BUGONIA: “Pain Traps.” Who Are You? Who Am I? What is Reality?

Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2025 film Bugonia gives us his take on the serious problems with humanity.  BUT. It also gives us a lot to understand about trauma. Do aliens exist in our midst? Unlikely. Do severely traumatized people feel like aliens and fall into delusions and conspiracy theories? For sure. Mother-neglect-drug-addiction, sexual molestation, childhood situations that make you lonely, terrified, angry, and all-too-tough, ravage the human psyche. You end up confused: Who am I? Who are you? Who is who? And, what is reality? These questions haunt a traumatized mind.

Mother Loss. Mother Trauma. A Confused Mind. 

Who am I? Who is Who? Who are You? AND. What is reality? This is Teddy’s (Jesse Plemons) terrible, confused state of mind. He’s gone mad with trauma. Distraught. Out of his mind. He’s been alone far too long. All his life. In reality and in his mind. He’s insecure. Confused. Trying hard to survive. Barely making it. Barely. All he has is his cousin, Don (Aidan Delbis). And, to be sure that Don gives him the attention he desperately needs, he manages Don’s every move. He can’t lose Donny. Teddy has lost everyone else. And, he is desperate to make it right again.

Teddy has no sense of reality. Who is he? He really doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. Because if he did, he’d be the boy who didn’t have a mother. He’d be in that old “pain trap” of sadness, loss, fear, and loneliness. SO. He’ll escape. He’ll give himself (and Donnie) shots. He’ll eradicate from himself all “psychic procreation urges.” “The part of your brain that makes you sad.” The part of you that wants to connect with people. Wants love. Has human needs. NO!!

That’s dangerous. Teddy knows. Knows deep in his bones that you can’t count on anyone to be there. SO. Don’t take the risk. Shut down desire. Never want anything. Control the world of loss. That’s what he’ll do. And, he’ll take Donnie with him. Teddy can’t be alone. And, he’ll get back at the people responsible for his losses. The ones who took his mother. The ones who ruined his life.

Who is Who? Everyone is all mixed up. So, when he kidnaps Michelle, it’s: Who Are You?

Who Am I? What is Reality? Am I an Alien? 

A confused mind can get filled up with all kinds of “theories” about people. And, those theories seem absolutely right. BUT. After severe trauma, most of those convictions aren’t true at all. Like: No one can be trusted. Or it’s better to never feel, need, or want anything again. Or, I’m no good, and no one will love me. Or, even: the world’s being run by aliens. BUT. Is Michelle really an alien?

Unlikely. Even if, under severe duress, she is: Tortured. Tied up.  Terrified.  Severely traumatized by Teddy. AND. Might have to admit she is. Maybe even wish she were. To escape from the world of pain. An alien has a place to go. Far. Far. Away. From the pain trap. From feeling always alienated.

Many traumatized people feel like aliens. Being abused. Neglected. No one caring. Or understanding who you are. No one even caring to see you. Never fitting in anywhere. Sad. With too much need. Need that feels “bad.” You have to find some kind of escape. Some kind of control.

The bees give Teddy an idea. The Queen bee controls it all, doesn’t she? And, his mom is certainly the queen in his life. She controls his longing. His anger. His terror. So, Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) is the perfect target of his projection. She’s the CEO of the company he works for. He’s lowly. And, she’s removed, cold, distant; doesn’t care about employees. “The kids.” Like his mom. 

Yes. His mom is removed, unavailable, unreachable. Because she is opioid addicted. Michelle, in captivity, the amateur psychologist is right: “You needed a mother, Teddy. And, she was never there.” BUT. Teddy flies into a rage at this truth. He won’t admit it. He will not feel it. NO!

Trying to Harness Those “Fucking Pain Traps...” 

A mom’s absence. A mom’s neglect. Day after day. This kind of repeated trauma, piled on top of other trauma, including sexual molestation by his babysitter-the-now-guilt-ridden policeman, Casey, can break an already fragile mind. Teddy is crazed. Desperate. He must convince Don that they can, they will, get rid of their sadness for good. YES. No more of those “fucking pain traps.”

Teddy tells Donnie: “It’s all neurons, man. We just have to harness them. Once you kill the urges (for love, not only sex) like I have, you’ll be your own master. No one can fuck with you; you’ll be totally free ... like when we were little. Before things got bad. When everyone was still here.”

Feeling anything is terrifying when you have no mom. Except maybe rage and retribution. Sadness is impossible to deal with. Like there’s no way out. When there’s been no one to comfort you. Make you feel secure. When there’s no one to count on. Or make you feel safe. You’re on your own. AND. Sometimes it seems like everyone is out to get you. That there’s no one you can trust.

You certainly can’t trust a CEO who is your big boss and doesn’t care about anyone but herself? She owes him: “You killed my family, my coworkers, my community. The bees.” YES. That woman must be an alien. She’s trying to kill him. BUT. Maybe she could save him ... from this life of pain.

Escaping Pain Traps Via Projection 

Trauma makes you have to go far, far away from your pain. Sometimes, out of desperation, you’ll do anything to get rid of it. Teddy concocts a plan of “pain control “(plus revenge). Revenge diverts his pain. Projects the pain into someone else. The alien. He’s not the alien. From life. From hope. She is. Michelle Fuller. He’s convinced, she is. Feeling alienated. From what others have. From having a mom. From control over loss. From what you need and feel entitled to. That brings rage.

Michelle Fuller is the target of Teddy’s rage. She’s to blame. To harness his pain, he harnesses her. Kidnaps her. Shackles her. Tortures her. Starves her. Beats her. Projects into her, all of his pain. She’ll feel it so he doesn’t have to. Not anymore. Teddy is now in charge. He’s never been in charge before. Not of his pain. Pain overwhelmed him. Drove him crazy. BUT. Now. She’s in pain, not him.

He’s not weak anymore. He’s not the victim. He’s not guilty of being unable to save his mom. Of needing her too much. Michelle Fuller is to blame. And now, she suffers. She’s breaking down. The tough, unfeeling, self-centered CEO is scared. Pleading to him. Desperate. Terrified. Not him. 

Teddy has reversed the roles. He’s the unfeeling one. That’s what he wants. No feeling. No pain. He’s dehumanized her. Calls her an “it.” “Even if it was human and it’s not, it’s still evil.” NO. Teddy doesn’t want to be human. Human means feeling pain. Fear. Loss. An alien from other people. Less than. That’s the worst. NO. He argues with Michelle: “Don’t talk to me like I’m a dipshit. I am not a dipshit. I’m a guy that knows what the fuck is happening, and you will not defeat me.”

She strikes back:

“Teddy, I’m sorry. You’re mentally ill.” He slaps her so hard that he shocks Donnie.

 The Pain of Feeling Like “Not a Good Person”

When you’re traumatized early in your life by having an absent mom, a mom who doesn’t make you feel loved because she can’t “show up,” you blame yourself. You end up feeling you’re “not a good person.” That’s why Teddy slaps Michelle. She shames him. He tells Donnie, “As soon as we get on the ship, we’ll prove that we are good people.” Not the aliens he feels like they are. Different. Alone. Suffering. For Teddy, it takes extreme measures (and fantasies) to feel he’s “good.” 

The goal is not to live in space, but “to save Earth.” That is, to make the world of trauma that’s taken over Teddy’s mind a better place to live in. A place where he doesn’t see himself as “bad.”

Michelle, too, is fighting to break free of the same chains. She doesn’t feel like a good person either. Hard for her to admit, though. But her captor, Teddy (who = those bad feelings) makes her believe she’s an alien, too. She “admits it.” Goes along with Teddy’s delusion. He can’t blame her for wanting to fit in, under duress, can he? Traumatized people will do or say anything to feel safe.

Anyway. Michelle has no friends. She’s alienated everyone.

She’s as much of an alien as Teddy is.

And, now. She’s just as traumatized.

She thought she was above it all. Can she face that she isn’t?

Facing the reality of what happened, how it shaped you, who you became, and what you feel, is the hardest thing to do after trauma. You’re left with: Feeling bad about yourself. AND. The trap of those feelings gets the best of you. You can’t feel: Guilt. Sadness. Fear. Distrust. Or. Confusion. So, some people who can’t get help (if your trauma is severe) end up with self-protective: RAGE.

 Trauma Doesn’t Have to End with Annihilation

Rage. Blame. Suspiciousness. Distrust. All of these are ways to (try to) get rid of your pain. “Don’t believe people. Keep your distance. Think the worst. Inflict pain, if you have to (like Teddy tortures Michelle). The pain isn’t inside you.” It’s survival. But, then, sadly, you can’t know who you are. You lose big pieces of yourself to: Numbness. Theories. Desperate fantasy. Self-annihilation.

We see Teddy struggle against all of this. He goes from blaming Michelle to idealizing her. The Queen Bee. Royal Blood. It’s confusing. Michelle, the enemy. Michelle, the potential savior. Either by a drug that turns his mom’s Opioid addiction around. Or by escape to another (her) planet.

Who do you trust?

When you’ve been traumatized early in life, you want to trust. But everyone is suspect if they slip up. Don’t fit into your savior fantasy. Make you feel rejected (like, saying the wrong thing.) Can anyone help? It often doesn’t feel like it. Which leads to awful despair. We see it in Don’s suicide.

BUT. Trauma doesn’t have to bring destruction in its path. Or, annihilation of all life (inside of you). Rage does that. But, also, fear. Not having the right help. Distrust. Not thinking there’s anywhere to turn. Trusting the wrong people. Desperation. Turning against yourself, like Don, out of having no hope. Out of too much loss.  Out of the conviction that the only answer is to escape reality.

Like Michelle, too. Convinced she is an alien. Michelle, who is also a part of Teddy. Running as fast as he can away from guilt, emotional need (convinced he killed his mom out of his desperate wanting to save her, have her. Finally, to be the mom she never was.) The problem is the bees. The little bees who “do their duty, build their worlds, without complaint, piety, or self-obsession.”

The bees = traumatized kids. BECAUSE. Trauma makes you believe you have to go along with what others want and tell you to do. To have no needs of your own. And when you get in touch with those needs, they feel so overwhelming that you think you drive away (or kill) the ones you need.

Of course, you feel rage.

AND. That the only answer is to annihilate reality as it is (or was). AND. Start over. As if that’s an option. Believing it’s the only option: to escape the pain trap of hopelessness.

I’m here to say: IT’S NOT.