Doctors Think She's Crazy, Ends Up In Psych Ward; Dad Sees TV News Story And Gets Her Freed

Aug 22, 2018

Her name is Emily Gavigan, and she was experiencing some bizarre actions during her second year at the University of Scranton. It was 2009, and she was having delusional thoughts and fearful her family would end up in tragedy. Her parents were at their wit's end and not knowing what to do for their daughter. One day, Emily disappeared, and about 24 hours later, she showed up at her grandparents' home in New Jersey.  

She had told her grandad an awful story of driving all the way there from Pennsylvania and skipping right through every toll, afraid because a man in a truck had been following her. He looked out the window but saw no truck. When Emily's parents arrived to pick her up, her grandparents advised that they all help her seek treatment. Even the doctors believed like Emily's family that this was a mental issue. Tests were run, and all kinds of medications were given to her to try and keep her mood stabilized.

The meds were not working, and experts thought it could be a physical condition involving her brain, but those tests showed otherwise. Emily was falling fast, and it was a heartbreaking time for the people who loved her and felt futile in their attempts to save her.

One day on the Today show, a newspaper reporter from the New York Post told her story about thinking she was going crazy. For an entire month, Susannah Cahalan was being tortured by a physical condition where the immune system attacks parts of the brain. It's called anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.

A family member suggested they see if Emily had a similar condition. Her doctors didn't think much of the idea, but they tested Emily, and lo and behold, the diagnosis for anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis came back positive. Finally, the young woman knew that it was actually a physical problem plaguing her mind.

Recovery was challenging, but after a year of treatment, Emily Gavigan was her old self, ready to take on the world. In fact, the young woman appeared on the Today show with Cahalan to talk about the autoimmune disease that masks itself as a mental illness. 

This is the kind of heartwarming story that needs more and more visibility. What do you think of Emily Gavigan's long journey back to health? Please let us know what you think in the comments.