does schizophrenia mean a life long disease.

Hello smily,

A person with schizophrenia can certainly marry and lead a normal life WHILE TAKING THE MEDICATION, my emphasis on the words you chose in your own question.  It is questionable if one can sustain recovery if he or she is not in treatment for the schizophrenia.

I have read ( you would have to ask a doctor) that there is a limit on how many ECT treatments a person can have in his or her lifetime.  Ask the psychiatrist about this.

Adjunct anti-anxiety medications are out there and your loved one's psychiatrist would be the one to decide if taking a drug would be a good way to lessn the anxiety.  I knew someone who was on BuSpar for her anxiety, and it greatly relieved her panic attacks so that she began to only take the BuSpar PRN-as she felt she needed it.

I do not treat people or dispense medical advise, so perhaps you could go with your loved one to the doctor to discuss any of this.

Recovery from schizophrenia isn't quick or easy.  It take times.

If you or your loved one feels uncertain about the ECT, or about anything the prescribing doctor is advising, you owe it to yourself to get a consulation with another psychiatrist for a second opinion.

Above all, any doctor worth his or her salt will be open to your relative's needs and believe 100 percent that recovery is possible.  If he or she finds themselves working with a doctor who doesn't think recovery is possible, it's time to change doctors.

If you read Robin Cunningham's SharePost about the guy who delivers coffee in a nursing home, you will see that not all of us are going to be attorneys or surgeons or whatever society deems as "successful," however, we can achieve our own version of success.  (There are people with schizophrenia who are doctors and attorneys, though.  That is possible.)

So hang in there and stay hopeful.

Best Regards,

Chri