Words on Bathroom Walls - You have to choose exactly who you wanna be

Adam is a high school student who loves cooking. His dream is to study at a culinary school and own a restaurant one day. When he gets older, he starts to hear voices and see things that only he can see. Later, he is diagnosed with schizophrenia. He sometimes has illusion and his 'friends' may convince him to cause trouble. One day, when he is doing a scientific experiment with his buddy, his illusion kicks in. Asked by his friends to leave immediately, Adam accidentally spills over the chemical and gets his buddy injured. Because of the accident, he gets kicked out.

He needs a diploma to apply for culinary school, so he has to find another high school to complete his study. His mom and her new husband, Paul, finds him a catholic school. They are willing to admit Adam on condition that he takes the medication and has satisfactory academic results. When he begins to take the medication, his imaginary friends fade away eventually. At school, he also meets a girl, Maya. The first time they met was when he walked in on her having a side hustle by helping others do essay or other homework. He doesn't score well in a test and he knows Maya wants to earn money, so he asks her to become his tutor. Though it's not well paid, she reluctantly accepts. They have tutoring session almost everyday after school, so he begins to bond with her, but he hasn't shared his medical condition with her.

Yeah, well, it's best to say exactly what you mean or nothing at all. Unrelenting honesty, you know?

When he knows that his mom has been reading the transcript of his conversation with the psychiatrist, he feels like being watched over all the time. Adam wants to hang out with Maya after scoring well in a test, so he takes her out to have a meal at his dream restaurant. Everything is going well until he meets his old classmates on their way back. They initially just want to tease him, but it becomes more intense, and they have a fight with Adam and Maya. Maya defended him, but she still wants to know why it happened. Adam doesn't want to go too deep, so he doesn't reveal his secret. Being advised by Father Patrick, Adam decides to confront Maya when she told him earlier that she's not free tutoring him that day. It takes him some time for Adam to track down where she lives. At her house, he realizes her family is having financial difficulty, which is probably something she has been hiding from him. Adam doesn't see her different even knowing her family background, but he is also willing to make it flexible for her to tutor him while working at the restaurant. The medication surely makes his illusion go away, but it also comes with side effects, like muscle spasm and loss of taste. He doesn't want it be like that, so he stops taking the pills. He also learns that his mom gets pregnant, which is a big news to him. Though his mom promises that nothing is going to change, he doesn't really believe it. With so much going on in his life, his friends come back for him.

It's nice to be heard and not just observed. It's nice to be listened to.

And the kitchen is just my place. When I'm cooking, it's like everything disappears. And... I get to be exactly who I want to be. I'm in control.

And the truth is, the older you get, the more difficult it is to stay sane. And it's gonna take real work. Or maybe that's what makes you more mature than others. And I hear that girls like that sort of thing.

When I was a freshman, there was this girl at our school who was a junior, and she was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer. She was part of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, so before she died, they had some boy band come to our school and have lunch with her as part of her wish. It was a really touching thing. It was all people could talk about for weeks. But it got me thinking. When you're a cancer kid, people can't wait to flock to your aid, and are so eager to grant any wish you have before you die. But when you have schizophrenia, people can't wait to make you someone else's problem. That's why we end up on the streets, screaming at nothing, waiting to die. No one wants to grant our wishes.

With his friends by his side, Adam acts weird again. Adam's friends stop him from opening up to Maya when he makes a scene at school because of the illusion. At home, his mom finds out that he has stopped taking meds for a while. His mom is worried about his medication condition and being kicked out at school, because that's part of the deal for allowing him to stay at this school. Adam thinks that they don't understand the side effects on him, but his mom thinks that he doesn't know how much they've sacrificed for him. Adam isn't really the only one going through this pain, the whole family are in this together. His mom and Paul are willing to do everything for him to cure his illness or ease his pain, but Adam just pushes everyone away. The school knows that Adam has stopped taking the pills, so they decide to suspend him temporarily. As he has asked Maya to go to prom with him, he decides to sneaks out to the prom anyway. It's going well until his illusion kicks in. When he is under influence, he begins to hurt people around him and hurt himself in the end. His misbehavior got him kicked out of the school and his mom has told Maya what Adam has been going through the whole time. Adam is mad at his mom for exposing his deepest secret and he doesn't want mercy from Maya. Being admitted to psych ward, he starts taking medication and his friends are gone again. Father Patrick's words inspire him to recognize what he did wrong, because we're all flawed in our ways.

Adam's mom gives Adam the letter Paul wrote to school. Adam was very wrong from the very beginning. He thought Paul planned to report him to school, but instead Paul has been begging the school to reconsider the decision and lift the punishment on him. Adam knows he mistreated Paul, so he gives Paul a big hug and think he's ready to tidy up his mess. He goes to the graduation ceremony and gives a speech about who he really is. He finally accepts who he is and he has no shame in hiding his illness. Maya wants to talk to Adam after the ceremony. He thought she is mad at him for having such weird illness, but it's not. She is mad at him that he didn't even give a chance to stay even when she wanted to.  

Being ambiguous doesn't make you profound. It makes you full of shit.

But letting Maya love me the way that I am would be like letting her catch a disease. She doesn't deserve to be loved by someone who can't see the world the way it is. Right? And I'd really like to keep my secrets while I have them.

Everyone's flawed. But admitting our flaws, that gives us the opportunity and the strength to face them. And that's why we confess. I'm sorry I didn't tell you all this before everything happened. But I had no idea what you were up against.

But you need to take the time to think about what kind of person you wanna be. At the very least, you need to believe in yourself.

My greatest failure, hands down, has been hiding from the ones I love. For believing the voice in my head when it tells me... I'm ruining their lives. For believing it when it tells me I'm too defective to be loved by anyone. You made me feel so many things. And I wasn't ready to give that up. I'm sorry you had to expel me because I didn't fit your picture of normalcy. But this is who I am.  This is who I am. I'm Adam. I have an illness, but I'm not the illness itself.

Because those are the people that can show you what's real when you can't see that for yourself. It can be the beginning of everything. If you let it.

Having some kinds of illness doesn't mean that you're the poorest one in the world, because you are not the one suffer in this tragedy. It's definitely not something you are proud of, but it doesn't mean that you have to hide it from everyone. When you meet someone you love, you will eventually open up to show even your weakness and vulnerable feelings, because honesty is one of fundamental elements in a relationship. When you open up to someone, it doesn't mean that someone will sympathize you, but at least you're showing your true feeling.