On May 23, 2015, the world lost an incredibly inspirational and intellectually gifted individual. Those who saw the film “A Beautiful Mind” understand exactly how brilliant John Nash was. The mathematician redefined economics and differential mathematic equations with ideas that were years ahead of his time.
When discussing John Nash, we must inevitably address his struggle with schizophrenia, a mental disorder that causes the sufferer to lose touch with reality. The disease is often characterized by visual and auditory hallucinations, delusions of persecution in which the person falsely believes that others are trying to harm them, depression and attention deficiency. This is how the disease is often identified in patients, but that does not mean that every single patient with schizophrenia sees imaginary figures or cannot focus on a task. The fickle symptoms of schizophrenia and the extreme diversity in patients’ behavior have made the disease very difficult to study, identify and treat. “A Beautiful Mind” definitely shows that, but there are countless earlier films that have done the disease a severe injustice. Hollywood is not the only entity that seems to misunderstand schizophrenia – the entire United States population trivializes the disease and the effect it has on the suffering individual and their loved ones.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness conducted a study on the general public’s knowledge of schizophrenia in 2008. The results showed exactly how skewed the information is that the public has on the disease. 64 percent of the population did not know the symptoms of schizophrenia or thought the symptoms included a “split” personality. If you thought schizophrenia meant confusion between two personalities in one individual, go ahead and add yourself to that 64 percent. This is partially due to Hollywood and a general lack of education about schizophrenia. Today, there are plenty of commercials on TV that encourage patients with depression, anxiety and even bipolar disorder to talk with their doctor about different medications, but schizophrenia remains relatively secretive. This is probably because of the intense shame our society has put on people with schizophrenia.
Movies that depict characters with potential symptoms of schizophrenia also depict them as incredibly dangerous and volatile because of those symptoms. For example, Natalie Portman’s character in the Academy Award-winning “Black Swan” thinks that the people in her ballet company are out to get her, a paranoid obsession that causes tragedy by the film’s end. People with mental disabilities that are similar to schizophrenia are often depicted as erratic and dangerous, with a high potential to inflict harm on others. This is not always true, and stereotypes like this shame people with symptoms of schizophrenia by making them seem lethal and unstable, when in reality, many of them are incredibly intelligent and kind people, as demonstrated in the film “A Beautiful Mind.”
Though John Nash said and did things that demonstrated incoherence and disconnect in perceptibility, he was not hostile and violent the way Hollywood often depicts schizophrenics. Nash was often known as the “Phantom of Fine Hall” at Princeton University because he would aimlessly walk from classroom to classroom, writing incomplete and cryptic equations on the chalkboard. He once rejected an appointment to the faculty at the esteemed University of Chicago, saying that he was about to become the Emperor of Antarctica. These examples are much more characteristic of people with schizophrenia than the savage and hysterical characters that Hollywood creates.
When it comes to remembering the esteemed mathematician, it is essential to first remember the brilliance of his work, not just his brilliance in overcoming his circumstances to achieve such intricate thought. Then it can be noted that he suffered from schizophrenia. A mental disorder does not define who an individual is – it merely influences the way they act. John Nash was an incredibly successful and insightful human being, and no disease or disorder can take away from that. Nor should mental illnesses take away from the accomplishments and achievements of any who suffer from them.