I thought that everything in "Normal Again" was sort of an alternate universe. But my memory of the episode isn't very good.

There is a scene in between Buffy's delusions where she admits to Willow that she had been briefly committed by her parents afters she saw her first vampire. She wonders to Willow if she is still in the asylum and everything in Sunnydale is the real delusion.

The hallucinations/alternate reality were intercut with scenes where Buffy was lucid. She revealed (to Willow, I think) that Joyce and Hank had actually had her committed at one point.

I'm thinking... if I could do things like bend steel bars and such, I could probably figure out a way to convince my parents that my ramblings about the supernatural weren't delusional after all.

if I could do things like bend steel bars and such, I could probably figure out a way to convince my parents that my ramblings about the supernatural weren't delusional after all.

I thought it was after seeing her first vampire but pre-calling so she didn't know the extent of her powers yet. I could be wrong.

She wasn't a slayer in the alternate reality, so she couldn't actually bend bars and such.

Supposedly she was called before Merrick (or whaever her original watcher that we saw in "Becoming" was named) approached her at the school and got her to take up cemetary patrols as a hobby. She might not have realized the full extent of her strength at first, but it must have been obvious that something unnatural was going on.

She wasn't a slayer in the alternate reality, so she couldn't actually bend bars and such.

Not in the alternate reality, but in Buffyverse reality, when she really was committed for telling her parents she saw vampires.

ETA: WILLOW: You are not in an institution. You have never been in an institution.

BUFFY: (whispers) Yes, I have.

WILLOW: What?

BUFFY: (sighs) Back when I saw my first vampires... (shot of the photo) I got so scared. I told my parents ... and they completely freaked out. They thought there was something seriously wrong with me. So they sent me to a clinic.

WILLOW: (shocked) You never said anything.

BUFFY: (tearful) I was only there a couple of weeks. I stopped talking about it, and they let me go. Eventually ... my parents just ... forgot.

WILLOW: God. That's horrible.

BUFFY: (crying) What if I'm still there? What if I never left that clinic?

BUFFY: (sighs) Back when I saw my first vampires... (shot of the photo) I got so scared. I told my parents ... and they completely freaked out. They thought there was something seriously wrong with me. So they sent me to a clinic.

I still disagree with the majority on that scene.

I think it was a false memory induced by the drug as well. To make Buffy unsure of herself, unsure what is real.

I think it was a false memory induced by the drug as well. To make Buffy unsure of herself, unsure what is real.

Because the line doesn't fit in with canon, or because there was other evidence of false memory implanted by the drug?

I think it was a false memory induced by the drug as well. To make Buffy unsure of herself, unsure what is real.

That is entirely possible. I thought that the drug latched on to bits of reality and turned them around on Buffy so she couldn't figure out what was real anymore.