A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

I met a man who either needs a new eye exam, or he’s a real flatterer.
I was in line at a Platte City grocery store last week to rent a video when he began talking to me. He flattered me, saying I must be a cheerleader, no more than a junior in high school. In the real world, I’m a 36-year-old (today’s my birthday) mother of two high school children and one who will enter the fifth grade this fall. (This was written 5 years ago, so I'm not 36 anymore.)
This gentleman told me to let him know how my rental, “A Beautiful Mind” with Russell Crowe, was. I know he was just kidding, being friendly, but after watching the movie, I thought writing this could not only answer his request, (if he reads this) but encourage us all with this story of overcoming great odds.
Despite my dislike for the actor, the movie, based on a true story, was good. A little slow during the first half, the second half began to unfold with Crowe’s character, Dr. John Nash determined to overcome his schizophrenia.
It was the 1950s and he was a brilliant young man who married his true love, Alicia, and began a bright career in mathematics at M.I.T. During his wife’s pregnancy, delusions began to overtake his life. His thinking changed from scientific and rational to the delusional thinking characteristic of those who are diagnosed as schizophrenic or paranoid schizophrenic.
Nash became paranoid, believing he was into code breaking for the U.S. government. He was convinced Russians would harm his wife and child if he ignored the omnipresent, aggressive government boss in his mind who gave him orders to go through magazines looking for codes and deposit his discoveries in a mailbox behind an iron gate.
He was so convinced, he even believed they had implanted an infrared access code for the drop box under the skin in his arm and tried to rip it out in hospital lockup. Also living in his mind were a college roommate and a young niece. It finally dawned on him one day that this “roommate’s” niece never aged.
Upon entering the hospital, his arms and legs
were restrained, and he was given insulin, other medications and shock therapy to control the delusions.
The government conspirators who worked for a CIA-type agency were actually ‘seen’ by Nash. He had conversations, even altercations with them. As Alicia came inside from retrieving laundry one night, her husband had started the baby’s bath and left him lying in a tub of running water. She rescued the crying baby, as the water was about to cover his face and rushed to phone the doctor. At that moment, the government boss appeared and in the process of trying to protect his wife from him, Nash knocked her and their baby son to the ground, putting more strain on their marriage.
Since his work suffered while he was on the medications and he was unable to be intimate with his wife, he stopped taking the drugs, discarding them into a desk drawer.
Nash was determined to teach a class with real students and continue his research, but those situations put so much stress on him, the delusions heightened. As things became worse, his wife and physician insisted he voluntarily return to the hospital.
Not wanting to resume shock therapy and drugs, he refused, and focused on ignoring the people he saw in his mind. The more he concentrated and told them he was no longer able to speak to them, the stronger he became, until he was able to function in the real world again. He was later recognized with the Nobel Prize for his research in the mid-1990s, with his wife and son still by his side.
So many people want to blame others for all the bad things they do, or that happen to them, but here is a man who had every excuse to fail, yet overcame. There are others who have no excuse to fail, but find every reason to and blame it on everyone else.
No matter what has happened to me, I’ve never had to worry about the appearance that I’m having a fight with the air, or imaginary people are stalking me or having the feeling that someone is going to kill my family.
My outlook in life is that there is always someone who has it worse than I do — not that there is someone who has it better than I do. I am fortunate to have what I have and am grateful for it. If we all go around wishing we had what the Joneses have, we’d be miserable all the time. Plus, what if the Joneses appear to have it all, but have their own demons the outside world doesn’t know about?
Money doesn’t buy happiness, or power, or love.
This brilliant doctor had a terrible illness, suffered many years and surely still struggles every day with it, but determination and his struggle to return to more scientific and rational thinking saved his life and his family. He didn’t give up, despite his demons. His wife stuck by his side through the decades in an ever-changing world, refusing to let the changing times contribute to a downfall.
It’s a story that should give hope to every one of us. If he can manage those demons in his mind, we all surely can manage our everyday demons and have a full life — and maybe even help someone else go through a tough time, too.