Yes I have! I've dated someone even. Schizophrenia covers a pretty wide set of symptom sets but I would not call it flatly "life ruining" at all. Most people with the diagnosis have the potential to lead full, happy lives (that might have more inexplicable episodes than your life).

I'd also ask you to try to avoid further stigmatizing an already misunderstood condition. It's ok to be unsettled by symptoms of schizophrenia and want to avoid developing them yourself! But let's be too dismissive of the lives of those who happen to be diagnosed with a condition.

That statement is obviously not true in an absolute sense, for example, do you avoid driving cars due to the chance of acquiring PTSD after a severe accident?

I mean, I do. But I’m also slightly anxious

I have.

I worked inpatient psychiatry for ~6 years.

All substances you consume have non-zero risk associated with them.

Including seemingly benign things like milk.

It's the job of every person to understand their body and to do a risk/reward analysis on anything you consume.

For many, the benefits of THC/CBD/cannaboids outweigh the risks.

> I would never engage in any activity that increases the likelihood of a permanent life ruining mental illness!

I'd be willing to bet a substantial amount that you already do.

Sugar, antibiotics, medications, heavy metals... take your pick.

I’m continuously, fascinated by how many commentators on HN are actually having a background in psychiatry and psychology. I took one or two psych classes in college, but I never got the feeling there was any overlap with tech really at all.

probably things have changed now but—-This likely sounds dismissive of psychologist and psychiatrist with regards to technology and I’m sorry for that it’s not what I mean.

I’m just curious where do all these psychiatrists and psychologists happen upon the interest to participate in what is ostensibly a technology form, although strictly speaking, it’s for anything that’s intellectually gratifying…But how do y’all come across it?

In my case it was pretty straightforward.

I wasn't a psychologist or psychiatrist, I was a Hospital Corpsman in the Navy (medical, kind of like a nurse), I went to what is called "C" school for training in psychiatry, and worked on a few different in-patient psych wards. The closest civilian equivalent would be somewhere between a psych tech and a psychiatric nurse.

As for how I got into that - I sort of fell into it. I did terribly in highschool, and grew up in a small, rural town. I didn't have a lot of options, so I joined the Navy.

I did well on the entrance tests, so was able to qualify for any job I wanted. The recruiter told me the best jobs were nuke power and hospital corpsman, I went with HM thinking it would be easier to get a civilian job afterwards.

I did so well on the exams, I was guaranteed a C school, after boot camp my options were pharmacy or psychiatry. Counting pills didn't sound interesting to me, so here we are.

This was all in the 90s, I'd been writing software and messing around with making games since the late 80s. Suddenly, in the mid and late 90s, writing code became highly in-demand. I bought a laptop (very rare at the time) and spent nights on the ward while the patients were sleeping teaching myself C, C++, and Visual Basic. I started moonlighting on my off time, and was able to get a full time job within a week of getting out of the service.

Been doing it ever since.

That's such a cool story! Thanks for sharin :)

I like how the Navy gives people a chance when they might not otherwise, and how you did so well on all your tests that you blew away your high school expectations. So cool!

P**r-checkers are great folks, but you could have been a nuke! :)

I avoid all 4 of those last things you mentioned as much as possible. Now you have me worried about milk! Will casein really fry my synapses like the vegans tell me? I thought that was just a scare tactic to save animals.

Can you explain about the milk? Is it just the sugar content or something else? I'm genuinely interested, I've never heard about that before.

Completely aside from the bizarre habit of adults drinking lactate from a different species - the milk industry is scary (at best).

Cows are hooked up to metal frames with tubes going in and out of all the holes, being pumped full of hormones to keep them lactating.

These tubes, of course, cause infection so they are also pumped full of antibiotics.

The produced milk contains infectious pus. The FDA has (weak) standards on how much pus is permitted in consumer milk. Hint: it's not zero [1].

Milk also has a ton of other allergens. I personally developed an allergy to milk protein that causes rashes and blisters.

My wife, son and step daughter all have the same allergy.

And milk is probably one of the more benign of the terrible things the food industry sells us.

[1] https://genv.org/pus-in-milk

Standard milk is not bacteria free, standard pasteurization absolutely does not inactivate or kill all bacteria. Someone with an even somewhat healthy immune system should be fine, otherwise you could see if you could get it shipped in from Florida where some specialty suppliers run it under the beam. As with any animal or plant product the FDA and USDA can't set arbitrarily strict standards, as grown products are not perfect. I'm sure some percent of the allowed bug content in produce is infected/contaminated with bacteria as well. The US has one of the top rated food systems in the world[0], but it won't keep that rating, especially in the food access and safety net score, if most of the food is thrown away for not being "perfect". Milk naturally has calcium in it that can be treated with vitamin D3, making it a good delivery vehicle. It would probably be better if everyone capable of digesting milk drank it at a consistent level across the population, as there are currently problems in some demographics are areas.

[0]: potentially worse than the UK and Denmark, other systems are either tradeoffs or strictly worse.

> I would never engage in any activity that increases the likelihood of a permanent life ruining mental illness!

You wouldn't even try Being Wrong on the Internet even once? I have. It's highly addictive.

What activity are you referring to? Because this paper doesn't say that "cannabis use" is such an activity.

You will never develop schizophrenic symptoms unless you are already at risk of the disease.

Source: my own family.