Title: "Misdiagnosed" prompted by Michael Poole
A legal thriller

Plot Summary:
Sam Ellison, a once-promising public defender in Washington, D.C., is spiraling after a breakdown tied to years of overwork and unresolved childhood trauma. Following a hospitalization, he’s diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder—a label that costs him his job, his law license, and custody of his daughter.

But Sam knows the diagnosis isn’t right. He remembers the psychotic episode clearly—hallucinations, paranoia—but it was tied to a deep, crushing depression after the death of his wife. Months later, an independent psychiatrist diagnoses him with depressive psychosis, a much different and more treatable condition.

Still, the damage is done.

When Sam writes a letter to the judge overseeing his custody case—Judge Marjorie Keller, a hard-nosed but fair-minded federal judge—asking for a correction in the court’s understanding of his diagnosis, his letter is quietly ignored.

Until someone leaks it.

A whistleblower inside the Department of Mental Health tips off Claire Rivas, a young investigative journalist with a personal connection to mental health misdiagnoses. Claire publishes a bombshell exposé: how thousands of Americans, especially in the justice system, are misdiagnosed with severe mental illnesses that cost them their rights and freedom.

Suddenly, Sam finds himself at the center of a national legal battle—his misdiagnosis is now a symbol of systemic injustice. Backed by a rising public outcry, he assembles a ragtag legal team to take on the District Court, the hospital system, and even the American Psychiatric Association. But the institutions don’t go quietly.

They dig into his past. They gaslight. They threaten to revoke the license of his new psychiatrist. They put his daughter in the middle.

As the case reaches the Federal Court of Appeals, Sam must not only prove the misdiagnosis, but that it was weaponized against him by a system that values risk management over human truth.

The climax? A high-stakes courtroom showdown where Judge Keller must decide: will the law serve bureaucratic certainty—or the messy, complicated truth of human mental health?

Themes:
The fallibility of psychiatric diagnoses in the justice system

The stigma of mental illness and how it’s used against people

Redemption, fatherhood, and resilience

The power of a well-written letter in a broken system