I’m deeply grateful to be living in a time where conversations around mental health are finally being taken seriously — or at least, considered at all 🙏🏾
However, I can’t help but notice one major downside of our so-called “woke” era: the careless use of serious diagnostic terms to describe people’s peculiar behaviour 🙃
As a mental health advocate and a person Living With Depression & Anxiety, I feel compelled to speak about the recent chaos surrounding the doomsday false prophecy 💔
In case you missed it — a South African preacher named Joshua Mhlakela predicted that the rapture would occur on September 23rd or 24th, 2025. When those dates passed uneventfully, he claimed a “calendar error” and moved the prophecy to October 7th or 8th, 2025. And here we are… already well into November 2025 🤡
But my concern isn’t with the false prediction itself. It’s with the people who genuinely believed it — and even publicly endorsed its so-called “truth”.
It hit home when I realised that one of the trending believers was someone I personally know 😱
Not just an acquaintance — a person who once attended the home cell group I used to lead. Now, for ethical reasons, I won’t name anyone. But I do need to clarify something important: there is a distinct difference between psychosis and delusion…
Psychosis is a medical term used to describe a collection of symptoms that occur when a person has trouble distinguishing between what’s real and what’s not. It can only be diagnosed and treated by a qualified psychiatrist ✔️
Delusions, on the other hand, are false beliefs that someone holds onto very strongly — even when there’s clear evidence to the contrary ✔️
See the difference? The more ethically responsible term in this case would be religious delusion, not “religious psychosis” ❌
Matters of mental health are far too serious to be trivialised or turned into social media labels. While we all have the right to express our opinions, we also carry the responsibility to do so with care and understanding 👌🏾
Before you speak, post, or diagnose — take the time to learn about the condition you’re referencing. Let’s protect not just our right to speak, but also our duty to speak responsibly 💯
Yours (but mine first),
Wikipedia® (2025). Predictions and claims for the Second Coming. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_and_claims_for_the_Second_Coming
Cleveland Clinic (2025). Psychosis. Retrieved from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23012-psychosis
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight”. What you are a talking about is a representation of this verse and is somewhat eye opening when it comes to what we really think is true.
An insightful piece Upsie. Thank you for drawing our attention to this aspect of mental health.
Thank you so much for reading and engaging! I truly appreciate your kind words ♡
If I had £100 for every Christian apocalypse prediction I’ve heard, I’d probably be able to afford to do a nice 5* hotel holiday. My mum is also someone who believes that it’ll happen in my life time. Sigh
I know the feeling all too well 😅 There’s definitely no shortage of end-time predictions — but sometimes it says more about our fears than the future itself!