John Nash's Disease

As brilliant as John Nash was at coming up with solutions, there was one problem he was never able to solve, that of his own sanity. In the 1950’s Nash’s disease first began to manifest itself in the form of Paranoia. Paranoia is defined as a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system. For Nash this disease manifested itself by him being under the impression that every man he saw wearing a red tie was a communist spy who was a part of a great scheme to rise up a government in the United States to take over the country. Nash even went so far as to send letters to United States embassies in Washington D.C. to warn them of the threat of these communist spies. Nash’s
psychological problems began to cross over into his professional life in 1959 during a lecture he was giving to present proof of the Riemann hypothesis. His esteemed colleagues knew something was wrong throughout this presentation because of how inconceivable the entire presentation was. Later that year in the spring of 1959 Nash was admitted to McLean Hospital where he was then diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia. Paranoid Schizophrenia is a sub-type of schizophrenia in which the patient has delusions (false beliefs) that a person or some individuals are plotting against them or members of their family. Unfortunately, as John Nash and his family found out, there is no cure for this disease only treatments to subdue symptoms that are present in the patient. Because of this, Nash had to live with this horrid disease all of his life. As far as he can remember, Nash began hearing voices in the summer of 1964 and the only possible solution he saw to this problem, because he knew medically there was none, was to ignore these voices. Inside his mind these voices were still present and, more likely than not, remained present right up until the day he died. In the movie, A Beautiful Mind, Russel Crowe does a great job of depicting a person with Schizophrenia and displays the symptoms of someone with the disease quite well. However, John Nash’s wife Alicia states, “It was a great movie, but it was fictionalized.” They both agreed that Russel Crow did a phenomenal job showing the world what it was like for Nash living with this terrible disease. Nash’s doctors began treating the disease with anti-psychotic medications and insulin shock therapy. Although, Nash believed these drugs and these treatments were doing more harm than good saying that these treatments were in prohibiting him from being able to get his work done and that he could not think straight. So in 1970 Nash said ‘No more’ and quit all treatments he was receiving, quit taking any medication, and vowed to never step foot inside another psychiatric hospital again, and he did not.
He forced himself to be as rational as possible when fighting this disease by ignoring all of these voices in his head to continue his work. During an interview with PBS John Nash once said. “The consequence of rejecting the voices is ultimately not hearing the voices. You're really talking to yourself is what the voices are, but it's also parallel to a dream. In a dream it's typical not to be rational.” Just as in a dream you are not always going to make the most rational decision, living with Schizophrenia you will not always be the most rational person. Once he realized he was talking to himself, his own figments of imagination, he knew what he then had to do to be able to fight this disease, ignore is. Although this was a very hard concept to accept because these voices he was hearing and people he was seeing, had become very close to him. Patients who suffer from Schizophrenia often become emotionally tethered to the people they are imagining, as did Nash, because these people are real to
them. As far as the treatments he was receiving goes, I agree with Nash’s philosophy of people being too dependent on medication. In many instances, medication can hinder your ability to progress in fighting your disease. A journalist by the name of Robert Whitaker once wrote an article suggesting recovery from illnesses like Nash's can be hindered by such drugs. I believe a disease like Schizophrenia can be better treated by seeking out a professional to talk the patient through the disease and help them through it mentally. In essence, talk them off of the ledge and meet with them on a regular basis to help them overcome their disease. However, treatments with medication have shown to be effective in many cases. There have also been double blind studies done to research the effects a placebo would have on a patient with this disorder, and many people given the placebo also showed signs of improvement. I believe the best course of action to take against this disease specific to each patient. Different people with this disease will react differently to different treatment. For some people, like John Nash, it is to fight it in the mind rather than the body. However, if the patient wants to get better and believes the medication offered will help them, give them the medication, but start with a placebo. More likely than not if the patient believes the medication will make them become healthy, if given a placebo they most likely will show signs of improvement. Nonetheless, if the patient is against taking the medication, I believe the doctor can do more harm than good if the medication is then forced upon them in while being held in a mental institution. In many cases where medication is forced upon the patient, the patient then feels as if they have lost control over an aspect of their life, leaving them powerless over making choices for themselves. This could cause a patient to resent their doctor every time they come into contact with them. Also, whenever a psychiatrist may try and converse with them, they will not be cooperative in conversing with the doctor because they have been wronged by doctors already and may lose trust to confide in them. Even John Nash said, “I spent times of the order of five to eight months in hospitals in New Jersey, always on an involuntary basis and always attempting a legal argument for release.” During these long periods of times he was forced to be in a hospital he was not focusing on getting better or getting back to work, or his wife in family, his sole goal was to find a way out of the place that was holding him against his will. This is a common reaction for a patient can have, to being treated this way. Because of his status in the world of Mathematics, John Nash’s time spent in mental institutions has been widely publicized. However, a thought I would like to propose is this, how many people have been institutionalized, and/or still are, against their will have had their recovery hindered by the exact people that are trying to help them. I can guarantee John Nash was not alone in feeling this way about being sent to a psychiatric hospital. In an interview with PBS Nash says, “I began to realize that I would not be getting out of the hospital unless I conformed and behaved normally. So in part I would do, except I would be sweeping the delusions under a rug, and they were able to come out later on, and could be triggered.” So, because he knew it would get him out of this mental hospital sooner, he played by their rules and acted as their puppet long enough to be granted freedom to then be released, no better off than he was before. In this same interview with PBS Nash goes on to talk about how now his son has started showing symptoms of the same disease that has haunted him for most of his life. Studies have shown, children of parents who both have a schizophrenic past, are forty percent more likely to have the disease than a child pf parents who do not have it. This data proves that Schizophrenia is also a hereditary disease that can possibly be passed down from parents to children. In my opinion, John Nash’s story is definitely one for the history books, and not just for his breakthroughs in
Economic Sciences, but for his determination to not let this disease hold him back. Nash fought for most of his life against this disease and never once gave up. In spite of his diseased he managed to marry the women he loved, have a son, and win a Nobel Prize, amongst other prizes as well. So the biggest factor in beating this disease is not necessarily what medications the patient takes or how brilliant their psychiatrist is, it is all about how determined the patient is to beat the disease.