I have been finding lately that a lot of people don’t know what to think or say about SCZ, especially now that I have shared some of our situation. It has hit people uncomfortably close to home. I have 2 people in my network of over 1,000 people who get it and have experience. I have been sharing on FB about this and there’s some support but the majority of the time: crickets. Utter silence. So I share articles, information and relevant perspectives. I am using my platform to try and educate people. Not sure it works. Even with that I am not talking much about specific symptoms or my daughter but more in a general way. I think it might be helping a little within my own circles. But stigma is definitely real and alive. The problem for me? I don’t have the time or energy to give a damn about other people’s hangups and issues. If they have a problem with it, I can’t help them. If they want information I have a wealth of it to share. Otherwise I am done worrying about their issues with it. This is our reality every day, other people judging us has no place here. We have always been isolated and alone as a family, our own little island so to speak, this is just a little more of what was already there.
Agree with much of what has already been said. Don’t use any word with ‘schiz’ in it as it conjures up preconceived ideas from movies, books, and history, and be careful with ‘psych’.
Use words that people can relate to but are not stigmatised e.g. mental health problem, hallucinations, seeing things, hearing voices in their head, very low, quite depressed, obsessed, convinced that…, hyper, reclusive, uncommunicative, unaware of the time of day, angry, apathy, deluded that … etc.
Don’t lie, don’t pretend, just be honest and talk about the symptoms and experiences the person is having.
Well said. (This is supposed to be at least 20 characters? A heart doesn’t exactly communicate what I’m trying to “say”!)
Well said.
This one little paragraph describes perfectly what happens and is happening.
Hmmm…more than 20 characters. 
Well said @Author_Charity_Marie
I think how to tell people is going to depend on the type of person you are and the type of community you live in.
How you tell a person who you may wish to call on for help in some way, could be different to how you tell a distant relative that lives 100s of miles away. In a small community, would you care if somebody crossed the street to avoid talking to you (personal experience), or your other children were bullied at school because their sister is a schizo weirdo (personal experience)?
@shop1uk With my son moving to a new community, I think it would be undermining his efforts to have a “normal” life there if I told people. I plan to stay away from contact with the new people in his life.
@hope - That’s my concern. I don’t mind telling my friends or close co-workers but I don’t want to tell the kids he grew up with in the event he recovers. At this point I think I can still use - he was working at blah blah until it closed (which it did) now thinking about going back to school. (Which at one point he was).
You’ll know who to tell and who not to. You’ll need to tell some friends for yourself and to have someone to talk to. Others might need to know if they are directly affected, otherwise I’m of the mind that it is like any medical condition. Private and up to the person who has it to disclose. I don’t mean hide it or be ashamed/embarrassed/adding to the stigma. Just private and respectful of that persons choice to tell or not tell.
@Sanatorium23, I agree with you that our family members and we ourselves have a right to privacy and to share only when and what we wish to, as we would with any illness.
I said he had a brain injury. He is okay but having limitations right now and we are all working to get him through it. This is because people can accept that. They seem to be more supportive and understanding than if you say he has schizo affective disorder and is struggling right now. If he had a brain tumor or cancer they would stay supportive. Small town also and my son also was very active in Varsity sports before his break in the summer of his Junior year, he home schooled and graduated early after that.
My son was diagnosed three years ago at 19, had two episodes of psychosis and then injured me with a knife and is living now at the State hospital. What to tell people? It has been HARD. We live in a small community also. At first I said “he has unfortunately developed schizophrenia” and could refer to his birth mother who is also affected. It depends on who I’m talking to. One of my grandsons asked about Uncle Billy and I told him, in front of his mom, that he had “a brain disorder and is living in a hospital now, getting well”. My daughter approved, saying she had been struggling with how to tell the kids. I embrace the notion that sz is a chronic illness, like Diabetes, and am starting to think of it in that way when I talk to people. I also like to think about it as a spectrum disorder, like Autism spectrum, since there are so many variables. I am also in favor of not hiding the illness, and when I do speak frankly to people, I almost always get sympathy and sometimes empathy as they talk of others they have known with the illness. So for now I go with “brain disorder”, “chronic” , and “sz spectrum illness”, depending on who I’m talking to. I also have a group of friends who I can be completely frank with and that is a relief.
My uncle is a church leader and offered to do an exorcism in our home as well. This had me bewildered and my husband pretty ticked off, to put it mildly! Do people believe or sz children have demons inside them? My daughter has a brain disorder not a demon! I’m still hurt by this, and it’s been a week since his “offer”. 
Oh, yes. My daughter attended a Christian school after her first psychosis and a teacher there told me her hearing voices was the devil. People can be so ridiculous.
My sister is the same. He is demon possessed she says she even sent my son a meme saying that “ you’re not schizophrenic you’re possessed “. That was her attempt to help hin. A meme. People make so many awful, wrong, hurtful judgments. I just say my son is sick and he’s not getting better. As soon as you mention schizophrenia or mental illness you see their eyes glaze over and here comes he bullshit advise; one of m favorites is “ you need to cut the apron strings “
The best one I got was - Don’t give up on him : ) Mostly my boyfriend said kick him out. I’m so glad I did not. He would have never made it and would have been in jail or the streets. He’s now medicated and stable and working. He plans on moving out in the fall. We’ll see how that all goes.