Whitney is her name. No wonder she could sing almost like the legend herself (Whitney Houston), well, her last name is not contributory to this narrative. A good friend she is, in fact, I had psychotherapy sessions with her where we almost bonded, and I had to refer her for ethical reasons. She was raised on hymns and morning devotionals, on Scripture memory and the quiet certainty that God watched not only what she did, but what she thought. Her childhood faith was not harsh; it was gentle, ordered, sincere. Purity was spoken of as something beautiful, something to be protected. Desire, however, was spoken of rarely—only as something to be postponed, disciplined, and eventually sanctified within marriage.
So when her thoughts began to wander in directions she could not name aloud, she assumed it was a spiritual failure.
The fantasies came uninvited. They were specific, repetitive, and disturbing to her, not just because of their intensity, but also because they persisted even after she prayed. She fasted. She repented. She cried during worship, certain that if her tears were sincere enough, God would take them away. But the images returned, stronger in moments of stress, loneliness, and silence.
What frightened her most was not the desire—it was the loss of control.
She began to ask herself questions she was ashamed to think: Why does this keep happening?
Am I perverted?
Is this sin, or sickness?
If my mind betrays me, can my faith still be real?
She stopped taking communion. She avoided leadership roles. She smiled in church while privately monitoring her thoughts, constantly scanning for moral failure. Over time, this vigilance exhausted her. Her prayer life became anxious, transactional—less about closeness with God and more about damage control.
At night, she wondered if something was wrong with her mind.
She googled terms she hoped would reassure her and instead found words like paraphilia, obsession, compulsion. Each word felt like a sentence. She oscillated between fear that she was mentally unwell and fear that she was simply wicked and trying to medicalize sin.
Her Aunty advised her, but the idea of seeing a psychiatrist felt like betrayal—of her faith, of her upbringing, of the belief that spiritual problems should have spiritual solutions. But the distress became unbearable. The thoughts were no longer just intrusive; they were shaping her self-concept. She no longer asked, “What am I thinking?” but “Who am I becoming?”
I did not flinch when she spoke.
That alone startled her.
I listened carefully, asking questions not to interrogate her morality, but to understand her experience. He asked about onset, frequency, distress, and control—not about whether she believed God approved. When she finally asked, voice trembling, “Does this mean I’m not a good Christian?”, I paused before answering.
I told her something that would stay with her.
“Thoughts are not character. Fantasies are not identity. And distress about them often tells us more about your values than the disease”. I explained how sexual fantasies can arise from conditioning, anxiety, early exposure, or even as a paradoxical response to strict suppression. I explained the difference between having a thought and endorsing it, between impulse and action, between moral struggle and mental illness.
Most importantly, I did not force her to choose between faith and psychiatry.
Instead, I helped her see how shame had amplified her symptoms. How fear had turned private thoughts into monsters. How relentless self-surveillance had eroded her sense of self. Therapy did not aim to erase her sexuality, nor to dismiss her beliefs, but to help her hold both without self-destruction.
Slowly, she learned to sit with thoughts without panicking. To name them without condemning herself. To understand that mental stability is not the absence of unwanted thoughts, but the capacity to respond to them with clarity and compassion.
Her faith changed—not disappeared.
It became quieter. Less performative. More honest.
She still prayed, but no longer as someone begging to be fixed. She prayed as someone learning to be understood—by God, by herself, and by the mind she once feared was broken.
And for the first time, she began to believe that being human did not disqualify her from being faithful.
Dr Owoeye Oluwatobi Ajibola
Resident Psychiatrist
08131860275
Flominet Plus Telepsychiatry Services
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