Monday 8 July 2019

The Maze of Oblivion

The memory is a key to mental health. Only those people and the nations who remember their past - and do not deny it no matter how bad it was - have the chance to be completely sane. That's why the movie "Maze Runner" is the best allegory of what exactly mental disease is.

If you didn't see it, spoiler alert. 

Becoming a member of the group living inside of the Maze is something scary. Everything is scary, just like while being mentally ill. You don't know what is going on yet you need to survive, adjust, obey the rules. 

Right, the rules... Just as I mentioned in the last post, there are many people who will tell you what you should do or think if you are sick. The world of shrinks and therapists is represented by the character named Gally - do not ask, do not try to get out, stay safe where you are, searching for answers may be dangerous, and, of course, follow the rules that make we feel relatively comfortable. 

The one thing making that the group members didn't take the risk the main character took right away after showing up in the Maze, is oblivion, and to be more precise, unawareness of whole the situation they are in. Naturally, the nasty creatures emerging after dark are also dreadful but when I was watching the movie I realized that the boys were subconsciously afraid of unknown hidden further, behind the threat they learned to live with. And they didn't have a reliance on any memories. They lacked the base they could stay on. Just as people with mental illnesses.

People who have no idea how it is to live with mental illness, do not understand that the problem with memories do not always concern the events themselves but emotions related to these events. We do not remember the fear associated with violence we experienced, with beating, parents' screams and anger of theirs. We are detached from the pain we felt, from loneliness without limits... Honestly, for most of our lives, we are detached from ourselves. And this is something most of the other people want from us - to stay in terror, to obey the rules, to take the meds, do not ask the inconvenient questions... do not run.



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