Is the inquest into the Bondi Junction murders further stigmatising schizophrenia?

Sandy Jeffs says the ‘relentless negative spotlight’ of the Bondi Junction murders inquest has her asking ‘can we ever de-stigmatise schizophrenia?’ Photograph: Ellen Smith/The Guardian

When Sandy Jeffs was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1976, “it was an absolute death sentence because schizophrenia and recovery weren’t spoken of in the same sentence back in those days”.

“To have your future taken away from you like that, at 23 years of age, was just awful,” she says, “and I bought into the pessimism of my diagnosis because that’s what I was told by all those clinicians.”