#there are so many aspects of billy (and even max to a degree) that speak to me

[shivered-bones]

i've been wanting to make a post about my experiences and how they relate to billy, how identifying with him has improved my own understanding of myself, but i've never really found a good starting point. i started typing in the tags and got a bit frustrated with how broken it felt, so, uh, apologies.

i was emotionally and verbally abused by my mom until i was fifteen, but even afterwards there were small moments where it trickled through. people were well aware of this, but i can't remember them doing anything that really helped. i can't remember most things related to it, honestly. i was the one who had to step forward to stop it, i had a younger sibling to protect and i was growing progressively scared for them. i went through channels that eventually got her therapy and medication, and it ended. kind of. because the effects don't really disappear and nobody gave me the help i needed, nor did they want to label what had happened to me as abuse. any help for my sibling wasn't even brought up, and i don't have to look back far to know they needed it.

our relationship improved drastically, but my mom passed away in 2021 and it feels like something unresolved, but it's also difficult to reconcile the version that hurt me and the version that i adore, that i miss, that i know i always will.

i also have a mostly distanced father, and my mom had a lot of different partners over the years, and they were also passive when it came to how we were treated.

suffice to say, i understand billy, and how the system failed him, how difficult it is to trust it and access it and even then it rarely gives you everything you need. how the adults in his life failed him, how many people have probably looked the other way. how siblings are a complication, how seeing them hurt is terrifying but also how watching the anger and waiting for it to be turned on you is terrifying, and the type of thoughts that will form when looking for a way for it to be easier. i look at my younger self and how twisted and illogical everything was and i want to hold them and tell them there is a way out, that this isn't all that's waiting for them, and it's impossible for me to look at billy and people like him and feel any different.

This is out of curiosity, given that a lot of fans of the character have talked about trauma and how trauma has made Billy more relatable to them.

You do not have to reveal your experience in the comments, replies, or tags, unless you want to.

[myfandomrambles]

El Hopper Character Analysis

Facts: 

Mother was experimented on while carrying el to give her the powers

Kidnapped from her mother directly after birth by Dr Brenner

Raised by Brenner to be a weapon

Only Called by the number Eleven for the first twelve years of her life

Experimented on in severely abusive ways

Was neglected not learning to speak descriptively, read, tell time etc

Due to experiments, she had access to telekinesis, forms of telepathy, access to other dimensions, and electrokinesis

Eventually escaped and was chased after by the ���bad men”, having to kill them after they caught up to her and her friends

Quickly became friends with and eventually fell in love with mike wheeler

Befriended Dustin and Lucas during this attempt at freedom

Gave herself up to save her new friends

Survived and was adopted by Jim Hopper, and became a father and daughter emotionally and legally

Was given access to food, housing and compassion but was still alienated causing a rift with her father

Ran away from home to due to feeling betrayed finding her mother

Her mother was severely disabled by Brenner

Found another victim of Hawkins lab helping them in a revenge quest but was unable to kill again. Came home to protect her friends

Saved the world causing herself great pain, but was able to reconnect with her friends.

Dated mike wheeler and befriended Max Mayfield their other friend

Was still close to her father though they struggled with his overprotectiveness

Lost her powers after being severely injured by a monster from the other dimension. Also attacked by billy and watched him die

Lost her adopted father

Adopted by Joyce Byers, who had been her closest to a mother figure she had

Analysis:

El is a character who shows immense loyalty, lack of self and resilience, these I believe are her most prominent character traits. She also shows great compassion for others even when she was never really was taught how.  All of this formed on the base of her trauma.

El is greatly shaped by her trauma, it’s impossible for her not to be dealing with 12 years of emotional, intellectual and social neglect and physical abuse. This and the continuous danger the upsidedown and government place on her leave her disconnected from others even after being freed. El’s love her others pushes through these boundaries allowing real bonds to form with the Party, her father and Joyce.

 El struggles with communication due to her language deprivation and social struggles, this is a good way of showing her dive to learn though over the three seasons her vocabulary grows. She has a habit of becoming very connected to phrases that others use with emotional weight, sometimes adding more. Mike teaches her the word promise, one of her first non-practical word. She takes this to heart feeling deeply hurt when others don’t follow the promises even when it’s not out of deception. “friends don’t lie” also carries important weight, something that rifts her relationship early with Lucas and then later with Hopper. “mouth breather” is her main insult throughout the show after mike showed it to her, when she connected with Max she often parrots her when dealing with their boyfriends. 

El’s communication skills are an interesting aspect to her characterization, it is important because it is alienating as well as being part of why she develops some of the phrases and concepts she attaches to like “friends don’t lie” and “promise”. It’s also interesting because it relates to her early trauma, having never been taught language skills along with many basic skills like handwriting, telling time or other basic skills. 

El’s communication skills also connect to trauma in the lack of attunement, attachment and socialization. El doesn’t understand many interpersonal concepts like friendships, dating, girl/boy dynamics or promises. She also has little understanding that things like stripping in front of people being socially unacceptable. Her trust of people is also a problem showing som disinhibited behaviours like easily taking food and help from others and above mentioned stripping in front of others. But her abuse also makes trust a 0 or 100% idea and her deep need for connection is added. This makes sense because she did love her abusive “papa” even if she understood her abusers to be “bad men”.

El also seems to struggle with sensory input struggling in crowds and with loud noises. She is overall hypersensitized to things but also seems to struggle with boredom and lack of stimuli. Stimming is a compulsive way are used as a tool for self-regulation. Thoughts and concepts seem to become deeply ingrained and she ruminates until she has to act like with her mother. Similar compulsive behaviour with that idea and other behaviours like stealing the Egos she’s attached too.

El’s first important relationship is with her abusive captor. This is the background to all of her relationships later in the show. We see he terrifies her through his abuse but she still calls him Papa and seems to want him to care, this complete connection or abject distrust is seen throughout the show. She sees most people as a threat but her lack of worldly understanding eaves her dependent on others to navigate the world in season 1 and even when she strikes on her own in season 2 she still does some things that are not safe. In season 3 Max shows her how to be a kid.

The second important relationship is with mike. He’s the first person her own age she connects with in any way. They quickly become close and develop crushes on each other. Benny was the first person to show her compassion but Mike is the first person a bond built on anything but abuse is formed. He shows her the world and fun things and uses an emotionally grounded language. He protects her and she, in turn, protects him, standing up for him to bullies and monsters. They do have a romantic relationship which is very sweet, it’s Mike's first serious crush and first girlfriend. But what’s important is Mike is the second person on earth to ever be nice to her, I think this adds an extreme layer of emotion to El. Even though she clearly likes their other friends up until she develops a stronger connection to Max it seems she never was as close to others in the party.

Hopper is a guiding factor in season 2 and 3. He takes her in while she is on the run in the winter and they become close to becoming a father and daughter relationship. They bond as she needed someone to protect her, and offer parenting she never had for over a decade. She filled a hole in his heart that his own daughter's death had left and helped him find purpose. 

El being in danger and having lost his own child becomes one of their biggest problems. Hopper is hyper-protective of El when she wants to be able to interact with others and form her own identity. Hoppers own lack of communication skills causes rifts to because he doesn’t tell her what he is really doing and is scared to open up. They are able to repair their relationship though as Hopper does open up in the end usually and El really cares for him, and we know she appreciates and loves him. He’s her family, coming to see him as a father. It’s also very sweet as we know he read to her, helped her learn new words and being able to write, showing an impatient do or die kind of man sat down and gave her a “word of the day” and taught her to write, even if we can tell she is at the level of a younger child. 

El’s internal character arc is a lot about finding her own person in the aftermath of not being allowed to be her own person and develop the way a healthy child should. Learning to trust others, express herself and not be controlled is very hard when she has no bases. Mike and Hopper help her learn safety and come to love them but they are also somewhat controlling in wanting to protect her, which makes sense considering they have both lost her. Hover she finds her personhood with guidance from her past, her sister and Max. Along with time. Figuring out who her mother allows her to fill in that whole knowing he had a mamma but never having met her, I think this hurt her greatly but it also helps her learn about the degree of her psychic ability and why what happened to her did (though you can never really have a reason to abuse kids). It hurt her because she can never really connect with her mother and her aunt is not understanding. 

Kali offers us and El another version of what surviving Hawkins lab looks like. It’s important because it allows El to be a little wild for a moment and find herself a family member who knows what the trauma they went through was like. She helps El explore her powers and how they work, and Kali does the big sister thing of dressing up and causing some mayhem. It also helps El understand that Kali is right that nothing can fix her trauma, and they both fight for what they believe in, but El knows for her revenge isn’t what she needs. Also, her new power control helps her be able to know her family needs her, and El decides that’s what she is willing to fight and kill for. 

In season 3 her arc with Max is part of this journey. El has stable relationships with Mike and her father now. She seemed most comfortable and has learned more direct communication with her verbal skills being a bit better. However, El’s identity is connected with who Mike and Hopper think she is, more so Hopper in my opinion but both. She is willing to abide by the Rules Hopper has and Mike also fearing the loss goes with it too. He is infatuated with his first crush and doesn't think about how she has never had a real life. 

Max, I don’t think understands about the “Bad People” not just the supernatural threats and didn’t ever lose her. Not having this backstory makes messing around seem less dangerous. Max also has her own history of abuse by her step-father and Billy and I think this means she has her own need to be her own person not where she comes from and passes this to El. Max sees that El isn’t getting to be a normal teenager and is like fuck that let’s be friends. She helps El learn about normal teen stuff like Madonna, Wonder Woman, teen magazines and going to the mall. She tells her specifically that she can be her own person, to do what she likes, also tells her she can Dump Mike if he lies and is mean to her. El has a specific hatred based on her “friends don’t lie beliefs” bt Max gives her the confidence to dump his ass. This relationship is also very nice since Max felt she was in El’s shadow and El was scared Max would take her one peer relationship in mike and they didn’t fall into hating each other. 

The end of season 3 we see her go through another round of severe trauma. Her identity is shaken again through losing her powers, in a severely painful and traumatic attack, and then loses her father and home in one go. There is a lot of emotional aspects in the violent way the Mind Flayer and Billy physically attack her. This loss of autonomy is a huge backslide, and she has little to build back up from. Hopefully having Joyce and knowing Hopper loved her can prevent her from losing her self confidence and identity. 

El struggles with her repeated trauma making her identity I think connected to her relationships as discussed but also to her powers. Being able to fight and even have killed is important, I think only being used for her powers in her developmental years made this hard to decouple from her sense of self. I think having to use them to stop the mind flayer from killing her friends repeatedly reinforced this too. I think recognizing herself as more than just her powers and relationship to others is hard, so it was a step to view herself as a protector instead of as a monster, something we see in the first season she feels like she is. 

Joyce Byers is the closest thing to a mother El has ever had. She clearly loves and cares for El, being one to comfort her after her trip to the upside-down. Joyce is also everyone's mom though. Now though after the loss of El’s father Joyce stepped in to care for her moving forward into the future. 

The role with the rest of the party was part of the puzzle in season one, Dustin quickly wanting to her help her and understand her powers. Lucas doesn’t trust her at first but eventually realises she didn’t mean to hurt them and was willing to die for them. Will and she didn’t interact much, though they both are affected by the Upside down giving them thematic and narrative partners. None of them seems particularly close to El however they all grow to like her.  

El is loyal to her friends closing them and protecting them to her own detriment injuring and pushing herself to her utmost limits. No matter the personal loss. Her other great talent is resilience, to be able to continue living and being able to care even after everything she has been through shows El to be a survivor and stronger than anyone should ever have to be. 

ND Headcanons:

Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) & C-PTSD:

Her lack of emotional, communication and regulation skills are borne from her trauma, we can trace most of it back to the abuse and neglect she felt as a child. We also no that isolation continued with Hopper stopping some of the healing being alone with one adult. We see she deals with many panic attacks connected to the Upsidedown and has to see others pain and violence without a connection. It helps her to protect them but also forces her to witness horrors like dead bodies, monsters and a sexualized assault by Billy. 

Outbursts of destruction from her powers can be seen when she experiences breakdowns, shattering glass in her own bedroom. Dealing with her rocky relationship with her father was the case. Attachment issues are strong as mentioned before a disinhibited attachment, though again trust issues can mitigate this to some degree. We can see how others define her and the ongoing need for them to love her.  List of Signs/Symptoms:

Affectivity issues

Attachment difficulties, disinhibited and trust issues

Attention struggles

Avoids eye contact

Confused self-image

Communication struggles

Coregulation issues

Difficulty with concentration

Dysregulation of the nervous system, and attempts to self regulate via stimming

Extreme startle reactions

Feeling useful to others is used to have an identity

Flashbacks

Heightened startle reaction

Hypervigilance

Irritability

Lack of emotional self-awareness

Outbursts of anger and sadness manifested in her powers

Panic attacks

Preoccupation with her abuser (season 2)

Self-blame

Sensory integration issues

Strong emotional reactions to things

Struggles forming an identity of her own

Struggles with forming relationships and when she does and be codependent

Uses structures to understand things

Trusts none or 100%

Autism:

For me, this might be debatable as Developmental trauma can mimic developmental and learning issues due to the way trauma alters brain and nervous system function. Childhood survivors have whole sections of their brain develop being shaped by the biological changes from trauma. 

But she does show many symptoms and it seems to be a favourite way of viewing El. 

List of Signs/Symptoms:

Stimming

Same-Food

Partially non-verbal 

Meltdowns 

Difficulty with sensory integration 

Problems understanding and communicating emotions 

Echolalia 

Mirroring

Lack of understanding of non-verbal communication

Avoids eye contact

Needs a schedule and dislikes changes to it

Hypo and Hypersensitivity to stimulation