But when the pandemic struck, people in his neighbourhood feared that he could potentially spread the coronavirus.
His sickly father – who is in his 80s – locked him up again as he lives alone and is unable to keep an eye on his son.
Made is currently under the supervision of psychiatrist I Gusti Rai Putra Wiguna.
“It is very difficult to eliminate shackling during the pandemic because the families are mentally stressed.
“There is also the stigma that people with mental health illness are hard to manage according to COVID-19 health protocols,” Wiguna said.
According to a Mediacorp survey, 36 per cent of people in Indonesia (out of a sample size of 1,000) said that their mental health has deteriorated as a result of the pandemic.
Among those who mentioned that their mental health has deteriorated listed public restrictions including mask-wearing, no travel and constrained social interactions as the top causes.
Particularly in tourist-dependant Bali, the province which was hardest hit economically by the pandemic, many people were struggling mentally and had to be taken care of, said Wiguna.
He said that in Bali the suicide rate increased by almost 100 per cent.
Citing data from a local suicide help group where he works, Wiguna pointed out that there were 68 suicide cases in 2020, 124 cases in 2021 and 58 in the first four months of 2022.
Hence, eliminating shackling was not the main priority as there were other urgent matters to handle.
There was also a shortage of personal protective equipment during the early days of the pandemic, so health personnel could not do home visits, he said.
Head of Bali’s health agency I Nyoman Gede Anom has a similar perspective.
Many people in Bali lost their jobs, which was also a source of depression, he noted.
He added that many people who contracted COVID-19 also became depressed.
“At the early stage of COVID-19, people were very afraid of it. Because there were no vaccines, we had no immunity.
“So if someone contracted it, there was great stress. There were cases when patients (who had COVID-19) were screaming, (or) wanted to run away from the hospital … because they were so depressed,” he recounted.
He added that there is a lack of mental health professionals in Bali.
According to the Mediacorp survey, only 43 per cent of those who were polled in Indonesia think their access to public mental health services is adequate.