Are Mariah’s Hallucinations Real? How Ian Ward Could Be Back Already on The Young and the Restless

On The Young and the Restless, Mariah Copeland has been through some stuff. But as much of a fighter and survivor as she can be, she’s been haunted by her demons. Or has she?

The Young and the Restless’ Mariah and Ian

On The Young and the Restless, viewers have been watching Mariah Copeland (Camryn Grimes) self-sabotage her life. She pushed away her wife, Tessa (Cait Fairbanks), turned her back on her daughter, Aria, and cut off contact with her friends and family after discharging herself from the mental health facility she was at.

Mariah resurfaced, isolating herself in a dingy motel room, obsessing over her past mistakes, and now dwelling on her experience as Dominic’s surrogate. But the real problem isn’t just the isolation — it’s the man standing in the corner of the room.

Ian Ward (Ray Wise) is back, as a figment of Mariah’s fractured psyche. The ever-evil lover of psychological warfare has been guiding (read: tormenting) Mariah for months.

However, unlike Caermon Kirsten (Linden Ashby), who haunted Mariah’s mother, Sharon Newman (Sharon Case), last year, Ian’s “hallucination” label feels like a massive misdirection.

The Unsinkable Ian Ward

Let’s look at a little Y&R history, and you’ll see where we’re going with this.

Ian Ward is a cockroach; he survives everything. After Victor Newman (Eric Braden) shot him a year ago, we were supposed to believe he was gone. 

But, although the emergency attendants declared him dead, in true Ian fashion, he opened his eyes in the back of an ambulance. As any soap fan knows, you don’t show a “dead” man opening his eyes unless he’s planning a sequel.

The manipulation we’re seeing right now is vintage Ian. He’s not just “haunting” Mariah; he’s actively coaching her. He’s reframing her history with Dominic, turning her selfless act of surrogacy into a narrative of loss.

And why? If we look back, when Ian came to town, intent on having a relationship with Mariah, he was stonewalled. She had a new life, a wife, and a daughter, and warned him that if he came near them, she would kill him. 

Ian has convinced her that she has no place in Aria’s life, but she can fill that void with Dominic — and he’s doing it with a level of precision that feels too methodical for a mental breakdown.

Is Ian Just a Figment of Mariah’s Imagination — or Not?

If Ian is actually in that motel room, it changes everything. It means Mariah isn’t just having an emotional break; she’s being held captive by a master manipulator who has gaslit her since the day he had her stolen at birth.

Ian knows Mariah better than anyone — he raised her in his cult, after all. He knows exactly which buttons to press to make her feel unworthy of Tessa’s love or Sharon’s support.

While Tessa is busy growing closer to Daniel (the man whom Ian destroyed last year by drugging Sharon and convincing her to frame him for murder), Mariah is falling further into a trap that might be physical rather than mental. 

Ian has always had an obsession with family, and his interest in Dominic suggests he’s looking for a new generation to bring into his warped fold.

The Physical Evidence

After Ian’s drama at the Newman Ranch, he left presumed dead. But the Ian that showed up at Mariah’s facility wasn’t the way she last saw him. 

Ian has been wearing his pastor outfit and carrying a bible in his hand, the same way he would get into prisons and talk to the inmates, to counsel them and guide them in making changes in their life. Of course, back then, he was just doing it to appear as a changed man.

But if Ian was alive and turned up as a spiritual counselor for patients at Mariah’s facility, that would explain why he was there, and how he got in and out.

And then there’s the time he visited and showed Mariah the Queen of Hearts card from a deck. Mariah ripped it up, but later, it was back…intact. Has he been messing with Mariah’s head this whole time, making her think she’s hallucinating?

Maybe — just maybe — we need to stop assuming Mariah is just struggling and start looking for the man who never actually died. Because if Ian Ward is in the flesh, Mariah isn’t just seeing things — she’s in for the fight of her life.

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