The first time happened in high school. When the teacher asked where his homework was he replied, “I didn’t do it. . . . The world is ending tomorrow.”

That was the first time he was committed to a mental hospital. As a result, he graduated a year later than scheduled.

She did not know about this episode—or his illness, really—until after she married him. She had to find out the hard way, confused by his strange behaviors and bazaar claims. Classic signs of delusion of grandeur manifested itself as the belief that God spoke to him. God had a great plan for him, he said.

He was diagnosed as Schizophrenic with manic-depressive tendencies.

He was in and out of the hospital throughout his twenties. The couple visited his doctor together. He would go in to speak with the doctor, spinning his stories, doing a good impression of a well adjusted young man. He was an excellent actor. Then the doctor called his wife into his office alone, where they discussed the reality of what was really going on.

One morning, while their young daughter slept, she got up to find him shirtless and wild eyed. He rambled on about God and his visions of the Roman soldiers running him through from side to side with their sword. He insisted he had seen the crescent shaped wounds on his own sides. He held open his hands and cried that there was blood there from the spikes. Couldn’t she see them?

Then he showed her his Bible. Throughout the night, he had rewritten scripture after scripture of the New Testament.

He said he was Jesus. Reborn. The Savior, come again to earth to fulfill the prophecies of the Bible. She was Mary Magdalene, the redeemed prostitute and disciple.

And their daughter? She was the Holy Spirit.

That was the last time he went into the hospital before they separated.

My parents had been divorced for around two years and I was in second grade when Mom explained his illness to me. He was under court order not to talk about God and religion with me. He never followed those rules though.

I never told on him either.

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