My feature-length script for Nightfall began as just an interesting idea. A high concept:
"A young woman suffering from psychosis unknowingly dates a serial killer who's looking for a partner in crime."
A romantic thriller and dark comedy, of sorts, which you can see a clip of here on my Films page.
I'd seen the face of psychosis and the likes of people who were unbelievably nonchalant about harming others. There's a commonality in these two people: they need someone else. Psychosis leaves you floating in your own private distortion of reality, so you need someone solid to help anchor you down; and people rarely like to drift into their own voids alone--which is exactly what harming someone else is. It's bringing someone else into your own sea of misery.
It's a merging of two traditional concepts that we, as audience members, are pretty familiar with by now.
However, they needed a level playing field. So Olivia is not your average woman suffering from bouts of psychosis, she's in treatment. She's level-headed. She has a phenomenal support system and holds down her responsibilities remarkably well. Even if you seen her day-to-day, you wouldn't know she had a mental illness unless she told you and she does it all without medication.
Why? Because some anti-psychotics that are prescribed to people like Olivia aren't actually helping change their brain chemistry, they're simply doses of tranquilizers. Tranquilizers that will certainly make someone appear to stop panicking, but will also zombify them and negatively affect their quality of life. The side effects caused by these medications include nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, dizziness, headache, drowsiness, and trouble focusing. Most patients experience many or all of these symptoms at once, sometimes without a decrease in bouts of psychosis at all. It's no way to live.
Many patients who leave treatment facilities often decide to go off of these medications. If they're no longer seeing a psychiatrist at that time because they've become distrustful of doctors, or simply want to avoid feeling ill and think they'll be pressured into taking the same medication, they generally won't transition to another medication that could potentially help them. Or, even if they are seeing another psychiatrist, they may discontinue their medication without telling their doctor. Either way, it negatively impacts the doctor-patient relationship and causes them to make a compromise while attempting to hold onto their quality of life. Much like in Olivia's case: she's no longer feeling ill, but she's terrified throughout a good deal of her home life. While she isn't really happy, she feels like that's the best thing she can hope for.
If these medications are so ineffective and cause so much harm to patients, why are they prescribed?
Because a certain percentage of doctors are willing to take monetary incentives to prescribe their patients certain medications. Particularly in privatized psychiatric wards, where there isn't really anyone else to make sure that these doctors are forming their care plans with the best interests of their patients in mind.
Thus, the high concept became based-off of a true story and a long-held debate in ethics and healthcare. National Public Radio, "Drug Company Payments Mirror Doctor's Brand Name Prescribing" https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/17/470679452/drug-company-payments-mirror-doctors-brand-name-prescribing