would make myself turn paranoid and threatened

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i didnt really care and just dismissed the thought as they had no relation to me and i didnt want to be part of that topic as i felt it only brings about trouble as my parents always said

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I went to do volunteery work at imh before & i felt afraid(?) there were some patients whom were so irrational & unpredictable that it made me scared of them. Also, my grandparents / parents use "siao" very loosely so i didn't really care much about people with mental illness when growing up. I just simply brushed the issue off with the mindset that its too bad for them, its natural. I didn't particularly think that anyone was to blame for people having mental illnesses, i thought that it was a neurological problem. Like a deficiency or something wrong with their brain (???)

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whenever i see one of them in the public their actions truly stands out frm the ‘normal’ people. I will then immediately label them as ‘siao’ or ‘crazy’ and my parents wld always whisper to my ears ‘dont stare at them too much’ or ‘just ignore them la dont get urself into this’. The thought about synpathising w them have never crossed my mind as i always view them as ‘different’ and has nothing to do w me. There was once a man who i deemed ‘mentally unsound’ as soon as i see him, he was acting out on the bus shouting god knows what he even called out my brother’s name like ‘kynaz kynaz i like u’ or wtv bc he was wearing his class tee. That was the closest ive gotten to a mental patient. Right at that moment the first thought that strucked me was ‘wtf’ my fear slowly progressed to anger bc i found it annoying while my brother on the other hand was damn calm he just keep asking me to not care. Okay,but how?? It was q disturbing to me. People on the bus started giving him looks of disgust and thet started whispering frm ear to ear. I,myself was part of the crowd and looking at it know im rlly ashamed of myself for judging this quickly and not actually understanding his background.

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whenever i see mental patients i was afraid of them and would back away. i was afraid them because despite living in the area near to the imh, i hardly see them in public and thus have little to zero knowledge about them. i also have the stereotypical mindset that they are dangerous and would harm me in one way or another. i feel that this is because of how they are usually portrayed by the media which then leads to more people avoiding these mental patients.

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i don’t care about them as i hardly come across a mental patient. If i see a mental patient in public , i would avoid them as i feel like they would harm me. I thought that all the mental patients are the same as my friends and family would label them as “SIAO LAN”

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Initially, I had the impression that mental patients were dangerous. At least a large percentage of them. Mental patients are usually protrayed as irrational especially in movies and documentaries. The typical stereotype shown to us is that mental patients would scream and shout randomly in public and sometimes they might even attack a stranger without reason. For example, I have seen a documentary where a mental patient in Indonesia is being locked up in a shack just because he was found talking to himself. Because of the way media portrays Mental Patients I tend to distant myself whenever i see an erratic looking person.

Also, I've always felt that there were very little mental patients in Singapore. This is because I rarely have the chance to interact of even see them off screens. Even though my school is located near the Institute of Mental Health, I rarely see mental patients around the neighbourhood.

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At first, I never understood how mental illnesses work. I used to be afraid whenever I passed by a mental hospital because I had a perception of mental patients being 'killers' or someone that can hurt us. It did not occur to me that mental patients are people like us. The idea of mental patients being 'dangerous' was in fact, shaped by the way media portrays them. A cliché horror movie plot that we are all familiar with often shows a mentally ill patient as the antagonist. This induces fear in us as we assumed that anyone that is mentally ill is capable of harming us as they are not able to think 'straight'. But in reality, they used to be people like us, leading 'normal' lives. It is people like us with perceptions like this that triggered them. We isolate them because we think they are dangerous. Just like how I used to avoid certain strangers whenever I thought they did not behave up to society's standards. We are the actual antagonists.

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Once I encountered a man at the bus interchange and he was shouting to himself. When I went to queue for the bus behind him he started shouting at me. When he shouted at me, I begin to edge slowly away from him, making space between us as I was afraid of what he would do if I stood near him.On the media, we see parents dragging their kids away from mental patients as well and perhaps that may have been what made me do the same.

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Initial thoughts and feelings: Pity and sympathy towards them, felt that they were incapable of daily activities like most of the society. Thought their emotions were unstable and were not able to control their emotions without being called “siao”, afraid of them because of their erratic behaviour, and what they would do if I approached them or looked at them for too long, quickly moved away/ avoided eye contact when I saw them murmuring to themselves, immediate judgement when they started behaving out of the norm. Only witnessed mental patients talking to themselves, perceived them to be crazy from that because they were not conversing with anyone, didn’t understand how wide the spectrum can be for mental patients, only that they all behaved strangely and different from “normal people” Misunderstood mental patients due to no exposure to them, society tends to hide them away by enclosing them in mental hospitals, mental patients were not mentioned, and thus mental illness was something I rarely, or if not at all, thought about, also did not affect me -> none of my friends/ family were affected by mental illness. The term “mental patient” always had negative connotations to me, parents had warned me to not talk or converse to them when I do see them, always went home to tell them about mental patients and how they behaved, even though they did not harm me or any other people. “siao” “crazy” were always used as jokes to insult others -> quickly became a norm to me, developed a habit to insult others by telling them to go to the mental hospital because they were talking about something not typical, or acting extremely out of character.

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initially, i didnt know anything about mental illness because it has never been part of my world. i never felt the importance to find out more about it. i would think that all mental patients are the same. however, i never trivialised it. but as i grew, i made friends with people who was admitted into imh and listened to the stories that they tell me. they said that imh isnt that scary, except for the occasional shouting. the patients were nice to each other. that helped me understand a little of what goes on in imh, but i still didnt know much of it, till we started studying oc

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Initial thoughts and emotions: Before Off-Center, I've always been very afraid of people who are mentally ill. whenever i see and bump into mentally ill people especially when people by myself i will always fear that they will hit or scold me for no reason. the fear grew after i watched the movie 'Split' as the main character in the movie dissociative identity disorder and kidnapped and murdered girls that he dont even know personally FOR NO REASON. after the movie i viewed mental patients in a negative light of being violent and irrational therefore i grew even more afraid of them. Also, before the play i cannot and dont understand mental patients at all. i was aware of the fact that there are many different types of mental illness but i couldn't understand them nor sympathise them-needless to say, empathise w them. I saw them as people of another world although we r all in the same society. i will avoid and feel uncomfortable whenever i am near them as again, im afraid that they will hurt me hit/scold me. when there are mental patients

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I didnt care about mental illness due to the fact that it had no impact on me.And from personal experience as a primary school student i always rode with a student from pathlight,he would always start randomly smiling blankly.It is not normal to randomly smile at people.This further prompted to avoid people with mental illness.these led me to avoiding anyone who showed any signs of being mentally ill as i found them weird especially if they were just walking around and muttering to themselves.

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I started to feel the impact of mental illness as the play really made me reflect on how society, us normal people, are actually triggers of mental illnesses. I now feel sympathy for them and try to empathise with mental patients as i realise that they too, experiemce the same emotions/feelings as we do, maybe less, maybe more. But that doesn't make them much different from us. Our lack of understanding towards their thought process and deep emotions should not result in isolation of mental patients. I also realised that we "normal" people also go through emotional outbursts, just that our outbursts may be less intense. I also feel super sad about 🤬. Just imagining the intensity of the pain one was feeling- enough to corner and drive them into taking their own lives

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i learnt mental illness is the idea of being mentally ill is dependent on society and as long as you abide to social norms you will be considered "normal" and "mentally healthy" and the road to recovery is not through medication but instead focuses more on emotions and the caregivers being an important factor to the road of "recovery"

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they are many types of mental patient and we should not stereotype them. their mental illness is much more complex than what we perceive it to be. i feel guilty for stereotyping them as crazy and i realise that we a very judgemental society. i feel that mental patient is a very superficial topic and many people only look on the surface of mental illness. i feel indignant to the caregivers of mental illness. an example is when saloma tries to help vinod but vinod keeps further hurting her . she is treated wrongly but she does not argue back. this could be a downfall for salama for helping mental patients like vinod. hence i pity mental patients

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Every mental patient may suffer from different mental illnesses but we still believe that they use the same methods to be "cured". And what frustrates me the most is that some of the methods recommended are for "normal" illnesses such as a fever. One such method is eating healthily. This made me realise that even though we rely on science for many answers, mental illness cannot be cured through science. This confuses society as we are not used to science not being able to answer how to "cure" mental patients thus we tend to trivialise mental patients

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While helping those with mental illness is important.I feel that it is more important to teach those without mental illness how to interact and treat mentally ill people and accept them as who they are,be it a family,a friend or a lover of .As it is useless to treat mentally ill people only for them to relapse at us being unable to treat them for having suffered.Hence i feel that the education of those around mental patient is more important as by doing so they would not isolate the mental patients from society as they are able to understand more about mental patients

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after gaining insight on mental illness through oc, i realised that mental illness exists in many forms and its almost impossible to fully understand what mental patients face. i realise that science, which is the answer for most health issues, is unable to fully explain mental illness. i think that mental patients should not be judged so easily, because like the rest of us, there is something beneath the surface,

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i felt guilty for being part of our very judgemental society. mental patients’ illnesses are much more intricate than how we regard it to be. although i feel that helping mental patients to overcome their illnesses are important, i feel that educating the society is more important. we must learn to accept them in our society instead of discriminating and isolating them. if we still continue to be ignorant of their existence, it would be of no use to help these mental patients to integerate back to society if no one would accept them. this would also help the society better understand that it is not just the surface but there are more beneathe

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After reading the play i felt confused as the play depicts mental illness in a different way as how i view it. But i have a better idea that there are different types of mental illness and society is the one that trivialises mental illness. This causes me to sympathise with mental patients as their illness is not thier choice but have to face the constant insults of society.

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They are actually normal human beings which are just a little bit more unfortunate that us. Everyone suffers frm mental illness but to what extend. Honestly if it is not for society’s judgements and labels, there wld not be the term ‘mental illness’ and everyone will be treated equally. I understand that mental illness will not just happen in a snap of the fingers, instead it is an accumulation of 🤬 that one person has to go through. People are the root of all problems and we,the society, caused mental patients to become mental patients. I learnt to try not to fall into the social norms and stereotype mental illness into a cookie mould. There are many spectrums of mental illness and ‘siao’ is just such a vague word to describe them. The fact that society is isolating, trivilising and feeling indifferent towards them makes me super ashamed because im part of that society and i made those ppl feel damn shitty abt themselves.

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I felt responsible and liable to the social prejudices mental patients faced. I finally realised Off Centre just means not comforming up to society standards. As Singapore is a conservative country, some people are usually dismissed as 'siao' through simple actions like smiling to strangers. We are the actual triggers of mental illnesses. One day, one of us are going to be left out behind by the society. It is our responsibility as youths to be educated about mental illnesses and I believe the government should force all students to study literature to understand the deeper meaning of life and despair.

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After understanding the play in depth, i felt guilty and sorry for the mental patients. I am also part of society that had judged the mental patients and this causes me to reflect on my actions. The play changes my mindset and now i will not avoid mental patients whenever i see them around. I feel sorry for them as society will still continue to criticize and treat them differently.

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i feel frustrated at society for ostracising mental patients because they didnt ask to be who they are and who they are is probably caused by society. yet, society is the one that is unable to accept the people who are the result of society’s faults. personally, i treat my friends who are ex-mental patients like everyone else. i dont see them as different. this adds on to my frustration because it is easy to accept and live with ex-mental patients, yet society isnt willing to try. and for that, i feel sorry for mental patients and ex-mental patients because they are just like us, yet isolated because of the labels put on them.

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I feel indignant for mental patients as people always stereotype them as violent, when some of them maybe just be depressed and super sad & perhaps only violent to themselves but not hurting anyone else. I feel pity & sympathy for those who go through instense pain that drove them to taking their own lives.

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After studying oc, I feel that Mental Patients are just misunderstood humans. Everybody goes through tough times in our lives, however, Mental patients just seem to have it harder than the rest of us - in terms of their environment and support system. They are being stereotyped solely based on how they reacted when faced with a problem. Just because what they did was not a social norm they are ostracized and stereotyped. Furthermore, i also know that mental patients are not the only ones who are suffering but it is also their caregivers. These behind the scenes people are the ones who do not have anyone to lean on when they feel helpless.

I feel that the whole idea of Mental illness involves everyone(patients, society, caretaker, psychiatrist etc) Everyone has to work together towards recovery and everyone plays a part in it.

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i felt guilty and frustrated with myself for dismissing the idea of mental illness and that i actually had a part to play to cause the problem in the first place and that i could actually see myself in some characters such as mak.adding on that i did nothing so far to try and solve this problem but instead add to the problem cast it aside as being completely irrelevant to me.

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i want to view them w a more open mind. I feel bad that they have to go through such a tough life w society constantly judging and labelling them, refusing to change their perspective of mental patients.With the media misunderstanding them and not viewing them equally as human beings. Media trivilises mental illness which makes mental patients feel shitter about themselves. Worsening their current situation. Most importantly, they dont even have the power to speak up for their rights bc nobody will even bother to listen to them. ‘Words frm a mental patient’ how reliable is that?Honestly,mental patients did nothing wrong at all! Is being ill a choice??? No???? They dont deserve to go through such a sad life. I also feel rlly helpless bc the stereotype of mental illness are so strong that through a single person,not much change can be made. Mental patients will still continue to struggle w emotional and mental pain and they are going to be alone in that fight. People will still be indifferent towards them and despite being able to see the bigger picture of mental illness, i feel that i cant do anything to change the current reality.

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i felt very frustrated at society for trivialising the idea of mental illness. mental patients did not ask for this to happen to them and in fact it is the result of society’s social conditioning. in spite of this, society is still treating them like 🤬 and not caring for them. not only that, society also criticises and treats them differently from everyone who are “centre”. many mental patients are literally being stranggled by their own mental health but their struggles are being downplay by the society. mental illness is an extremely complex matter and it is not explainable even through science because its mental definitions are often vague and general and hard to conceptualise so i feel very useless in this matter as i am unable to help the society change its perspective towards mental patients. we should acknowledge that mental illness also affects everyone!

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Had understood mental patients and how they felt and how normal they really are -> acted the same as us, everything they did was considered “off-centre” once they were diagnosed, even if these actions would have been considered normal if the people considered “normal” had acted the same. Simple things like expressing their thoughts out loud or even walking into a room would get fear or condescension from people, was indignant at the behavior of society and how they treated mental patients, even though they had done nothing wrong. Started to feel that the prejudice and stigma against mental patients was not fair and irrationally once I started putting myself in their shoes, and how I would feel if I was treated like Saloma and Vinod, sympathy had changed to empathy when I understood how unfair it was to mental patients to be labelled and ostracized against wherever to go, with no form of escape, but perhaps only death (which Vinod chose) Understood how mental illness will never leave a person, despite how much they change or act after recovering, as the forgiving society will always remember them only as mental patients -> mental illness becomes part of your identity.

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i feel sorry for mental patients. their mental illness is not caused by themselves, instead it shaped by society . for instance, there are antagonists in the play like the PC. they are the people that bring mental patients down and aggrevate them. vinod actions are always judge by the PC. the PC does not understand vinod’s pain. he suffers from emotional pain but it is hard to show it and express it due the taking in of negative comments of the PC. however, he uses humour to downplay his mental illness which makes it difficult for society to understand mental patients problems. hence i feel sympathy for mental patients as their conditions are not just so simple and direct instead it is very deep and many fail to notice it.

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Mental illnesses are complex. There aren't any cures and the reason behind mental illnesses are unexplainable even by science. It is interesting as anyone from any background, be it educated or not can be mentally unstable. Someone as privileged as Vinod can be depressed. Someone as religious as Saloma can be scizophrenic. This really just proves the complexity of mental illnesses and how vulnerable all of us are towards it. It is an universal problem and should never, ever be regarded as something trivial. This makes me afraid because of how broad the spectrum of mental patients are, which can be found through the juxtaposition of Vinod and Saloma. This just means any of us can be the next and maybe, we can finally understand what they are going through.

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After the play,although i am accepting and understanding towards mental patients symptoms and problems,my stance towards them does not change as even though media perpetuates the negative stereotypes of mental patients being murderer or killers.There is some truth to this as mental illness varies from person to person and we will never be able to discern and predict how they act.

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There may never be a cure for mental illnesses however we should still make them feel like they are part of society as it wasnt their fault that they were born this way hence they dont deserve to have to go through the judgements that society has labelled them with, like "siow". The fact that we are just like Vinod, having to go through the rat race, the competition, gives us more reason to believe that mental patients are just normal people with some disabilities and if we can accept each other then why not them?

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Indignance at ill treatment of mental patients, felt guilty being part of the society that I was also angry at, and not doing anything to prevent these mental patients from resorting to 🤬 or helping them to cope with their illnesses, only avoiding or ignoring the stigma that is associated to be with mental illness, saw the helplessness of mental patients -> couldn’t do anything to escape the label of being called “crazy” despite attempts to reintegrate into society. Felt frustration at society and myself for just shoving the problem of mental patients not being able to integrate into society and stigma of them under the carpet since I felt that I didn’t have the power or ability to help them, and used this as an excuse to ignore this problem. Anger at society for pushing people out of the circle of what is thought to be “normal” even though this term is subjective and there will never be a standard norm, selfishness and ignorance from these people who shun others just because they don’t conform to their own views, pushing them to even 🤬.

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After the play i realised that most mental illness are not caused by genetic issues but instead by society. Most people with mental illness never commit acts of violence and they are more likely than others to be victims of violence, just like Vinod and Saloma. Instead, people who do not have mental health conditions are the ones putting mental patients down. They would do despicable things such as taking advantage of them, just like how Mr chow has to put on a facade to achieve his pathetic reward. Society's desperate measure turns outs explaining their plight.

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before reading off centre, i had an impression of mental patients being dangerous. my parents have always told me to “avoid them” and to “not make any eye contact with them”. this made me have a mindset of mental patients being scary & i was honestly super nervous whenever i see one of them. i’ve always had the impression that they might hit me or shout at me for no reason. along with that, i knew that there were many different types of mental illnesses & symptoms but i’ve never understood the severity of it until i read the book. the only thing i knew was that is that “if the case is too serious the patient might just 🤬 themselves” but i’ve never understood what led to it

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after reading oc, my impression of mental patients and mental illnesses have completely changed. i’ve realised that we (singaporean society) are one of the causes for their plight. we literally trivialise & stigmatise their issues on a daily basis. we represent the antagonists in the play. i’ve also learnt that mental patients do so much just to fit in to society. they take medications, they to halfway houses just so that they could integrate back into society. however, their hard work is always in vain as society isn’t ready to accept them. vinod was fired just because his boss his boss found out he was an ex-mental patient. how insensitive is that? why do society have to ostracise people who are different? they treat them as if they’re aliens. all they want is to be accepted by and treated normally. you know what’s even more sad? the play was written in 1993/1994? it’s been about 20 years and not much has changed. we can still relate to our daily lives now.

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honestly, i felt extremely guilty due to my initial impressions of mental patients. this play made me so much more open minded and i’m extremely grateful for that. i’ll never want to be the ignorant part of society that stigmatises, trivialises and even joke about mental illnesses. i’ve never realised how badly they were being treated by us (including the media). i felt super indignant when the media purposely mentioned “ex-woodbridge patient” in title of the newspaper. mental patients already receive enough mistreatment, judgement and stereotypes...... they’re literally adding fuel to the fire just to gain attention and get notebooks readers. also, the way mr chow treated his employees was terrible!!!!!! he told vinod “who would want to hire a person that is fine today and have a breakdown tmr” I WAS SOOO FRUSTRATED ( I WANTED TO SMACK HIM) how can someone be that insensitive just to gain affirmation. he is so disgusting i hope he rots in 🤬

more importantly, the indignance and frustration made me realise that i wanted to make a difference. i see myself standing up for minority groups whenever someone i know makes a rude and insensitive remark about them. i’m also considering helping out at the silver ribbon if i’m brave enough.

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After the play my impression of mental patients and mental illness took a turn. All along, (before OC), i didn't know how is mental illness developed and i never really made any effort in finding out as well. However after the play, i learnt that mental illnesses can be caused and triggered by the people around and that individual as well. Mindsets and environment are very crucial for one's mental heath. Also, mental patients are not given the choice to choose whether they want to be diagnosed with mental illness or not. Especially in Singapore where the environment is very stressful and rigorous. Yet mental patients are being stigmatised and getting weird looks from the "normal" people for something they DID NOT choose to have. Also, there's no such thing as 'normal'. People are considered 'normal' because they act along the social norms set by the society which is really ridiculous because who are they to decide that hearing voices and talking to themselves is considered crazy? And for people who dont follow the social norms, they are automatically considered 'crazy' and 'siao' and are pronounced as mental patients by professionals. I really question if mental illness really exist or is it just the result of the unnecessary social norms set by society.

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I feel guilty as after understanding the play, I realised that my initial thoughts and feelings towards mental illness and mental patients are exactly what H.Sharma is criticizing about our SG society. The ignorance and being judgemental towards mental patients is such a 'normal' thing to do that all along growing up no one has actually corrected my horribly wrong thinking towards them. not even my parents. this really made me realized how toxic the SG society is to the point that we can't even feel it. Also, i feel disgusted at the thinking of society. The (SG) society treats mental patients so horribly that many of them were drove to commit 🤬. it was so bad that they are taking their own lives just to not suffer from the social norms and expectations set by the society. I do not understand how after so many reports of mental patients committing 🤬 people still do not seem to get affected by them and are still able to continue with their own lives. its really very disturbing.

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Before reading OC, I thought that mental patients were just people which are mentally unstable and they would just break down and attack people randomly. Many people such as me would just avoid people which are acting weirdly in public and would not respond to them.

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After reading OC, I realised that there is really no specific cause to mental illness and it is ''normal'' people like us who cause them to be labelled as ''mentally ill''. The only way for them to recover is to reintegrate into society and behave like us (normal singaporeans).  But however, once they are labelled as mentally ill, this label will be stuck with them forever, just like ex-convicts. Society is the root of mental illness but also it is the solution to it, and through care and support is the only way they can recover.

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I felt guilty after the understanding the play as I am also one of the insensitive and superficial people in society. However, there is nothing I can do to change the situation as only the whole of society together can help by changing their views of mental patients and rendering help to them by showing affection. Not ostracising them based on their behaviour is also a way in which it can help the patients recover.

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Initially, i have thought of mental patients as different from the 'norm', often believing in stereotypes of them such as lashing out suddenly, mentally and emotionally unstable and obviously 'crazy'. I have encountered mental patients in public as well and would often avoid them for no apparent reason, worrying for my own safety as well based on stereotypes of them. I also did not consider them to be part of humanity.

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Through Off Centre, i constantly felt a pang of guilt as well as empathy for the mental patients as we, society are to blame for their illness and conditions. I would often chide myself for ever being part of the stereotypical and superficiality of society. Through Off Centre, i have come to understand that mental illness exists in many forms as evident form emily's and nirmala's behaviors unlike society's superficial perception of them being the same. I find it ironic as well that mental patients are helping one another but end up being detrimental to either themselves or the other party as evident from vinod's eventual death when we, society are supposed to help them and empathise with them.

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Coming to the end of Act 5, i realised as the play progresses, i constantly find myself getting frustrated with society's behaviour and attitude towards mental patients especially Mr Chow's and PC's behaviour. My family members also have stereotypical and negative perceptions of mental illness and patients and would often remind me to stay away from them when we encounter them in public. I could not help but to feel upset and to feel that if I were born a mental patient, will they be comfortable to see me being isolated and ostracized by society? If given the chance, i would definitely volunteer at mental institutes.

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I used stereotype mental patients as unpredictable and scary, espically when I witnessed a mental patient (Identified by a tag worn around his neck) touching someone on the bus. I did not want to be near a mental patient as I did not know what they would do to me. My point is further strengthened when reading negative news articles published about mental patients.

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After the play, I feel that mental patients are often misunderstood. The way they do things may be different from people who are "normal", because the "normal" people are the ones shaping the definition of being "normal" as they are the majority. Because of how closely society and media always watches and scrutinize the mental patients, when they do things out of the norm, we are ready to "attack" them.

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I feel guilty for ostracizing mental patients. Just like how society treats them, I used to always try to keep away from them, preventing myself from understanding them. I have always streotyped and labeled them as outsiders and different, and did not let them into my life. If not for the play, I wouldnt have understood how the society, including me have caused mental patients to suffer so much, and not be able to step out of the boundary set by the society.

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Before i read off centre, i was always afraid of mental patients. Through TV shows i always thought that mental patients live in their own world and is very erratic and would suddenly scream and shout or hurt someone. They are usually seen talking to inanimate objects or running around screaming. Mental patients to me were portrayed as dangerous, unpredictable and very childlike. Whenever i come across someone with mental illness on the street, my parents would pull me away from them and tell me to stay away from them as they are “siao” and that they would hurt me if i agitated them. I was always afraid of mental patients before i read the play. I used to also think that people who have mental illness are not pitful as they are to be blamed for behaving the way the behave or have that certian type of mental illness.

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After reading off centre i understand that we do not have to be afraid of mental patients. I also learnt that not all mental patients will be agitated easily or will hurt me. I learnt that there are many different types of mental illnesses and not all mental patients behave the same way. Some mental patients behave like us normal people and they speak with maturity like vinod and emily. I also learnt that mental illness is not caused by one’s own fault but people and society also contributes to the state mental patients are in. I sympathise more with mental patients now as i understand that they are misunderstood and they need help to get better. I also know now that next time my parents scold mental patients “siao” and that they would 🤬 me i would tell them off.

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I feel guilty for being afraid of mental patients and not understanding them. I also feel sorry for mental patients as majority of Singapore also feels how i felt about mental patients and nobody bothers to go and understand them and choose to believe the stereotypes. I also feel aggrieved as there are people like Mr Chow whonare treating mental patients unfairly and isolating them. This not only make them feel worse about themselves but also contribute in the deterioration of their mental state. After reading the play i feel a strong sense of injustice and i hope Singaporeans would change their mindset about mental patients and be willing to help them.

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before OC i was indifferent and did not care about the mental illnesses or the mentally ill as i could not relate to it. when i see someone in public behaving differently compared to the rest of the 'normal' people, i would just stray away from them and would not put much thought into it as i thought it was none of my business and it would not affect me in any way.

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after the play, i learnt more about the struggles coping with mental illnesses and that people with the mental illnesses are often misunderstood and there is this stigma that we should stay away from them and the way they receive discrimination and how they are treated is a issue that is not brought up often. moreover if everybody stays away from them, the ones who need help and support, who will be there for them?

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i had a stereotypical pre conceived notion of mental patients before learning and going into depth about it. I had a shallow mindset and trivialised mental illness as my lack of understanding compensated for my ignorance.

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after the play, i do not see this issue as something that does not affect me anymore. I feel that they need to given a chance in pursuing their ambitions and we should spare  thought and educate others about this issue as people with mental patients are very similar to us and we should be more grateful and help them whenever we can.

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Caregivers go through as much pain and discrimination, if not more, than mental patients themselves. The struggles of a caregiver who are obligated to provide support, love and care to their family members, who are unfortunate enough to have a chemically imbalanced brain, are vividly portrayed in the play. This gives us a better understanding of the plight of charachters in off centre for charachters such as mak and razali.

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My thoughts and feelings on mental illness is that it is an extremely complex issue that brings about several thematic issues that we currently face in latter time. There are many misconceptions that our society perceive, due to social constructs labelled by ourselves and what society deems to be “off centre”, anyone showing any type of behaviour that is socially deviant, will be labelled as mentally ill. This indignance that mental patients face on a daily basis, is a real stigma caused by society ourselves. If we could educate the masses, raise awareness and help the youth to understand mental illness, this stigma coul be fought and overcome