My condition is a little different but to be sure i avoid technical or diagnostic terms. Instead of hey I have psychosis but they don't know if it's schizophrenia or maybe bipolar yet I just tell people I sometimes hear voices. More often than not they are curious rather than horrified. In contrast my mom was there when I first went into the hospital and the pdoc told her what I had was schizophrenia-like but we're not calling it that yet....for years my mom would ask if the doctor used the "s" word. No he did not... I did but he did not...

For them the word schizophrenia was charged with a a lack of hope as well as the tendency toward violence etc. but hey I hear voices eh no biggie....it's the same freaking thing but the technical words are so stigmatized in our culture I learned to avoid them and just explain what was actually happening to me...