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Your points are good, but

> No amount of social justice can cure someone's schizophrenia.

I think one of the issues here is that mental illness carries so much stigma. It's hard to even get help at times due to this, and social change about the way we discuss and treat mental illness would be incredibly helpful.

I posted a link to a new startup here a few hours ago specifically designed to help people diagnosed with schizophrenia deal with their symptoms, and it got no upvotes. (for anyone interested, it's https://copingtutor.com/ Not mine, but a friend's)

We ourselves have a member of the community who's living with schizophrenia, and they're shadowbanned due to their illness. It's probably for the best, but it's a really shitty way of dealing with it.

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So.

I will spare you the Foucault/etc discussion about how 'mental illness' is even defined in the first place, and just assume the mainstream narrative on this. But that's one avenue for this discussion.

Let's talk about that. I know someone who was diagnosed with a mental illness. They got medical care for their condition, but due to the way we discuss mental illness, it harmed more than it hurt. They gave me an account of how, once they started working with a different doctor, the change in language was revelatory towards resolving their symptoms. The first doctor (and the most 'normal' one) used language such as "You are a schizophrenic." This defines the person by the disease, and begins from a place where they are already limited. It's as though it's a life sentence, and they're just making time until they die. Even the small shift to "You are living with schizophrenia" did wonders for their condition: instead of being limited by the disease, they were just another person, working to limit a negative aspect of their life. The relationship was turned upside down.

(to be clear, I am obscuring details to protect their identity.)

Secondly, you are absolutely right that therapy and Prozac are ubiquitous. But the _representation_ of them is the issue. Therapy is for someone who's _crazy_. Someone who can't deal with life. Someone who's deviant. Nobody wants to admit that they are mentally ill. The image of someone who pops Prozac and goes to therapy is not a positive image; it's a profoundly negative one. Rather than celebrate taking steps to overcome a disease, they're just another drug-addicted loser who 'needs help.' The Protestant ideal is still quite alive in our culture.

I'll also leave the issue about if drugs are even the best way to treat every instance of mental illness, and if doctors are too quick to write a 'script.

Anyway, that's the TL;DR from my current understanding around this issue, both from study and discussion with people close to the issue.