Jared Nelson

The series starts off wonderfully, slowly bringing the viewer along a journey to make sense of competing realities. Then, VERY disappointingly, real-life medical treatments are portrayed as involuntary, secretive, and oppressive. Lithium is portrayed as a medication that is secretively forced upon someone against their will. Lithium is not typically indicated in real life as it is in the series, even for the Henry character taking the medicine voluntarily. Episode 8 portrays ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy) as an involuntary, painful procedure of torture. In reality, ECT is offered with a patient's complete comfort and best interest at the center. ECT is administered with the full informed consent of a patient. Only extremely rarely is it administered involuntarily, with a court order. The treatment is immediately stopped if a patient says so. I get it. Producers want an element of fear in this story, but they should be ashamed for portraying treatments as oppressive painful objects of control. The show stigmatizes, for the uninformed viewer, life-saving medical treatments.