>While I'm sure you mean no harm, you are - quite simply - wrong. There are plenty of people who live lives they would never be able to live without medication,

>While I'm sure you mean no harm, you are - quite simply - wrong. There are plenty of people who live lives they would never be able to live without medication, and without many of the harmful side-effects being discussed. He isn't "quite simply wrong", by your own point. It could just as easily be the case that the severely mentally ill only couldn't live because of their interactions with "non-ill" people as it could be the case that severely mentally ill people would up and off themselves en masse by virtue of their 'illness' alone. The only life a severe schizophrenic can't live (for example) is one in a society which demands non-schizophrenic behavior, else death/shunning/exile/whatever. I here note that in order to determine that someone is mentally "ill", a defining criteria for diagnosis is being diagnosed by someone confirmed to be not ill.