With the release of Locke and Key on Netflix (a series that many have eagerly waited to see adapted over the course of 10 years and several false starts), I find myself reflecting on the series and how it has made an impact on my own life. In addition to being clever, fun, giving me characters with whom I could easily connect and a story that I was sad to leave behind when it was all said and done, the series also had an unexpected impact on my own mental health and how I approach maintaining it.
I started reading Locke and Key (written by Joe Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez) in 2014. It was a series that was well-regarded, and I had enjoyed Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box, so I was keen to jump into another of his stories. Plus, a series about magical keys set in a town called Lovecraft sounded right up my alley.
If you are unfamiliar with the series, here is a very brief overview (followed by very minor spoilers): Following the death of their father, the Locke family (Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode) move with their mother to their father’s ancestral home, Keyhouse. It’s a large manor situated in the small, New England town of Lovecraft. Not long after their arrival, the Locke children begin to realize that Keyhouse is more than just an old creaky building – it is also home to a number of wondrous keys. Magical keys. Keys that not only open strange doors but also allow the user to transform. They discover a key that will turn you into an animal; a key that will separate your spirit from your body and allow your ghost to wander the grounds; a key that allows the user to control the shadows of other people.
From the first pages, I was in love. The story, the characters, the premise – it all clicked. It was such a special series that offered so much in terms of storytelling. Hill and Rodriguez created a world that was as lush with magic as it was with darkness and a story that I could instantly get behind.
Around this same time, I was really beginning to struggle with mental health issues. I had realized about a year prior that I had an anxiety disorder and was trying to find a way to properly deal with it. I had never received any kind of mental health treatment, and I didn’t really understand how to get a handle on it. I was suffering from panic attacks; I could easily become overwhelmed in crowds and in social situations and I worried constantly in a way that I just couldn’t stop. It was like my mind had a mind of its own and I had no control over it anymore. I had started to experiment with acupuncture and meditation as a means of calming my brain when things began to become overwhelming, and it had some effect, but I was at a loss to understand the whole of what I was dealing with. It just felt so big and impenetrable.
Meanwhile, as I continued through Locke and Key, one of the main characters was dealing with a mental health crisis of her own. Kinsey, the teenage middle child of the Locke family, was struggling through the grief process following the violent death of her father. He was murdered early on in the book, while Kinsey and her brothers were nearby and witnessed the trauma. In the months that followed, the family moved across the country to try to get a fresh start, but Kinsey remains haunted by the trauma of that day. She finds (naturally) that she is constantly afraid, jumping at the slightest irregularity in her environment, always looking over her shoulder. She is also (again, naturally) overwhelmed with sadness, as she struggles to process the loss of her father and the shattering of her family.
Everything that she is going through is perfectly normal, and part of the process of dealing with the tragedy. But like all of us, Kinsey would rather not be dealing with these feelings, especially due to the nature of how they arrived. Her father was violently taken from them. She didn’t ask for any of this. It’s unfair that she should have to struggle in the way that she does. But, like with all of us, life doesn’t care about what’s fair, and we have to deal with what it throws our way.
In Volume 2 of the series, entitled “Head Games,” Kinsey and her brothers discover the Head Key. Long, slender and topped with the profile of a cranium, the key inserts directly into the back of a human neck (the keyhole appears in the skin when the key gets close) and opens up the top of the skull. Inside, instead of a brain and other biological matter, we see directly into the person’s mind. We see everything they know and think. Information can be added directly to the person’s head, and therefore, mind. Tyler, for example, learns that the best way to cram for his exams is to simply insert his textbooks directly into his head, and absorbs all of the information he needs that way.
Kinsey finds more personal use for the Head Key. She identifies the part of her psyche that makes her sad and the part that makes her fearful and removes them from her mind altogether. She places them in a jar and seals it tight, leaving her mind free from the pain and the fear that she has been experiencing since her father’s death.
At this point, I became very emotional and had to put the book down for a bit. It sounded so wonderful - being able to take out the broken parts of myself. Being able to have control over my mind again. Getting rid of the things that were causing me more and more stress. I didn’t ask for any of this crap and I didn’t want it. I loved the idea of being able to just kick it to the curb like I would any other trash I needed to get rid of.
Ultimately though, such a thing is impossible. And really isn’t a good idea. Kinsey learns this over the course of the story. As much as we don’t like the pieces of ourselves that we can’t control and the emotional pain that can come from trauma, it’s not something that we can hide from. It’s something that we have to learn to live with, and, in our own ways, confront.
But the Head Key made me realize something. Even though I can’t remove my anxiety, I can control it. At the time, yoga, meditation, and acupuncture were the tools that I had and the tools I could use whenever I wanted. In time, as the anxiety gradually worsened and came to be mixed with depression, that toolbox expanded to include medication and therapy. I might not be able to get rid of my disorder completely, but I do have control over it.
To celebrate this fact, and to make sure I never forget it, I got the Head Key tattooed on my arm. It celebrates a story that I love and reminds me of how much power I still have over myself. I might have to deal with anxiety and depression, and it’s not always easy, but I am the one who gets to be in control of it.
The best stories are the ones that connect with us on a deep and personal level. They come out of nowhere, blindsiding us with the way they seem to understand us and see into our souls. We connect with these characters and their adventures in ways that we never imagined we could, and to us, they seem as real as any friends or family that we have in the real world. For me, Locke and Key has been one of those tales. It crossed my path at the perfect time in my life and I will carry that connection with me forever.
