Abstract Personal, social, and financial vulnerability often mark the experience of living with mental illness. Such vulnerabilities, along with the experience of illness itself, suggest the possibility of viewing mental illness as a social location with the potential for offering valuable insights into biblical texts. The author interviewed persons who have a mental illness to gather their perspectives on the story of the Gerasene demoniac {(Mark} 5:1-20), a text that offered significant points of identification and resistance for those interviewed. This method commends itself for the study of other biblical texts with particular meaning for people with mental illness.