Sorry to be so pedantic, but schizophrenia is a terrifying psychotic illness characterised by extreme paranoid delusions (lizards are controlling my brain throu

Sorry to be so pedantic, but schizophrenia is a terrifying psychotic illness characterised by extreme paranoid delusions (lizards are controlling my brain through my microwave etc), full-blown auditory and visual hallucinations, broken speech and thought processes, and all of the accompanying social problems that the above would obviously incur. The metaphorical sense in which it is commonly used, and is being used here, is a confusion with dissociative identity disorder, aka multiple personality disorder. It doesn't help that the word comes from the greek for "split mind," but there is no aspect of multiple divergent identities in schizophrenia, except in the sense that the symptoms will wax and wane over time. Understand that I say this not out of needless pedantry or tiresome political correctness, but in the interests of society having a full understanding of these incredibly common mental health issues in order that they should be viewed on an equal footing with physical ailments. Perhaps then we could channel our anxieties around psychological health more effectively than we do currently, where we mock the weak in public and chug pills in private. Rant over...