Email | Print

The clearest lesson that I learned from watching the movie A Beautiful Mind was something that a friend of mine who went to see it with me said to me later. "I think," my friend said, "that what the movie taught us is that in the end people need to take control of their own lives."

I agree with him. When Nash's wife opts not to sign confinement papers even though Nash is symptomatic, that is a statement that says, "I will give you a chance to learn to manage your symptoms without having you incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital and I will help you through the process."

In the movie Nash does just that. We see that even during the final scenes, after he has won the Nobel Prize, the movie shows him "seeing" his imaginary roommate, the roommate's niece, and the once scary character from his imaginary Russian/Defense Department "conspiracy." So he still has mild "ordinary" symptoms but he has learned to see those symptoms as part of the chronic nature of a very real illness: paranoid schizophrenia, for which there is no 100% cure, and which it is still not 100% understood by the "experts" in the psychiatric field despite the pretentious claims of some psychologists and psychiatrists to think to know it all.

By the end of the movie Nash is not 100% free of symptoms but those symptoms no longer disrupt his functioning like in the past.

And I get the notion-based on a statement that Nash makes in reference to the 'newer' medications (translation: the so called "atypicals," i.e. Zyprexa, Risperdal, etc.)-that by the end of the movie he was on these "newer" medications. And the movie correctly exposes that not even the newer medications can guarantee a 100% symptom-free life. The film tells us that there is no 100% cure to schizophrenia. The individual can find great relief from acute symptoms, but there are still "symptom management skills" that the person needs to put into practice in order to live a normal, functional and successful life.

The information that has been widely reported in the press and on the Internet that the real John Nash never took medication after 1970 is truly beyond the point here. I am writing about what the movie's script led us to believe.

If John Nash has been able to live a full, functional life without medication, good for him though I haven't read anything to the effect that Mr. Nash has been both 100% symptom-free and medication-free at the same time. Another example is the case of Margot Kidder, the actress famous for the Superman movies and a diagnosed schizophrenic. If the "vitamins" and "herbal products" she has claimed worked for her instead of the older or newer medications, may God bless her and show her the way! I believe in choices if those choices work for the individual.

A lot of us who read New York City Voices and mental health consumers in this State feel somewhat safer and comfortable taking medications and we think these medications work for us. And so we have to talk about that choice too.

In my attempt to understand the illness with which I have been diagnosed-schizophrenia-I have asked in casual conversations a number of friends and acquaintances with the same diagnosis, or who have experienced psychosis at one point or another, three simple, but direct questions: 1. How long have you been out of the hospital? 2. Are you on medication? 3. Have you experienced any symptoms during all of those years you've been out of the hospital and on medication?

The answers to these questions were always similar: "Yes, I've been out of the hospital this or that many number of years." "Yes, I take medication" and "Yes, I do experience some ordinary symptoms here and there. You just need to learn to manage and control your symptoms. You need to take charge of your own life."

I think this movie showed us this reality. If any reader has been 100% symptom free for a number of years, I want to know about it to see how they've done it.

I am thrilled that a film about schizophrenia won the Academy Award for Best Picture. And I think the depiction of several aspects of the illness, from the effects on the individual who experiences it, the effect on family and friends, the disruptions in the workplace, etc., were truly very well presented. Even if your experience with the illness-your delusions-were not like John Nash's, if your problem area is voices, or suspiciousness, or occasional paranoia or false beliefs, I still think you can relate to the movie and see a little part of your experience depicted in the film.

Enjoy the movie and encourage your friends and loved ones to see it, especially those who do not understand the realities and workings of the psychotic process, and those who still deny the realities of having and living with an illness of the brain.