What Killed My Sister? 
Psychiatrist here; glad to see this near the top of HN.Schizophrenia is a serious illness, and often misunderstood as "split personality." It is a constellation of delusions, hallucinations, and scrambled thoughts that is often (though not always) pretty devastating to work, school, relationships, etc. For some reason, because we have no blood test or genetic test for it, the diagnosis is still met with skepticism from many in the public, even though everyone seems to accept the diagnosis of migraine headaches which similarly has no clear-cut lab or imaging findings.What most people don't consider is the change in life span:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21741216Life expectancy as about 17 years less for those with the diagnosis, which is worse than most cancers. It's mentioned in the article, but worth repeating.