Has anyone seen it? I saw it the other day.. I never knew how bad schizophrenia is.. It was so sad. But i understand it so much better.

Hi there. I saw A Beautiful Mind in the theatre. To me, it's profound message is the extent to which the disease is misunderstood and second, true committment at any cost. To endure your husband's battle w/ such foresight, dignity and grace is a lesson I took away from that film. The depth and breadth of his struggle and how it manifests itself in all aspects of life is remarkable; more so to have the knowledge that there is at least one person who is beside you through it all. Russell should have won the Oscar; even without the accolade he did us all a favour and opened our eyes to the extraordinary power of mental illness and love.
Best regards.

Actually, the movie didn't do a great portrayal of what the disease is actually like. People diagnosed with Schiz do NOT acctually see images not there. They only hear them, or imagine them. They do not really appear like a hallucination. But I suppose being such a hard disease to explain, that was the best they could do.

I enjoyed the movie myself, even if it wasn't "great", but that movie was the thing that gave me the inspiration to tell my BF about my mother.

I wish there were more people posing here so that I could relate with others. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/frown.gif

It is an excellent movie.. very emotional because it really hits home for me ...

RainyDay,

My brother see's things too and hears things.. I know is drug addiction worsened his condition and I doubt you have a drug addiction. But I see the affects of schitzophrenia similar to my brothers affects (sorry if I confused you I think I just confused myself) LOL

Hugs
koko

You know that thing he does with his hand to his forehead? That really freaked me out when I saw that movie cause i do that all the time.. kinda freaky dont ya think??lol.. also the thing with the papers on the walls... umm opps i am guilty hehe but its under control now
later willie.

Silent,
In regards to the post that people diagnosed with schitzophrenia do not see things that aren't really there or halucinations as you called them, I have to strongly disagree. For starters, when this first started for me, I used to chase people around for hours, that to others were not really there. For another, I used to pick bugs and worms from my skin because I couldn't tolerate them anymore. And for a final example, I used to be able to read invisible writing all over everything, like walls, paper, anything that could be written on. Now, to someone that doesn't have this illness, it probably would be easy to say that they, "schitzo's", do not see halucinations but to me, I've imagined a lot of things but some of the things I have seen were real. Maybe imagined to someone else.
Now, to someone that is totally against people with schitzophrenia and against the way that they deal with it, not saying that you are, or people that think they've read enough, seen enough, studied enough, to truely explain what is truely going on in the mind of schitzophrenic is outrageous because there are some things I can't even describe that people such as experienced doctors would like to know what it is, so they can progress with treatments for this illness. If you can not accept your mother for who she is, even with all the bad things she may have done, then how can you respect yourself? She is a part of you like your right hand.. like your leg. The more you fight her, the posibility of you developing what she has is dramatically increased because this a stressor, an internal conflict. Thank you for your time, and I would love to hear back from you. Willie

I saw the movie and was amazed at how close to home it was for me. I was the only one cheering when his wife was going to his office and also when she went to the garage, I kept thinking, "this will prove he's not crazy!" But alas, he was....I guess I was cheering for myself! And when the other shoe finally dropped as they say, I was all alone with the reality of what was being confirmed for me on the big screen....It was all in my head!

I was very impressed with the movie, also. So much so that I got a copy of the biography. (Same name as the movie). The book really shows what this man went through. There is so much more to it than what was shown in the movie. He was in and out of hospitals many times, as well as being on and off his meds.

It's a truly remarkable book and I highly recommend it to anyone who loved the movie. The only warning I have is that the 1st half of the book goes into a lot of his mathematical theories....none of which I understood. But the human and medical story is worth wading through the math.

Sciteach

I just saw the movie last night. Wow, what a phenomenal film. Nothing has opened my eyes to what schizophrenia is like as much as this movie has. Not having schizophrenia myself, I used to get so frustrated with patients at times who would insist on the reality of what they were seeing and hearing. Not to mention becoming so sad and angered when a patient would mutilate there own body parts to find microphones, computer chips or insects. I never understood and now I do. I'm so grateful to have seen it.

[This message has been edited by moderator1 (edited 01-05-2003).]

i saw the movie last night for the first time. it was wonderful and i watched it twice. best wishes to all.

I really liked the movie.I thought it was really informative and it was sad, but in a good way.

I really enjoyed the movie too. My BF has paranoid/schitz and he also enjoyed the movie although he did not think it was totally true either, but I guess it is hard trying to convert it into a movie that they do change things.
I saw an interview on the tv, they were interviewing the real John Nash. He said that he did not see people but heard them, also in the part where he was dragged away, one of the orderlies that dragged him off was his real life first born son(cameo role). His second son has schitz, he was on the interview I was watching and he looks to have it alot worse than John.
Apparently John no longer takes medication, he controls it himself by telling himself that certain things are not real and not happening.
I imagine this would be a very hard thing to be able to do.