Question: In your opinion, what is the worst mental illness that exists?

Ceri Dare answered on 11 Nov 2014:

Well, some people would say that schizophrenia is the worst. And it’s true, some people do have a really miserable life because of their schizophrenia.

But I have schizophrenia, and my life is very good – I have a job I enjoy, and I am getting married to my boyfriend who I love very much in a few months time. I’m lucky because I have had good treatment which has worked well for me.

So I would say it’s less about what the mental illness is caused, and more about how it affects a person.

I would suggest you have a look at these two talks by people with schizophrenia: http://www.ted.com/talks/eleanor_longden_the_voices_in_my_head and http://www.ted.com/talks/elyn_saks_seeing_mental_illness?language=en – both of them are very clever and have done amazing things with their lives. Another example of a famous scientist with schizophrenia is John Nash, who won a Nobel Prize for mathematics – here’s a video of his talk, and the film ‘A beautiful mind’ was about his life.