

He was murdered early on in the book, while Kinsey and her brothers were nearby and witnessed the trauma. Kinsey, the teenage middle child of the Locke family, was struggling through the grief process following the violent death of her father. Meanwhile, as I continued through Locke and Key, one of the main characters was dealing with a mental health crisis of her own. 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 was like my mind had a mind of its own and I had no control over it anymore. 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.
#Mind lock and key how to#
I had never received any kind of mental health treatment, and I didn’t really understand how to get a handle on it. 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. 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.Īround this same time, I was really beginning to struggle with mental health issues.
#Mind lock and key series#
It was such a special series that offered so much in terms of storytelling. The story, the characters, the premise – it all clicked. 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.įrom the first pages, I was in love. Keys that not only open strange doors but also allow the user to transform. 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. It’s a large manor situated in the small, New England town of Lovecraft. 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. Plus, a series about magical keys set in a town called Lovecraft sounded right up my alley. 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.

I started reading Locke and Key (written by Joe Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez) in 2014. 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. 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.
