A/N: Based on Season 3 Episode 3 of Rick and Morty; "Pickle Rick." Such minor spoilers that you can still read even if you haven't seen the episode.
Rick has a tendency to keep Morty up late, through all hours of the night, either directly or inadvertently. Sometimes it's because the house is brimming with noise from the garage as his Grandfather works on various projects. Occasionally it's because there's an adventure to be had which has no regard for whether it's a school night or not. But mostly it's because even when the house is quiet, and Morty is left to his warm bed, secure in the comfort of his own home, he can't sleep. Dreams and memories alike rattle his mind, nightmares darker than imaginable to any person who hasn't traversed the multiverse with an alcoholic, intelligent, psychotic relative.
His dreams are never as common nightmares are: Born of fears and created from unlikely circumstances. When an average being dreams in night-terrors, they're rattled by unlikely what-if scenarios, or non-too-threatening phobias. One might dream of a tornado blowing through their home at night, or of going to work shoe-less by mistake the next morning, or even, perhaps, of being eaten by their own canine friend. These dreams of the common are easily forgotten and blow over as a gentle storm does, based in the ludicrous and unlikely, which allows the dreamer to easily dismiss their own fears once consciousness resettles over them and wits and logic return.
Such is not the case for Morty Smith. His dreams and nightmares are consistently made of something more real, terrifying, and un-dismissible. Simple logic and consciousness cannot will them away. His dreams are made of reality, of memories and possibilities not unlikely, but rather entirely probable and limitless. He may dream of an invisible intruder standing in the corner of his room, watching him all night long, and if he wakes he cannot simply shake the terror away as a ridiculous idea. He can dream he dies tomorrow and for the rest of the day and the one following after he is justified in being afraid of such an outcome. He may have fears of his family dying, of his world ending, of all he knows being destroyed, but when he wakes the fear doesn't lessen because it is based in memory, fact, experience, and it is a part of his reality.
It is by these fears and terrors that he is conscious through the night. Such was the case when he found himself pulling himself out of bed one morning, having slept no more than an hour and emerging from that hour even more tired than when he'd gone in. He dressed for school and prayed for a normal day he ultimately would not receive.
When he found himself in history class, he couldn't prevent his eyes from drooping. Of all the classes to be had in school, history was the most sleep-inducing for him. Who could, after all, truly care about the history of one single Earth when they knew of infinite worlds, realities, and altered histories?
Morty fell asleep in the middle of class, bored into unconsciousness by the droning voice of his teacher and pulled under by the weight of many sleepless nights.
People would later joke. His mother would roll her eyes, disappointed. His sister would scoff at him, and Rick would poke fun at him, insulting his intelligence, because of these events, but neither his sister nor mother knew. They didn't understand. Rick did, but he still poked fun, if anything to avoid having to think about the blame that could be laid with himself. Rick knew that Morty wasn't quite stupid enough to pee himself in history class without some kind of provocation leading up to it, but he never commented on that fact.
And Morty never told anyone. He wanted to: Wanted to clear himself of blame, wanted to admit that it was because of the terrors that had once again seized him in his sleep that he'd accidently urinated where he sat in his desk and not because of any self-fault. He wanted to see a therapist, wanted to return for future visits, and if his family didn't want to go with him then he wanted to be able to seek that help himself.
But his Grandpa Rick so obviously looked down on therapists and those who utilized their skills, and his sister and mother were clearly unconcerned. Summer just liked to get high, it really was as simple as that, and as far as Beth was concerned her son had simply made another one of his idiotic mistakes. No one was going back to therapy.
So Morty never told anyone. He never tried to explain himself. And he only ever gave himself one single justification for why he never tried to seek psychiatric help on his own, one line of reasoning behind the idea that he couldn't talk to anyone about his problems, that he couldn't receive real assistance and solutions for them:
"What therapist could ever even possibly hope to be able to deal with my shit anyway?"