Is 'Basket Case' By Green Day Based On A True Story?

My sister, Judy Easton, skipped school and started dating way too early, but our parents sent me, the straight-A kid, to a juvenile behavioral correction center, saying it was to teach her a lesson. "Judy, take a good look at William. Act up again, and you're going there, too." My family showed up to visit every so often. The first year, an instructor blew out my eardrum. I was covered in blood, gripping the bars, begging for help. Dad pointed at me while talking to Judy. "Look at him. Still can't follow simple instructions. If you don't listen to us, you'll end up just like him." The second year, the instructor broke both my legs. My parents stood over my bed and said, "Look at you, lying there like a useless wimp. We came all this way to see you, and this is the welcome we get? How ungrateful." The third year, the instructor pumped me full of hormones. I swelled up like a whale. The instructor smirked. "That's probably shot now. Let's see how you go after girls now." Judy stood outside the cage holding her acceptance letter to a top college. The whole family looked pleased. "William, Judy got into a top college. You did your part. I'm taking you home." I blinked, my vision hazy, trying to make sense of it. "Who's William? They all call me Runt."

When I'm seven years old, my dad turns me in to the Court Judgment of the Born Wicked because of my tendency to vomit. If I'm found guilty, my blood ties with my dad will be forcibly severed. Then, I'll be sent to prison. Everyone claims that Dad is just making a fuss over nothing. "Your daughter is still so young, so it's natural for her to fall ill. As a father, you should be more considerate toward her." But when the evidence is shown, everyone clamps up immediately. There was once when Dad drank so much to the point he suffered from gastric bleeding. The business contract that he managed to convince his client to sign was all soiled because I vomited on him as soon as he got home. Thanks to me, the contract was voided. Dad got fired on the spot. During Bryce Fuller, my older brother's birthday, I vomited onto his birthday cake in front of his classmates. Because of that, Bryce was isolated by all of his classmates. He became so depressed that he tried to slit his wrist in an attempt to take his own life. I'll keep vomiting everywhere, be it at the dining table or on my bed. Dad and Bryce have to clean me up more than 30 times every day. They suffer greatly because of me. What angers everyone the most is that after I'm done vomiting, I'll laugh at everyone in a provocative manner. The judge gives his verdict instantly, claiming that I'm wicked by nature. Bryce's eyes redden immediately. As he cries, he tells me that he can't bear to see me leaving him. I never shed any tears, nor do I throw a tantrum. Instead, I accept the judge's verdict calmly, but with a prerequisite condition that the judge finishes watching my memories. The judge is shocked, to say the least. "We'll have to crack your skull open in order to extract your memories. You'll be in a world of pain. Are you sure about that?" I nod in determination. But Bryce, on the other hand, looks alarmed. "I won't agree to that!"

Being a mute used to be simple before all the craziness started. I just can't talk and that's who I am. Mum has learned to accept that and I guess so have I. Everything was just fine in my high school in Shanghai. I had finally made it to year twelve and even though I was in China, I was actually being treated as a human being despite my disability. Things were definitely not perfect but I would give anything to go back to that, like it was before. I heard my first voice that year, right at the beginning of year 12. I didn’t really have any real friends, but I was used to it and before the voices started, I was fine with that. But it all changed when I first heard them. The voices inside their heads started then and my life was never the same. They weren't just thinking about school or they girls or guys they were into, no they were thinking about doing things, doing horrible things to each other and I was the only one that knew how messed up they really were.

To punish me for losing my autistic younger brother, Ezra Clement, Mom locks me inside a custom-made steel box. The box is about 20 inches wide and is welded in place in the deepest corner in our basement. "There's a walkie-talkie inside. You'll stay in there until you admit that you deliberately left Ezra beside the human traffickers' van." She locks the lid, plunging me into darkness. For the first three days, I cry and beg through the walkie-talkie, trying to tell Mom that I only let go of Ezra's hand to lure the traffickers away from him. One of the traffickers has slashed me across the back, and the wound keeps bleeding and festering. But Mom refuses to listen to anything I have to say. All I hear are her furious accusations. "Evelyn, you're just jealous of Ezra. A vicious sister like you deserves to be locked in there until you die." On the fourth day, torrential rain floods the basement. Muddy water rises past my knees, soaking the knife wound on my back in filthy water. The pain is so unbearable that I claw at the metal walls until all ten of my fingernails tear and break. I desperately press the talk button. But all I hear from the other end is Mom's gentle voice coaxing Ezra to sleep. To prevent me from disturbing him, she powers it off. When the water that is mingled with the blood from my mangled fingers rises above my head and floods into my nose, I stop struggling. Mom has no idea that on the back of our family photo, I have written down my plan to work hard, earn money, and pay for Ezra's treatment. Helplessly, I think, "Mom, I confess. In my next life, I will never be your daughter again."

I am a doctor. One day, I come across a weird patient when I am on duty. The first thing she says when she sees me isn't that she feels unwell somewhere. Instead, she says something hair-raising. "Dr. Cantrell, your girlfriend is a murderer." "What nonsense are you spouting?" I shoot back with widened eyes and shoot up from my chair. I feel offended. She calmly says, "She won't be home tonight because she needs to deal with the body. You will know whether what I say is true by tonight."

I had always known my family hated me. Or maybe more accurately—they hated me for taking their real daughter’s place for so long. When they finally found Lily, their real daughter and sister, Matteo, the brother I grew up with, told me to disappear. Father, Don Kane, never looked at me twice again, no matter how hard I tried. Mother treated me like I was invisible. But they never let me leave. They made me stay and suffer. One day, Lily did something horrible, and they threw all the blame onto me. I was locked away in an asylum. When I was finally released two years later, the Kane came looking for me again, smiling as they called me their real daughter after all. A little too late for that, don’t they think?