Sometimes it takes courage to peak out at this world. Friday I met with a new client, a nice looking young man with paranoid schizophrenia. He asked me what his different meds were for, one I told him was for depression, the other I thought was for high blood pressure, and the third for schizophrenia. "So that's what I got" he said, although he really didn't sound surprised. "Schizophrenia goes away after a while, right?", he asked me. No, I told him, it is like diabetes, you have to take medicince for it the rest of your life. He waited a bit and asked me the same thing again, and I looked at his chart, saw he was 23 and said, you are young, just a kid (he looked at the gray in my hair and took the comment well) and I looked at him square in the eyes and said, no, I won't lie to you, it will not go away, it is a disease just like other diseases and what you can do is take your medications for the rest of your life and it can help to keep your disease under control- that it the good news. He heard what I said and looked chagrined, so I smiled at him and said, I know it's the same thing you've heard a million times before- but it's the truth. He told me how he was going to finish his high school diploma, go to technical school, get a band together and play his drums. I encouraged him to play his music, and to myself I wished I hadn't met him a hundred times before, wished I didn't know slim his chances for happiness are.