My brother has just been diagnosed with schizophrenia, there's nothing wrong with him apart from a heartbreak and difficulty finding a job.

How could he be taxed with this apparently horrendous disease??…………

There are a whole lot of different symtoms of Schizophrenia and some people can function normally with it to a degree any ways the doctor or doctors probably had a good reason to diagnose him with it

Well, your initial question is different from your further question. Schizophrenia has always been the same, hollywood just made us think it was the same as split personality, which it isn't and never was.

When people stopped taking responsibility for their own actions.

Split personality (multiple personality disorder or disassociative personality disorder) and schizophrenia are two different things.

– Your brother is the same person no matter what diagnostic label is put on him. He's either schizo or he's not. having the diagnosis will not make him suddenly break from reality.

– unless you are a mental health professional, you are not qualified to decide whether or not your brother has an illness or is simply feeling down due to his current life circumstances.

If he is schizo, he needs your support not your denial.

Well, first off, schizophrenia never WAS 'split personality' – that was just a common misapprehension. if there really is nothing 'wrong' with your brother, how did he ever come to be seeing a psychiatrist or whoever diagnosed him with schizophrenia? People don't usually get into the situation of being given a diagnosis unless something more than unhappiness and unemployment has happened.

Why does your brother find it hard to get a job? could it be that he DOES suffer psychological difficulties that make a diagnosis of schizophrenia a reasonable idea? I can't imagine why he would have seen a psychiatrist unless he was in quite a bad state and a diagnosis as serious as schizophrenia isn't given lightly.

Schizophrenia was never 'a split personality', that is a silly caricature made up by bad comedians. It is a nasty disease, which one writer said you should think of in the same way you think of flu or toothache.

It is not a 'personality disorder', it is a biochemically caused malfunction of part of your body, your brain. It appears to be genetically linked in many cases. It is not an 'inheritable' condition, though a susceptibility to it may be.

It comes in an number of forms, of varying severity. It cannot be cured, but it can frequently be controlled enough for the sufferer to live a normal life. if you think your brother has been misdiagnosed, get a second opinion, – these things are not always easy to diagnose and you should only listen to expert psychiatrists, and never people who have picked up a few 'mental health buzzwords' and are flinging them about irresponsibly.

You are so ignorant. Read up on it. It's a pitiful condition where people have delusions about people wanting to kill them or worse. It's not real . But it is to them, so it may as well be real. they beleive with their whole heart that it is. most of them end up with post-traumatic -stress disorder. You know, shell shock!!

You have tangible problems that can be dealt with. He doesn't . Imagine learning that the people in your life that you deal with everyday that most of them aren't dead, but worse, that they never were .or events never really occured. Capture the horror of that.

Eugen Bleuler, a Swiss psychiatrist coined the term "Schizophrenia" i.e "split mind" in about 1890 to describe the diseases previously known as "dementia Praecox" or precocious dementia of the young. It was controversial from the start as the disorders involved are not described by this term. just recently psychiatrists in the UK have suggested using the designation "Dopamine Dysfunction Disorder (DDD)" for those patients previously diagnosed as schizophrenic paranoid with hallucinations as the label schizophrenia for them is scientifically meaningless.

In order to be given a diagnosis of DDD (schizophrenia with hallucinations) a person must meet exacting criteria given in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV TR) of the American Psychiatric Association. It is a diagnosis not given lightly.

My suggestion to you is to become more informed about this serious disorder by googling it or typing "schizophrenia" into Yahoo! web search. In the many links that come up wikipedia has a good summary.

Good luck in supporting your brother, good mental health, peace and Love!

condolences for your situation (quiet , you lot , i`m typing) i didn`t realise there were that many (settle , people , you`re being rude…yes i know that`s a lot of pills to take) variables to have to deal with!
good luck with coping with this situation and managing the Condition (that`s it,were signing off and we`ll discuss this over lunch)(hard to concentrate with `others` demanding to express their opinions) in the future!

hope he gets over the Heart-break (yes,it would be a Girl,now shut it, you clowns)…..Ciao!