Schizophrenia is a serious and debilitating psychiatric illness. It affects a person's ability to think and feel clearly, and it even alters patients' behavior. This is a very frequent disease that usually starts in late adolescence and/or early adulthood, affecting the patient for life. She usually has her first psychotic episode as her "initial milestone", but some signs (such as magical ideas, unusual thoughts, difficulties in school and in relationships with other people) can be noticed in advance. Schizophrenia is still a disease without a cure, but the treatment of symptoms is mainly done through the use of antipsychotics.  

We still don't know exactly what causes schizophrenia to start, as it is called a multifactorial disease (that is, several factors act to make it appear). Among the main factors that contribute to its appearance, we have the genetic predisposition (having close relatives with this disease can increase the individual's chance of having it as well) and some environmental factors, such as the use of marijuana, infections suffered by the mother during pregnancy and even  fact of living in an urban environment.