According to numerous sources, schizophrenia reduces life expectancy by about twenty years. Heavy smoking reduces life expectancy by about ten years. Put those two together, and it adds up to parents much of the time outliving their mentally ill offspring. And I have seen this happen as I've lived among persons with mental illness. I could name a dozen or more mentally ill acquaintances, and some friends, who met this fate.
I heard of and had met a man in his thirties who woke up in the middle of the night with what he believed was an upset stomach, drank a bottle of antacid, and then collapsed and died on his back porch. I've known others who have died early from other "natural causes."
For a mentally ill person, it is an accomplishment to live past sixty.
Psychiatric medications are hard on the body. They cause a whole gamut of physical illnesses. Some can cause kidney failure, while others can cause weight gain, diabetes, stroke and heart attack. Physicians will not do as much for mentally ill patients who have medical issues. To an overweight patient with medical issues, a doctor said, "Stop and smell the roses." This doctor had essentially given up and had adopted the belief that the patient was going to die. That attitude doesn’t do much for a patient's morale.
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