During the worst episodes of psychosis, photography is a tool my sick self uses to believe in what exists. The photographs become tools for my well self to reexperience the loss. They are a bridge, or a mizpah—a Hebrew noun referring to the emotional ties between people, and especially between people separated by distance or death—between one self and the other. The well person has the job of translating the images that the sick person has left behind as evidence.
