Sorry Jenna, maybe you don't have any one close who you know with Schizophrenia, or certainly not someone in your family. Well over the last ten years i have spent over a third of that time on locked psychiatric asylums, and so yes i think that i am the authority on this matter. I have been able to see both what people treat you/me from inside hospital and the outside. Have you ever heard of something called Stigma? If not i would recommend you read up on it. It is basically how some one who has suffered from this experience will never be the same again. Never the same as other people. Maybe in the eyes of the law, but even then when you are in hospital you are stripped of even this. Stripped of the ability to manage your own medication or finances. How do you think i felt for the last eighteern years not having anything but superficial access to my trust fund. Granted Jenna you have an expertise in your own life world. However, it would seem that you have little knowledge about mine. And back to my martial arts, my black belt was awarded to me last year, not because of the clubs and forums i had been ejected from, nor my achievements or the contacts i have made along the way. So you have got a stable family life, career and health, not to mention martial arts attendance? Good for you. We haven't all been that lucky!??
Anyway sorry to digress 
