I'm not usually outraged by things on the internet. But even I was taken aback when my sister forwarded me an email from a small online boutique called Simple Addiction, promoting a two-toned sweater the company marketed with the subject line “A schizophrenic tunic… what?!!”

Get it? The tunic is called the Split Decision Tunic, like a split personality. Isn’t that hilarious?

As someone who lives with a mental illness that requires constant maintenance and has nearly driven me to the brink of suicide more than once, I was appalled.

So was my sister, Katie S. Frauenfelder, M.A., P.L.P.C.; as a licensed therapist, she sees firsthand how mental illness affects her patients.

“I am not someone who seeks out things to become offended by. I am, however, passionate about mental health, as well as helping erase the stigma surrounding mental illness,” she says. “As someone who both struggles with and works in the field of mental illness, being flippant about various diseases of the mind is something I do take seriously.”

Courtesy of Christina Stiehl.

We both sent strongly-worded emails to Simple Addiction pointing out their poor choice of words and received the same canned apology from customer service. It explained that this was "an error in judgement...made in our marketing department. We have sent this note to them and will make sure that subject lines with sensitive topics will no longer be used."

But maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that an online clothing shop that trivializes addiction in its name decided to be flippant about one of the most severe mental illnesses.

“Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by psychotic symptoms, [including] hallucinations and delusional beliefs, disorganization of thinking, and ‘negative symptoms’ which often take the form of apathy, disinterest in social engagement, or impoverished/diminished speech,” Joseph M. Pierre, M.D., professor of psychiatry at UCLA and author of the Psych Unseen blog at Psychology Today, explains to SELF via email. “Although some patients have mild symptoms and recover spontaneously, schizophrenia is often a chronic illness associated with significant functional impairment.”

This functional impairment can result in loss of touch with friends and family or unemployment, Pierre explains. In fact, an estimated 26% of homeless adults staying in shelters live with serious mental illness, according to research from the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Aside from it being in poor taste, Simple Addiction’s depiction of schizophrenia—as something with two sides or a split personality—is also incorrect.

I couldn’t understand if the company meant to reference bipolar disorder, which can cause periods of extreme highs (mania) and extreme lows (depression), or dissociative identity disorder (DID), previously referred to as multiple personality disorder.