Mariah’s mental health is at an all-time low on The Young and the Restless as she hallucinates Ian Ward. On Wednesday’s episode, October 22, she insisted to his “ghost” that she was nothing like him. She told him that the trauma she experienced at his hand led her to nearly kill a man as a proxy for exorcising her demons. Though Mariah managed to stop herself from taking a life, the soap may not be done with her dark turn.

Key Takeaways

• Mariah is not completely in control of her actions
• Getting help at a mental health facility may not be the cure Mariah is hoping for
• Hallucinating Ian could lead Mariah to hurt someone else

Mariah Is Haunted By Her Past

For months, Mariah (Camryn Grimes) has been stewing in her grief over not having been the person who ended Ian’s (Ray Wise) life. He’d stolen her as a baby, ripping her away from her loving family. The trauma of his actions has plagued her existence. Mariah believes that if she’d killed him, she’d have been able to put all of that behind her. But she didn’t, and it’s affecting her mental health.

Not only is she hallucinating Ian while seeking help for being emotionally imbalanced, but she’s also doing so because she lured a man back to a hotel to kill him. The guilt over her behavior has been dogging her steps, but it’s been the means of proving to herself that she isn’t like Ian. While Mariah did honeytrap someone so she could use him as a proxy for the man she really wanted to kill, she stopped herself before she made a fatal mistake.

However, the problem is that she didn’t stop before she harmed someone. Mariah smothered that man with a pillow. So if the manifestation of her desire to rid herself of Ian presented itself violently once, who’s to say that impulse is completely gone?

A Walk On The Dark Side

Mariah is adamant that it’s her remorse that sets her apart from Ian. She’s decent, compassionate, and logical. But none of those qualities stopped her from hurting someone. They also haven’t kept her from hallucinating Ian. Mariah isn’t being rational; she doesn’t have the capacity to be because she’s mentally unwell right now.

Hallucinating is but one element of the battle she’s facing. So far in this storyline, she has been prone to pushing her loved ones away and trying to handle things on her own. Mariah believes she’s protecting them, but she’s at risk of losing her wife, Tessa (Cait Fairbanks), and the family they’ve made with their daughter, Aria, because she refuses to open up.

If Mariah remains closed off to her loved ones who are trying to help her, she could slip further into darkness. If that happens, the man she attacked may not be her last victim. Hallucinating might lead her to hurt another innocent person if she thinks they’re Ian. Hopefully, being at the mental health center does her some good, but it’s not going to be a cure-all.

Mariah can’t continue to face her demons by herself. She said killing the man she attacked would have been what Ian wanted, but isolating herself is a decision he’d love, too. To break away from him, she’ll need the support she refuses to take. Otherwise, she’ll be trapped in her trauma with only Ian to keep her company.