Content warning
This page discusses suicide and self-harm. If you are struggling right now, support is available at any hour.
Most people who go through something terrible do not develop a disorder. The ones who do are not weaker; they are responding to a nervous system that has not yet finished processing what happened.
What it is
Post-traumatic stress disorder can follow exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or violence, whether experienced directly, witnessed, or learned about in relation to someone close. It involves intrusive memories, avoidance of reminders, changes in mood and thinking, and a nervous system that stays braced.
Adjustment disorder is different and far more common: a disproportionate distress reaction to an identifiable stressor such as a job loss, a diagnosis, a divorce or a move. It usually resolves once the person adapts, and it responds well to support.
How it shows up
- Intrusive memories, nightmares, or a sense of the event happening again.
- Avoiding places, people, conversations or reminders.
- Feeling detached, numb, or unable to feel positive emotion.
- Startling easily, scanning for danger, sleeping badly.
- Irritability or anger that arrives faster and larger than the situation warrants.
- Blaming oneself for what happened, or for surviving it.
Getting help in Singapore
A GP or polyclinic referral is the route to subsidised specialist care. Trauma-focused psychological therapies are the mainstay of treatment for PTSD.
Trauma-informed care awareness talks and workshops for parents and caregivers are among the caregiver courses listed by the Institute of Mental Health.
What help costs
Start with what is free, because a good deal of it is.
- National mindline 1771, 24 hours. Phone 1771, WhatsApp 6669 1771, or webchat at mindline.sg. No cost, no referral.
- Samaritans of Singapore on 1767, and CareText on WhatsApp 9151 1767. Also 24 hours, also free.
- Community Outreach Teams (CREST) are the general first stop. Community Intervention Teams (COMIT) go further, with counselling, case management and psychosocial support from qualified mental health professionals. Both are government funded and free to you. The wayfinding tool at aic.sg will match you to a team near where you live.
- Family Service Centres take walk-ins and there are 49 of them across the island. They handle counselling and money trouble in the same conversation, which is often exactly what is needed.
None of these asks you for a diagnosis, a referral or a card.
Subsidised treatment
Four mental health conditions are on the Chronic Disease Management Programme: anxiety, major depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Being on that list is what lets you claim CHAS subsidies at a GP and use MediSave for outpatient treatment. Dementia is on the programme too, handled as an ordinary chronic condition rather than under the mental illness heading.
One detail catches people out. For those four conditions, not every CHAS GP can claim. The clinic has to be accredited under the Mental Health GP Partnership Programme. Ask when you book, not after the consultation.
At a public specialist outpatient clinic, including the Institute of Mental Health, subsidies run from 30 to 70 per cent for citizens depending on household income per person, and a flat 25 per cent for permanent residents. The referral is what unlocks that rate. Get one from a polyclinic, or from a CHAS clinic if you hold a CHAS card. Turn up without one and you pay private rates.
MediSave
You can use MediSave for outpatient treatment of those four conditions. The limit is $500 a year, or $700 if your case is complex. Both rise, to $700 and $1,000, in January 2027. Until then the lower figures are what you have to work with.
A 15 per cent co-payment normally applies. It is waived if you use MediSave at the clinic you enrolled with under Healthier SG. Ask your clinic whether that is you.
If someone is admitted
MediShield Life pays $230 a day for psychiatric inpatient care, for up to 60 days a policy year. For a standard ward stay that is not psychiatric it pays $830 a day. That difference is built into the scheme, and it matters if a long admission is a possibility.
What people actually pay
Once subsidies are applied, most people being treated for these conditions pay somewhere between $300 and $500 a year, depending on how complex the treatment is.
If money is the thing standing between you and treatment, say so at the clinic rather than quietly stopping. Medical social workers at the public hospitals assess for further help, and Family Service Centres and Social Service Offices deal with the financial side alongside everything else.
If you are the caregiver
Do not press for the story. Asking someone to narrate a trauma before they are ready is not catharsis, it is exposure without support. Being reliably present, keeping ordinary routines intact, and not reacting to the irritability as though it were about you are more useful than any conversation you can engineer.
Support for families is listed on the caregiver support hub.
When it is urgent
If someone is in immediate danger, call 995. National mindline 1771 and Samaritans of Singapore on 1767 both operate 24 hours.
This page is information, not medical advice. It does not diagnose, treat, or replace an assessment by a qualified professional. If you are in crisis, call 995 or one of the helplines listed on this site.