At eighteen, Jackson Smith's best friend tragically dies in a car accident, leaving him aimless and depressed in Salt Lake City, Utah, their shared dream of escape shattered. Jackson works a dead-end job until he decides it’s best that he goes to live with his grandparents in California, to get his head straight and find a new direction in life. But still reeling and confused from the loss of his friend and his dreams, he ends up drunk and despondent in a motel room in San Francisco where he tries to take his life and is committed to a psychiatric unit. While there he starts writing a journal about his recovery from teenage depression and the possibility of hope that comes from finding and pursuing a true passion, which has now become the riveting Hospital Eyes.