Lisey's Story: Maladaptive/Dissociative States of Reality

TW: Mentions of self-harm, blood, death, dissociation, maladaptive daydreaming.

Lisey's Story (Dir. Pablo Larrian Matte(2021)), a novel and drama mini-series both written by Stephen King, premiered on Apple Tv with extremely mixed reviews; some people didn't really vibe with the whole surrealist take on grief, romance, poverty, and the horrors of fandom gone too far. And some people felt like Lisey's Story was a little bit too much of a self-contrived fan-fiction, centering the life of his own wife (cool person alert, Tabitha King) and what she'd do if one King's fans lurked off the dark web and threatened her life. Regardless, there were at least the other half thoughts, ones that I felt a little bit more comfortable residing in: I thought it was some of King's most poetic works. Specifically one of the more prettier ways he's self inserted himself and his family's lives in the story.

The story is about Lisa "Lisey" Landon and the harrowing fame of her writer husband's, Scott Landon's, legacy; the lengths he would go to survive his own mind and the past that continues to both haunt and heal him. Physically lengthening his heart, body, and mind by escaping to the waters of Booya Moon: a dissociative place that provides a literal haven. For Scott, when his visions of the past become too strong, for Lisey, who originally joined Scott there to better understand his creative intuition, but then wheedled Booya Moon for her own, clever salvation, and finally, Lisey's sister, Amanda, who first experienced the healing waters when Scott graciously shared it, aiding her from grief, but then later finds herself sitting in front of Booya Moon. The blood-orange, holding her, while back in the material realm she's unable to move or speak. Lisey trying her hardest to bring her back.

I thought the metaphor of Booya Moon was probably the most realistic, and sometimes unfortunately beautiful way one can experience a maladaptive hiatus from the sufferings of our world. Even though the temporary abandonment of the body can be dangerous, the dangers of it can't be weighed against the tangible threat presently threatening the flesh - an undesirable pick of choices, if you will. As well as the cruelty surrounding the stigma of dissociation has pandered again to another idea of choice; no one questions the ethicalness of the escape pods if the entire spaceship is on fire. No one wants to leave themselves, just for even a second, in a bad time, but yet it's necessary. A demand, needed to be met if you wanna play the long game. You wanna live long enough to come back. See the harmer, person, or place, lay waiting for you in rot. Their hurt, squishing beneath your boots.

Examples of this tough choice lay in the show like a piece of hair in some soup; Raised by an abusive father, one that encouraged self-harming practices by saying to Scott, and his brother Paul, needed to let "the bad out" and left their to their own means. As a way to survive their father's paranoia, Paul constructed a game, or rather a scavenger hunt, to distract Scott from the misery, called A bool hunt. Soon, the hunt passes through realms and eventually leads Paul and Scott to a pool of water lit by a moon. Bodies that sit on stone steps, trapped under that moon forever or gobbled up by Long Boy: a creature that gobbles up the souls that stay there too long. As time goes on, Scott survives a childhood no one should ever be subjected to, the temptation to retreat to the moon stays with Scott forever, and he eventually vessels the pain, the desire to escape, into something creative. Ironically (and only artistically) he demands to "bleeds out" for his bool hunt, his scavenger hunt of dark grief, and frees up space for his kindness. For his love for Lisey and her family, having a permeant place to stay in his skin.

Lisey's Story I feel delicately explores a lot of taboo relations between our sorrow and the reality moving around us; I really enjoyed how the catalyst to Lisey, scary super fan Jim Dooley, and his former publisher, are used as the sometimes malevolent and relentless anchor of life. How the temptation for Lisey to stay with Amanda and Scott is not possible if she did not protect the body that pickled the petaled fabric of her mind, a lot like the lighthouse in Scott's office; a guiding force, whose light guides the sorrowbread's back home. I love how King played with the ironic catch of both Lisey's and especially Scott's gifts; to experience the healing waters of Booya Moon, for Scott to be able to come back with a ton of book ideas like Santa with his sack, one has to witness irreversible sadness. To survive a set of memories, one should have been called to survive in the first place.