“Girl, where are you?!? U ok??!”
That was the message one of Sabrina Bahsoon’s 800,000-plus TikTok followers left after the influencer, better known as “Tube Girl,” disappeared from social media for months.
The 25-year-old Malaysian-born law school graduate, who shot to fame with dramatic, lip-sync performances filmed on the London Underground, wasn’t taking a planned break from posting.
In fact, she revealed in a recent TikTok, she had spent four months hospitalized after developing sudden episodes of psychosis — and doctors may not have found the unlikely cause if not for her father’s pushing.
Bahsoon said the ordeal began in March, the same day she filmed one of her signature Tube videos with British girl group FLO. After returning home, she began crying hysterically.
“I was screaming, shouting, acting very psychotic,” she said. “Little did I know this was my first episode of psychosis.”
By the following morning, she had broken up with her then-boyfriend, a decision that caught her sisters off guard. They rushed over and found her in a distressed state, posting videos of herself screaming and crying and attempting to harm herself.
Her sisters called an ambulance, and Bahsoon spent two days in the emergency room, where she continued behaving erratically and barely slept. Despite her worsening condition, she recalled, she was discharged.
“This is where I start to lose my memory,” she said.
Based on what she later pieced together, Bahsoon became increasingly agitated at home, throwing things and attempting to hit her siblings. When her family called for help, police arrived.
“I was taken away in handcuffs because I was so violent, they had to restrain me,” she said.
After being sedated, she was transferred to a mental health facility and diagnosed with psychosis.
Bahsoon said doctors treated her with antipsychotic medication, but her condition continued to deteriorate. She recalled losing about 26 pounds, becoming catatonic and struggling to speak, eat and sleep.
“I lost control of my mind, my body,” she said.
After consulting a neurologist he knew, her father asked for further testing — specifically for anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, a rare but serious autoimmune condition that can cause psychiatric symptoms, seizures and movement problems.
Bahsoon said doctors initially resisted the request but eventually agreed to run the tests after about two months. Scans revealed an ovarian teratoma, a type of tumor that can trigger the immune system to attack the brain.
Ultimately, she was diagnosed with anti-NMDA (anti-NMDAR) receptor encephalitis.
Anti-NMDAR is a particular concern for young women, often striking in their 20s. Early symptoms can look like a psychiatric illness, including psychosis, agitation and dramatic personality changes, making the disease difficult to recognize.
While many autoimmune diseases are more common in women, a recent study of over 6,600 autoimmune patients found that women reported psychiatric misdiagnoses 50% more often — and psychosomatic misdiagnoses 75% more often — than men.
Bahsoon compared her experience to “Brain on Fire,” a 2016 blockbuster movie based on the 2012 memoir by New York Post journalist Susannah Cahalan, who chronicled her own harrowing battle with the disease after initially receiving an incorrect diagnosis.
The hospital later apologized for keeping Bahsoon in psychiatric care for several months without testing for the condition sooner, she said.
“That’s a huge chunk of my life that I will never get back, that I probably won’t ever remember.”
in June, Bahsoon underwent surgery to remove the tumor. She credited her surgical team with preserving her ovaries, and said she also received two rounds of immunotherapy to help eliminate the harmful antibodies. She was discharged in July.
“This altered my life,” she said tearfully, describing the loss of memories, the end of her relationship and the trauma of spending months in the hospital.
“And now I’m out in the real world and I’m trying to figure out what my new normal is like.”
Bahsoon said she considers herself fortunate to have received a diagnosis and treatment, particularly after seeing other patients who lacked family members advocating for them.
“Anyone who has these symptoms and is just diagnosed as psychosis, I encourage you to fight and get the extra scans and do the extra tests.”
