#mental issues

Something more personnal than what i usually publish. (i was having a mental breakdown earlier but i ended up liking that vent drawing so im better now)

Like yes, I also come off as unnecessarily mean and violent but also quite shy and hate people of authority

free these artists!!! it isn’t your business & you need to get a job or a hobby, ideally both.

Mental Institution Fic

Chapter 1

The car ride was silent.

Not the kind of silence that feels peaceful. This silence had weight. It settled into the spaces between breaths and wrapped itself around my ribs, tightening with every kilometre that pulled me farther away from home.

I tried not to think about what I was leaving behind.

My sisters.

The heat of the Australian sun against my skin.

The ocean stretching endlessly beyond the shore, waves breaking around my ankles while my classmates laughed somewhere behind me.

I tried not to think about any of it because thinking about it made it real.

And if it was real, then it was over.

I sat in the backseat behind my parents as we drove toward GreenSeattle Institution, watching the world outside dissolve into streaks of colour and light.

Apparently, there was something wrong with me.

No one would tell me exactly what.

At first, I’d demanded answers. Then I’d begged. Eventually, I’d stopped asking altogether. There are only so many times a person can hear, “It’s for your own good,” before they start wondering if they’re the problem for wanting an explanation.

Maybe that was it.

Maybe I was broken in some way that everyone else could see.

Maybe I’d stopped making sense a long time ago, and nobody had the heart to tell me.

The thoughts spiralled so naturally that I barely noticed them anymore.

Was I not good enough for my family?

Had I become someone they couldn’t love?

Was my mind so damaged that I couldn’t even recognize how damaged it was?

The worst part was that none of those questions felt dramatic.

They felt reasonable.

Outside, the Australian sun fought its way through the tinted windows, warming one side of my face while the other remained cold. I couldn’t stop thinking about how fitting that felt—half of me still reaching for something familiar, the other half already swallowed by whatever was waiting for me.

My mother sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window.

She hadn’t spoken in almost an hour.

I watched her reflection in the glass and wondered what she was thinking. Whether she was scared. Whether she was relieved. Whether she was imagining a version of her life where she’d had a different son.

I wouldn’t have blamed her.

I didn’t particularly want to be me either.

Then there was Logan.

I tried not to think about him, too.

The moment I told him about the institution, he disappeared. No calls. No messages. Nothing.

I’d convinced myself he was different. That he understood me in a way nobody else ever had. I’d even convinced myself that he loved me.

Looking back, I wasn’t sure which hurt more: that he’d left, or that I’d believed he wouldn’t.

I missed his voice. I missed his stupid American accent. I’d always hated American accents. They sounded wrong somehow. His had been the only one I’d ever wanted to keep listening to.

Sometimes, I wondered if I’d imagined that too.

A raindrop struck the window.

Then another.

Soon, rain spread across the glass in uneven trails, gathering and racing each other downward.

When I was younger, I’d watch raindrops on car windows and pick one to cheer for, convinced that somehow my choice could change which one reached the bottom first.

Now, I watched them fall and realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d believed I could change the outcome of anything

I’d spent so long watching the raindrops race down the window that I’d stopped paying attention to where we were going. The highways had blurred into smaller roads, the smaller roads into stretches of wet asphalt surrounded by eucalyptus trees and fields that seemed to go on forever.

The rain had settled in properly now, hammering against the roof of the car in uneven bursts. Every now and then, a truck would pass us in the opposite direction, its headlights slicing through the grey afternoon before disappearing into the storm behind us. I found myself envying them. They were going somewhere. They knew where they belonged.

The car itself smelled faintly of leather and the coffee Dad had bought three hours ago at a petrol station somewhere outside Sydney. It had gone cold by now. Everything had gone cold by now.

I rested my head against the window and closed my eyes for a moment, but the darkness behind my eyelids only made things worse. Every thought I’d spent the journey trying to avoid returned immediately. My sisters. The beach. Logan. The word institution. I still hated that word. Institution. It sounded clinical and final, like a diagnosis. Like a prison for people whose minds didn’t work properly anymore.

Maybe that’s exactly what it was.

I wondered again what they’d written about me. There had to be reports. Doctors. Psychologists. Forms with boxes ticked and observations scribbled in black ink. Subject displays signs of instability. Subject demonstrates unhealthy attachment patterns. Subject exhibits delusional thinking.

The thought made my stomach twist.

What if they were right?

What if everyone else had figured something out about me years ago and I was the only person who hadn’t noticed?

“Oscar.”

I opened my eyes.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it.

“Oscar?” my mother said again.

I looked up at the back of her seat. “What?”

She was staring out the passenger window, her voice quieter than I’d ever heard it. “Are you okay?”

The question was so absurd that I almost laughed.

I looked back out at the rain.

“No.”

The honesty of the answer surprised both of us.

She didn’t respond straight away. I could see her reflection in the window, warped by the rainwater streaking down the glass. She looked tired. Older than she had a week ago.

“I know this is difficult,” she said eventually.

I let out a breath through my nose.

“Difficult.”

She turned slightly in her seat. “Oscar—”

“No, you’re right. It’s difficult.” I kept my eyes fixed on the window. “I mean, finding out something’s wrong with you and then getting put in a car and driven halfway across the country to an institution sounds pretty difficult.”

Dad shifted his grip on the steering wheel.

“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” he said.

His voice startled me more than Mum’s had. He’d barely spoken all day.

I laughed then. Not because anything was funny, but because I didn’t know what else to do.

“Why? Did I say something incorrect?”

The windshield wipers dragged across the glass.

Nobody answered.

I swallowed and suddenly became aware of how hard my heart was beating.

“I just want someone to explain what’s happening,” I said, quieter this time. “That’s all I’ve wanted for weeks.”

Mum finally turned around and looked at me properly.

Her eyes were red. Not crying red. Exhausted red.

“We’re trying to help you.”

The sentence hit me harder than I expected. Help. That word again.

Everyone had been trying to help me for months. Teachers trying to help. Counsellors trying to help. Doctors trying to help. My parents trying to help.

Funny how being helped felt exactly like being abandoned.

“By sending me away?” I asked.

“We’re not sending you away.”

“It really feels like you are.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

I looked at Dad in the rear-view mirror. He was staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles in his face twitched every few seconds. He looked angry.

Or scared. I wasn’t sure anymore.

“What did I do?” I asked.

Neither of them answered.

“What did I do?” I repeated.

“You didn’t do anything,” Mum said.

“Then why am I going there?”

“You know why.”

I stared at her.

“No,” I said. “Actually, I don’t.”

The car became very quiet.

Outside, the storm intensified. Rain battered against the windows hard enough that I could barely see the trees anymore.

Mum turned back toward the windshield. For a second, I thought she was just going to ignore me. Then she spoke.

“Oscar, the last year has been very difficult.”

The way she said it scared me. Not because of the words. Because of the sadness behind them. I frowned.

“What does that mean?”

She inhaled slowly.

“It means you’ve been struggling.”

“With what?”

She didn’t answer.

I felt something cold settle in my chest.

“With what?” I asked again.

Dad spoke this time.

“Your thoughts.”

I laughed again.

Not because I wanted to.

Because I couldn’t stop.

“My thoughts?” I repeated. “Everyone has thoughts.”

“Not like yours.”

The words hung in the air.

Not like yours.

I stared at the back of his head.

For the first time since getting into the car, I felt genuinely afraid.

“What does that mean?” I whispered.

Neither of them spoke.

I thought about Logan.

I thought about the way he’d gone quiet when I’d told him about the institution. The long pause. The way he’d said, Maybe this will be good for you, Oscar.

At the time, I’d thought he was scared for me. Now I wondered if he’d been scared of me. The thought hurt more than anything else.

“I didn’t make anything up,” I said quietly.

Mum turned around so quickly that I almost flinched.

“We know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why does everyone keep acting like I’m crazy?”

The word escaped before I could stop it.

Crazy.

Nobody spoke. Dad’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. Mum looked like I’d slapped her.

Nobody spoke after that.

The silence that settled over the car felt different from the one we’d started the journey with. Before, it had been full of avoidance, full of questions that nobody wanted to answer. Now it felt like something had broken. Dad kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly enough that his knuckles had turned white. Mum sat with her hands folded in her lap, staring out the passenger window at the rain. I sat in the backseat and watched the world outside dissolve into streaks of grey and green, trying not to think about what Dad had said.

Not like yours.

The words replayed in my head over and over again, each repetition sounding more certain than the last. Not like yours. I wanted to ask him what he meant. I wanted to demand that he explain himself. Instead, I sat there wondering if everyone in my life had secretly been having the same conversation about me for years. Teachers. Friends. My parents. Logan. Maybe I’d been the only person who hadn’t realized there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

The rain eased gradually as the afternoon dragged on. Eventually, the violent hammering against the roof became a soft patter, and then even that disappeared. The clouds remained overhead, thick and grey and oppressive, but the world outside became clearer. We had long since left the highway behind. The roads were narrower now, winding through dense bushland and stretches of countryside that all looked the same to me. Gum trees lined both sides of the road, their pale trunks standing out against the dark green leaves. Every now and then we’d pass a farmhouse or a rusted mailbox, little reminders that people lived out here, that life continued somewhere beyond the confines of this car.

I wondered what my sisters were doing.

The thought appeared suddenly and refused to leave. Were they home from school yet? Had they asked where I was? Had Mum and Dad told them the truth? I tried to imagine them sitting at the kitchen table without me. The image made my chest ache in a way I hadn’t expected. I thought about summer holidays spent at the beach, the four of us racing into the water while Mum yelled at us not to go too far out. I thought about movie nights in the lounge room. I thought about stupid arguments over whose turn it was to wash the dishes. The memories arrived one after another, as if my brain had suddenly realized that they belonged to another life now.

Then I thought about Logan.

That hurt even more.

I remembered the last phone call we’d had. The way his voice had changed when I’d told him about the institution. The silence that had followed. The excuses. The promise that he’d call again soon. He never had. I wondered if he’d blocked my number. I wondered if he’d told his friends about me. I wondered if he’d spent the last few weeks trying to forget I’d ever existed.

I hated that I missed him.

I hated that part of me still wanted him to call.

“Oscar.”

I looked up.

Mum had turned around slightly in her seat. The expression on her face startled me. She looked exhausted. Not physically exhausted. Emotionally exhausted. Like she’d spent so much time trying not to fall apart that she’d forgotten how to hold herself together.

“We’re almost there,” she said quietly.

I looked back out the window.

There was a sign by the side of the road.

GREENSEATTLE INSTITUTION - 5 KM.

For some reason, seeing the words written down made everything feel real.

My stomach dropped.

Nobody said anything after that.

The road became smoother. The trees grew denser. The sky seemed darker, even though it was still afternoon. I found myself counting my breaths without realizing I was doing it. One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe in. Breathe out. I wondered if this was what panic felt like. I’d read about panic attacks before. Maybe I’d had them before and never known.

Then the trees opened.

At first, I thought we’d reached a town.

There were buildings in the distance, spread across rolling hills surrounded by enormous gum trees. The architecture was modern, all pale stone and dark windows. The grounds were immaculate. Gardens lined the roads. There were walking paths, benches, sculptures. It looked less like an institution and more like a university campus.

That frightened me more than anything else.

I had expected bars on the windows.

I had expected fences topped with razor wire.

I had expected something that looked wrong.

Instead, it looked beautiful.

As we got closer, I noticed the fence.

It stretched across the property line, tall black iron disappearing into the surrounding bushland. It wasn’t threatening. It wasn’t ugly. It was almost elegant.

But it was still a fence.

Dad slowed the car as we approached the gates. They were already open.

For one insane second, I considered grabbing the door handle and jumping out.

Not because I thought I could escape.

Just because I wanted to prove to myself that I still had a choice.

Then we drove through.

I turned around in my seat and watched the gates disappear behind us.

The sound they made as they closed was almost inaudible.

It still felt final.

The driveway curved through the grounds for what felt like forever. We passed gardens full of native flowers, stone pathways disappearing into clusters of trees, and buildings scattered across the hills. I saw people walking in the distance. Teenagers. Adults. Some were talking. Some were alone. They looked normal.

That was the worst part.

They looked exactly like everybody else.

The car eventually pulled up beneath a large covered entrance at the front of the main building. Nobody moved after Dad switched off the engine.

The silence returned. Not the silence from before.A different one. The kind that exists when everyone knows something is ending. I stared at the dashboard between my parents’ seats.

“I don’t want to do this,” I said.

The words came out so quietly that I almost thought I’d imagined saying them.

Mum’s shoulders dropped.

“I know,” she whispered.

That was somehow worse than arguing with me.

Dad opened his door first.

The sound seemed impossibly loud.

He walked around to the back of the car and opened the boot. I could hear him lifting my suitcase out. Just one suitcase. Everything I’d chosen to bring from home fit inside a single piece of luggage.

The thought made me feel sick.

Mum turned around to face me completely.

“Oscar.”

I looked at her. For a second, neither of us spoke. Then I saw it. She was scared. Not disappointed. Not angry. Scared.

“I love you,” she said.

I stared at her.

I couldn’t remember the last time she’d said that first. The lump in my throat hurt.

“Then why am I here?” I asked.

Her face crumpled for just a second.

“Because we love you.”

I wanted to tell her that didn’t make any sense.

I wanted to tell her that people didn’t send away the things they loved.

Instead, I opened the door.

The air outside was cold and smelled like wet earth and eucalyptus. The rain had stopped completely, but everything was still soaked. Water dripped from the roof above us in steady intervals. Dad stood beside the boot with my suitcase. He looked older than he had that morning.

We walked toward the entrance together.

I don’t remember deciding to move. I don’t remember taking the first step.

One second I was standing beside the car, and the next I was crossing the concrete path toward the building that was apparently supposed to fix me.

The front doors were enormous sheets of glass. They opened automatically as we approached. Warm air rushed out to meet us. The lobby inside was beautiful. Not nice. Not comfortable. Beautiful.

There were polished stone floors, large windows overlooking the hills, paintings hanging on the walls, and soft yellow lights that made everything feel calm. There were people sitting in chairs reading books. A girl around my age sat by one of the windows staring out at the trees. An older man drank coffee from a paper cup.

They all looked normal. I couldn’t stop thinking that. They all looked normal.

A woman standing behind the reception desk noticed us immediately. She smiled and walked toward us.

“Mr. and Mrs. Piastri?” she asked.

My parents nodded. The woman turned to me.

“And you must be Oscar.”

The way she said my name terrified me. Not because she knew it. Because she’d been expecting me.

“Yes,” I said.

My voice sounded very far away. She smiled again and held out her hand.

“My name is Evelyn. Welcome to GreenSeattle.”

Welcome. As though I’d chosen to come.

I shook her hand anyway. Her grip was warm. Professional. Certain.

I looked back toward the entrance. The doors had already closed.

And standing there in the warmth of that beautiful building, with my parents beside me and a stranger smiling at me like I belonged there, I realized something that terrified me more than the drive, more than the institution, more than the possibility that something was wrong with me.

Have a short story

*drops this and skitters to the shadows*