Aunty Ejimoleke is one of my best aunties, she’s from Idem in Isiala-Mbano, my father’s maternal village ~she stayed with us in Lagos~ Aunty Eji or Osiro as she is fondly called when she humoured us-she humoured us often. Osiro is hardly pronounced with a serious tone, everyone always made jest of her.

Other times people would scream Osiro when they are frustrated by her disorganised speech or behaviour. I remember once when I was sick she made noodles added the spices that came with the packs and decided to graciously add salt to it. This is one of those instances when Aunty Osiro frustrated us.

But beyond this she always talks about how she was in a competition in church to win a wealthy husband and other times she talked of how she had won and then she goes back to talking of entering the same competition again and how she had won. She goes back and forth like that… Sometimes she won, sometimes she was still competing. Aunty also talked of how police personnels at the gate of our street was there to guard her and how they would get pissed if she left the house. The only problem was; there were no police officers at our gate in any of those times. Osiro would talk about how the government owes her money and how Lazarus Muoka was going to pay her soon. Of course we knew she was delusional.

People would often say…
“Osiro no well ooo.”
“Osiro don kolo.”
“This Aunty don mental.”

Even though I knew she wasn’t “OK” I didn’t fully appreciate that my beloved Aunty was suffering from symptoms of Psychosis until my sophomore year as a Psychology major when I came across the condition.
Psychosis is a symptom of mental health disorders that is characterised by a disconnection with reality; delusion and hallucination, and also disorganised speech and behaviour
Aunty’s behaviour and life was/is centered and propagated by her religious indulgence but, I never really took cognisance of any link between them however I met two random people during my stay in the village during the yuletide and the connection became glaring to me. On my second day in the village a neighbour came back to tell us of how he was not feeling well because someone sprayed juju into his food. I thought it was silly so, I laughed, I laughed because I thought it was silly and also because he wasn’t going to see my face because of the cloak of darkness that stood between us that night. I later learned that he talked and behaved in a delusional way. He believed strongly in the supernatural too.

…because religion makes people feel like they are the centre of the universe it may propagate symptoms of Psychosis. Especially in areas of delusion of grandiosity and persecution.


Ordinarily, it could be difficult to distinguish between normal religious beliefs and pathological religious delusions even in clinical practice.

However extreme it might seem, early Psychiatrists such as Freud argued that all religious beliefs are delusional.

Individually, when we try to distinguish from normal religious beliefs and Psychosis considering the number of people who share the belief can be helpful. For instance, most Christians believe in Jesus’ second coming but, believing that Jesus told you not to leave your room all day could be a sign.
“Therefore, recognition of social dynamics and the possibility of entire delusional subcultures is necessary in the assessment of group beliefs. Religious beliefs and delusions alike can arise from neurologic lesions and anomalous experiences, suggesting that at least some religious beliefs can be pathological.” Pierre JM. J Psychiatr Pract. 2001.

Most religious beliefs have no scientific basis; rationalists will readily label them delusional. However, Psychologists take the dimensional characteristics and cultural influences of religion into consideration when accessing normal functioning.

This is not an attempt to discredit religion (religion is understandably based on faith in the supernatural) rather, it is an attempt to educate on the subject of Psychosis and the role that religion plays so that we understand the signs and act early because delay could be detrimental.
See a Psychologist as soon as you can. You can also contact @MentallyAwareNG on twitter they are doing an amazing job.

https://solomonsarea./2019/01/13/psychosis-the-role-of-religion/