Trigger warning: trauma and loss
I think I may be like other parents of teens and young adults -- we're watching Stranger Things to connect with them, enjoy good stories and maybe reminisce about the 80's a bit. I think I annoy my sons when I say for the 50th time "Oh my, I remember that -- that was my favorite" or "I couldn't stand that song" or "That's an homage to <insert whatever 80's movie or icon>".
Even before beginning to watch this current season, I felt a little underwhelmed because the series seemed to be losing the novelty aspect. So, just to have fun with my 15 year old, I sat down to watch season 4. What I did not expect was for the series to reach down into me and connect with my own experience with traumatic grief. Not at all.
I don't want to give spoilers so if you're intending to watch it, maybe read this later. But, if you've already watched, the scene with Max fighting Lord Vecna and the story surrounding it made tears pour down my face, even after the fourth time watching. The villain in this season, Lord Vecna, is a person who experienced trauma as a child due to his parent's collective trauma experiences. He was a sensitive and empathic child with psychic abilities that were exploited by psychiatric researchers. These experiences led him down a path toward destroying other lives around him.
Lord Vecna unfairly taps into the past trauma of vulnerable people to accomplish his own ends. He is exiled to the world of the Upside Down and from there aims to psychically use the hidden pain, guilt, fear, depression, self-doubt, shame, and anxiety of others to trap them and gain power from their destruction. Interestingly, he accuses them, preying on their hidden despair and offering relief from their suffering through their destruction.
In the character Max's case, he preys upon her feelings and thoughts related to her traumatic grief over the loss of her brother. Her brother Billy died a horrible death in the last season due to the horrors of the Upside Down. In the first few episodes of season 4, she is exhibiting signs of depression and self-isolation related to her brother's death, experiences common to the trauma of sudden loss. A person experiencing traumatic grief feels that no one understands, and because Max was a young teenager, that was most likely exacerbated.
Shortly before the pivotal scene, Max realizes she is being targeted by Lord Vecna while she is aiming to process her true feelings about Billy. She writes a letter to Billy and leaves it at his graveside. At that moment, Lord Vecna draws her into a waking nightmare, entrancing Max through manipulating the memory of Billy to accuse her of not doing enough to save Billy and alleging that she actually wanted him dead. She remains in a frozen state of immobilization by Billy’s grave as Lord Vecna preys on her mind.
This is a profound metaphor for how guilt in traumatic grief works. At our darkest moments, as we attempt to process the grief, guilt accuses and traps us, causing us to spiral into fear, self-doubt and finally into hopeless despair. In those moments, our loved ones may be trying to pull us out, like Max's friends began to try, but that immobilization caused by the darkness is powerful.
As Lord Vecna continues his accusations and lies, he frames it in a bit of truth: she has hidden her thoughts and feelings from her loved ones because she feels like they are unable to understand her pain. Lord Vecna pushes on that narrative and begins to trap Max into her destruction. This represents the overwhelming and isolating nature of guilt leading to self-harm. It feels unsurmountable at times. And it is statistically common in those who are traumatically bereaved, unfortunately.
However, at that moment, her friends attempt one last effort to pull her back by rallying around her and playing her favorite song, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” by Kate Bush, through her headphones. The thick, blood-red clouds in her mind open a small bit and she can see them reaching out to her. Lord Vecna tries to lie again and remind her of why she hid from them, but her mind slowly becomes flooded with memories of the beauty in her past, the smiles and laughter, the connection, the love.
So, she decides to fight.
She swipes at Lord Vecna and begins to run and run toward the opening in her nightmare that opened but is slowly closing. Lord Vecna tries to stop her by dropping obstacles in her way and she falls as she tries to avoid the obstacles -- over and over again.
But she keeps getting up and runs harder.
Finally, she reaches the opening and jumps through.
Her friends surround her as she drops to the ground and repeats, "I'm still here -- I'm still here."
As I watched this, I wept (like I'm weeping again as I write this) because that artistically represented my regular experience over the last 20 years as I've walked through traumatic grief over the sudden death of my son, Benny. No one knows the nightmares I've seen and have been stuck in. Many times, I didn't know if I would make it out of waking nightmares and thought that the lies and the darkness which justified the guilt in my mind and soul about Benny's death were true. Many times, it felt like the darkness had trapped and nearly killed me. I felt like I was completely alone and that no one would ever understand.
However, many friends and family, (and especially my husband Aaron) have loved me enough to keep reaching out, reminding me of the beauty of life and to keep going: to keep getting up no matter what obstacles are thrown in my path; to keep running toward others and toward hope, as many times as I have to -- daily, if need be. And I have. I have fought and run like that so many times. And no one has really known the horror of it but I'm slowly beginning to change that through finding therapeutic help for the trauma and continuing to speak out.
While we want to rescue those caught in these dark places, they will need to be loved and supported to find the light within themselves to fight, which is much easier said than done. If you love someone who is there, keep reminding them of that and look for how to help through trauma therapy and/or spiritual/social resourcing.
Thank you to those who have helped to pull me out. I will always need that support. Now, in my work to become a trauma therapist focused on traumatic bereavement, I am trying to understand so I can help pull others out and encourage them to fight and run toward the light of love, as often as they have to.
Help is out there if you feel alone in it. There are those of us who KNOW the darkness and have been there many times and want to do what we can to help pull others out.
Reach out.
Run up that hill.