Wrong Diagnosis is a psychological thriller set in the 1940’s about Ella Ryan, a worker in a mental hospital struggling with her own potentially lethal issues. She works in a fictional hospital called Silent Lake Hospital for the Insane, in a town out in the middle of nowhere Australia. Although everyone thinks she is good-natured, they find her a little strange. She a woman living by herself, without a man to look after her or to provide for the household, as was common in that time. Neither is she living with a family, and as far as anyone knows she has no family. Every now and again someone will walk past her and distinctly hear her talking to herself, muttering in harsh whispers. But unknown to her co-workers Ella lives with a girl, a violent, pathologically insane woman with a scathing hit of jealousy, called Jezabel. This woman takes delight in giving pain to people out on a whim and playing dangerous pranks, however she doesn’t inhabit physical space, she lives inside of the fragile mind of Ella. Over the years Ella is able to suppress this other side so long as there isn’t a breaking weakness, like love or sadness.

During Ella’s first year working at the hospital, she begins to develop feelings for a schizophrenic patient named Stewart Black. They have never spoken to each other, but it is his kindness and optimism that draws her in. Jezabel grows stronger within Ella as her infatuation grows and she hates Stewart. Jezabel wants Ella to herself, and believes that if Stewart wants Ella, that is just too bad. While Ella is putting Stewart to sleep, much like a mother would for her child, Stewart speaks to her, taking her by surprise and allowing Jezabel to come out. Jezabel grabs Stewart’s pillow, smothering him with it. When he stops struggling and his body becomes limp, Jezabel withdraws back inside Ella, allowing Ella to see what she has done. Driven into deep grief, Ella is overwhelmed with anger and she flies into an insane rage. She begins to smother and strangle all the patients while they sleep and when a co-worker stumbles across Ella; she begins to kill everyone else. No one outside can hear the screaming; even if they did they believe it is the seriously deranged patients. Panting hard in the workers lunchroom, lights flickering on and off show that she is covered in blood and gore, Ella smiles at the mess surrounding her before heading back to Stewart’s room. She climbs into bed with him, and grabbing the bottle of pills out of her apron pocket she swallows them all while wrapping her arms around him, falling asleep for the last time.

Research Process:
The idea of mental illness has always been very interesting to me and so when I was able to study it to make this synopsis it came very easy to me. The Internet was used heavily to find resources because it was just easier so I started looking up about Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder) on several different health websites in the form of journals and studies, focussing on Australian websites because the story is based with Australia. I also looked at a book because I wanted my character to have realism so she has a backstory of child abuse and neglect. Factual stories helped to give Ella Ryan her 3D