I take strong issue with the reporting of the horrific and terribly sad Waterlow slayings in Randwick.

I believe leading with a reference to Anthony Waterlow's alleged mental illness, something which to this point is only hearsay, is both irresponsible and demonstrates a sensationalism that would be better suited to a tabloid.

It has been demonstrated, time and time again, in studies, that statistically, people living with a mental illness are no more violent that the rest of the community.

Yet still, in a situation like this, where there is no certainty if the suspect has been diagnosed with schizophrenia or was even ill at the time, the Sydney Morning Herald's journalists chose to jump on this as a lead, thus further stigmatising and demonising people with schizophrenia and exacerbating the terrible discrimination they face in society every day.

Thankfully, I do not have schizophrenia.

I do have though, another mental illness, which, like schizophrenia, is treatable and episodic and controllable and is similarly demonised in the media all the time.

As a former journalist who lost one highly successful career due to bigotry and ignorance when a boss simply learned I had this diagnosis, reading something like this story incenses me.

It is stories like this that create this type of bigotry and ignorance in the first place.

Anthony Waterlow, according to friends, resented his father and sister and blamed them for his failures and problems. He also allegedly used drugs heavily and felt entitled to a unit next door to his father's in Woollahra.

In my opinion, this would have made a much more interesting, appropriate and logical lead to the article and would have grabbed the reader's attention just as effectively as some vague possibility that he may have been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

It was completely unnecessary to lead on Waterlow's alleged mental health issues when it has not even been proved if he has any or if they played any role in these killings whatsoever.

The only purpose this serves is to stoke community fear and perpetuate the erroneous clichés and myths “out there” about people living with a mental illness.

People with these sorts of “labels” have a heavy enough burden without contributing to the belief that they are all somehow potential knife-wielding, psychotic killers, about to knock off their fathers and sisters and stab small children.

Like SANE president Barbara Hocking said in her article in the National Times only last week, a large number of people living with a mental illness are indistinguishable from everyone else: we have families, friends and successful social and working lives and most people would never even know we are anything other than “normal”. Please, Herald staff, you can do better. The SMH sends mixed and confusing messages when it publishes an article like Barbara Hocking's one week and follows it up the next with one that typifies the sort of ignorance Ms Hocking was attacking in her opinion piece.

I believe the SMH has a duty to try to educate people about the truth of living with mental illness; not perpetuate the myths surrounding it.

* The author's real name has been changed for personal reasons