The death of Stephen shames us all

Thank you,Terry,for this welcome piece.
I have schizophrenia myself and know some fellow sufferers who have lives like Stephen's.The DVD "Schizophrenia:cancer of the spirit" said the average person with schizophrenia dies at 56,and my social worker guessed very similar to that age.
At work the mother of a son with schizophrenia,to whom I showed the article,said she didn't know this,so that shows how out of sight and out of mind the condition is.
On depots,after I had an episode in which I was violent,it was awful,but you could even say I deserved it after the incident.It's as if you are constantly hungry even though you are really fat.There is this insatiable appetite.Also sedation and agitation at the same time and slavering-an appropriate word for the mental slavery on this old-fashioned drugs-and foul breath and constipation,and finally,and practically irrelevantly in that state,erectile dysfunction and loss of libido.
Who cares is a good question.
On the brighter side,you can support Rethink mental illness,the charity,or signpost people there,and bear in mind I didn't know of them even a good ten-fifteen years after my diagnosis,so if you tell someone,you are doing more than most.I had a letter on Sahaja Yoga in Your Voice,Rethink's newsletter,recently,and two lightbulb moments,including,"God spoke to you by so many voices but you would not hear,"from James Joyce.This was mentioned in a letter in the Pharmaceutical Journal,in a comment on Hans Burger and the EEG and telepathy,or "psychic energy".
It definitely seems like a spiritual desert sometimes but let us try to do something about it and create what peaceful oases we can.Andrew Low.