Editing John Forbes Nash Jr. (section)

== Mental illness ==
Although Nash's [[Mental disorder|mental illness]] first began to manifest in the form of [[paranoia]], his wife later described his behavior as erratic. Nash thought that all men who wore red ties were part of a [[Communism|communist]] conspiracy against him. He mailed letters to embassies in Washington, D.C., declaring that they were establishing a government.<ref name="Nasar1994" /><ref>[[#CITEREFNasar1998|Nasar (2011)]], p. 251.</ref> Nash's psychological issues crossed into his professional life when he gave an [[American Mathematical Society]] lecture at [[Columbia University]] in early 1959. Originally intended to present proof of the [[Riemann hypothesis]], the lecture was incomprehensible. Colleagues in the audience immediately realized that something was wrong.<ref>{{cite book |first=Karl |last=Sabbagh |title=Dr. Riemann's Zeros |publisher=[[Atlantic Books]] |location=London, England |date=2003 |isbn=1-84354-100-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/drriemannszeros0000sabb/page/87 87–88] |url=https://archive.org/details/drriemannszeros0000sabb/page/87 }}</ref>

In April 1959, Nash was admitted to [[McLean Hospital]] for one month. Based on his paranoid, persecutory [[delusions]], [[hallucinations]], and increasing [[asociality]], he was diagnosed with [[schizophrenia]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.brown.edu/Courses/BI_278/Other/Clerkship/Didactics/Readings/Schizophrenia.pdf | title=Brown University Didactic Readings: DSM-IV Schizophrenia (DSM-IV-TR #295.1–295.3, 295.90) | publisher=[[Brown University]] | location=Providence, Rhode Island|access-date=June 1, 2015 | pages=1–11}}</ref><ref name="Nasar ABM">[[#CITEREFNasar1998|Nasar (2011)]], p. 32.</ref> In 1961, Nash was admitted to the [[Trenton Psychiatric Hospital|New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton]].<ref>{{MacTutor|id=Nash}}</ref> Over the next nine years, he spent intervals of time in [[psychiatric hospital]]s, where he received both [[antipsychotic]] [[pharmaceutical drug|medications]] and [[insulin shock therapy]].<ref name="Nasar ABM" /><ref name="Roger Ebert's Movie">{{cite book |first=Roger |last=Ebert|author-link=Roger Ebert|title=Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2003 |publisher=[[Andrews McMeel Publishing]] |date=2002 |url=https://archive.org/details/rogerebertsmovie00roge_6 |url-access=registration |access-date=July 10, 2008 |isbn=978-0-7407-2691-0}}</ref>

Although he sometimes took prescribed medication, Nash later wrote that he did so only under pressure. According to Nash, the film ''A Beautiful Mind'' inaccurately implied he was taking [[atypical antipsychotic]]s. He attributed the depiction to the screenwriter who was worried about the film encouraging people with mental illness to stop taking their medication.<ref>{{cite web|first=Marika|last=Greihsel|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1994/nash-interview.html|title=John F. Nash Jr. – Interview|website=Nobel Foundation|date=September 1, 2004|access-date=November 3, 2018}}</ref>

Nash did not take any medication after 1970, nor was he committed to a hospital ever again.<ref>{{cite web|first=John Forbes|last=Nash|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_11.html|title=PBS Interview: Medication|publisher=[[PBS]]|year=2002|access-date=September 1, 2017|archive-date=June 4, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604221411/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_11.html}}</ref> Nash recovered gradually.<ref>Nash, John [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_14.html "PBS Interview: How does Recovery Happen?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160606080035/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_14.html |date=June 6, 2016 }} 2002.</ref>  Encouraged by his then former wife, Lardé, Nash lived at home and spent his time in the Princeton mathematics department where his eccentricities were accepted even when his mental condition was poor. Lardé credits his [[Recovery approach|recovery]] to maintaining "a quiet life" with [[social support]].<ref name="Nasar1994" />

Nash dated the start of what he termed "mental disturbances" to the early months of 1959, when his wife was pregnant. He described a process of change "from scientific rationality of thinking into the delusional thinking characteristic of persons who are psychiatrically diagnosed as 'schizophrenic' or 'paranoid schizophrenic{{'"}}.<ref name="Nash1995" /> For Nash, this included seeing himself as a messenger or having a special function of some kind, of having supporters and opponents and hidden schemers, along with a feeling of being persecuted and searching for signs representing divine revelation.<ref>Nash, John [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh//amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_12.html "PBS Interview: Delusional Thinking"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161001215421/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_12.html |date=October 1, 2016 }}. 2002.</ref> During his psychotic phase, Nash also [[Illeism|referred to himself in the third person]] as "Johann von Nassau".{{sfnm|1a1=Nasar|1y=1998|1loc=Chapter 39}} Nash suggested his delusional thinking was related to his unhappiness, his desire to be recognized, and his characteristic way of thinking, saying, "I wouldn't have had good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally." He also said, "If I felt completely pressureless I don't think I would have gone in this pattern".<ref>Nash, John [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_05.html "PBS Interview: The Downward Spiral"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170310042743/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_05.html |date=March 10, 2017 }} 2002.</ref>

Nash reported that he started hearing voices in 1964, then later engaged in a process of consciously rejecting them.<ref>Nash, John [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_06.html "PBS Interview: Hearing voices"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309213637/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_06.html |date=March 9, 2012 }}. 2002.</ref>  He only renounced his "dream-like delusional hypotheses" after a prolonged period of involuntary commitment in mental hospitals—"enforced rationality". Upon doing so, he was temporarily able to return to productive work as a mathematician. By the late 1960s, he relapsed.<ref>Nash, John [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_13.html "PBS Interview: Paths to Recovery"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160605170425/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_13.html |date=June 5, 2016 }}. 2002.</ref>  Eventually, he "intellectually rejected" his "{{not a typo|delusionally}} influenced" and "politically oriented" thinking as a waste of effort.<ref name="Nash1995" />  In 1995, he said that he did not realize his full potential due to nearly 30 years of mental illness.<ref name=Experiences>Nash, John [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_08.html "John Nash: My experience with mental illness"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161207174723/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_08.html |date=December 7, 2016 }}. PBS Interview, 2002.</ref>

Nash wrote in 1994:
{{blockquote|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. And it did happen that when I had been long enough hospitalized that I would finally renounce my delusional hypotheses and revert to thinking of myself as a human of more conventional circumstances and return to mathematical research. In these interludes of, as it were, enforced rationality, I did succeed in doing some respectable mathematical research. Thus there came about the research for "Le problème de Cauchy pour les équations différentielles d'un fluide général"; the idea that Prof. [[Heisuke Hironaka]] called "the Nash blowing-up transformation"; and those of "Arc Structure of Singularities" and "Analyticity of Solutions of Implicit Function Problems with Analytic Data".

But after my return to the dream-like delusional hypotheses in the later 60s I became a person of {{not a typo|delusionally}} influenced thinking but of relatively moderate behavior and thus tended to avoid hospitalization and the direct attention of psychiatrists.

Thus further time passed. Then gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the {{not a typo|delusionally}} influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort. So at the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists.<ref name="Nash1995" />}}