Stranger Things, Trauma, and the Parts of Us That Live in the Upside Down
I am currently watching the release of the final season of Stranger Things. I only started watching the series this year, and I was immediately captivated by how deeply the show resonates with my own experience of trauma and how well the show metaphorically demonstrates the impact trauma has on those that experience it.
If you’ve also watched Stranger Things, you know that the show is more than monsters and 80s nostalgia. It captures something many trauma survivors understand on a bone-deep level: the feeling of living between worlds. One world looks “normal” on the outside—school, work, family, everyday life—but underneath, there can be this quiet hum of fear, vigilance, or grief that never fully quiets. A part of you is always listening for the next hit, the next shift, the next thing that might go wrong.
In the show, the kids call that hidden world the Upside Down, a place that mirrors their real world, but darker, colder, covered in vines, and always humming with danger.
For so many people who have lived through trauma, especially childhood trauma or complex PTSD, this metaphor feels painfully accurate.
The Upside Down as the Nervous System on Guard
Trauma isn’t just something that “happened back then.” It becomes a way the nervous system learns to protect us. Hypervigilance, dissociation, shutdown, emotional overwhelm. These aren’t flaws. They’re survival skills that kept you alive.
In Stranger Things, the Upside Down isn’t just a place; it’s a state. It pulls characters in unexpectedly, and sometimes without warning. Trauma can feel the same way. You might be going about your day when suddenly your body drops into an old survival mode. You’re not “back there,” but your system reacts as if you are.
Somatic work, whether through Somatic Experiencing, Lifespan Integration, or gentle parts-informed approaches, helps us sense when we’re slipping toward the Upside Down and learn how to come back to ourselves.
Vecna and the Power of Unspoken Pain
Season 4 gave us a villain who doesn’t just attack people physically. He preys on their emotional wounds, their shame, the memories they keep hidden.
That’s… extremely on-the-nose for trauma.
One of the most important truths in healing is this:
What is unspoken or unacknowledged often has the most control.
Not because we’re weak, but because the nervous system can’t tell the difference between a memory that’s been integrated and one that’s still frozen in time.
As a therapist, I see this every day. People are incredibly strong. They’ve survived things they should never have had to. But when the pain remains locked inside, it can feel like something is hunting you from the shadows.
Naming the truth—slowly, safely, in a window your body can tolerate—is one of the bravest things we can do.
Why Music, Connection, and Regulation Matter
When Max is trapped in Vecna’s world, it’s a song, Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush, that anchors her back into her body. The people who love her are waiting on the other side, calling her home.
It’s such a powerful moment because it mirrors what actually works in trauma healing:
Anchors: sensations, sounds, beliefs, memories that remind you of who you are.
Connection: people who can co-regulate with you when your nervous system is overwhelmed.
Presence: the felt sense of “I’m here, I’m safe enough, I’m not alone.”
Sometimes healing looks dramatic. Most of the time, it looks like little moments that tether us back to ourselves, breath by breath, step by step.
Who You Were Is Not Who You Have to Be
One theme I love about Stranger Things is that every character carries wounds such as grief, family dysfunction, loss, betrayal. And yet none of them stay defined by that pain. They grow. They reconnect. They learn new ways of being in the world.
That’s real healing.
Not pretending the past didn’t happen.
Not “getting over it.”
Not forcing your body into states it isn’t ready for.
Healing is remembering that you are more than what happened to you and letting your nervous system slowly learn that truth, too.
If You’ve Been Living In Your Own Upside Down
You’re not alone.
You’re not broken.
And nothing about your responses is “too much.”
Your system learned how to survive. Now it deserves to learn how to rest, connect, and feel safe enough to take up space in the world.
And if you feel ready, you don’t have to walk that path by yourself. A steady presence, a regulated nervous system, and a warm therapeutic relationship can help you quietly, gently, and bravely make your way out of the shadows and back into your life.