During some of these conversations with Tim, I started to recognize what would become one of his disease’s signatures—malleable religious language, ways to shape a world he struggled to recognize. We had not been raised with this specific type of religion, but religion, for Tim, had become the arena for schizophrenia’s coup. Religiosity, a smoldering brand of fire and brimstone, endowed his delusions with cosmic significance, gave him a language for his psychosis—the demons, Tim would say, the demons in my head.
