But yes, schizophrenia is the worst of all possible mental illnesses, with drugs only partially successful at allowing people to hold jobs and live their lives without being terrorized by delusions. Most of the drugs have horrific side effects.
Most are not violent. In 25 years as a nurse, I met only one who really gave me the willies. It took him 10 years but he later went on a killing spree and gunned down 5 people.
ETA: One of my favorite patients from many, many years ago was Queen Elizabeth's elder sister, done out of the monarchy by jealous family. She went so far as to fake an Eliza Doolittle accent superimposed on backwoods North Carolina and went out of character only once when I knew her. That once was a lucid conversation with me during which she spoke with her own accent and told me she hadn't been a princess for years, she was just afraid of going home to her mean and ignorant family.
After a brief struggle with the ethics of the situation, I decided to forgo making a chart note about it and decided if she was lucid, she's the one who needed to tell the psychiatrists about it. I have to hope she did. I pointed out that her stay with her family was only until she found some sort of a job, and then she'd be free as a little birdie.
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