What was Chrissy's Trauma? Chrissy's life appears to be free from flaws on the surface, but in reality, she is struggling terribly to conceal her depression and self-image stemming. She was struggling with these issues, which resulted in her developing an eating disorder due to her mother's verbally abusive comments.
Familial. In the visions of her trauma induced by Vecna, Chrissy's mother appeared both mentally and emotionally abusive towards her daughter - and it's implied her comments about Chrissy's figure caused her daughter to develop her eating disorder.
Instead of being stricken by the death of a loved one like Max was, Chrissy's trauma stems from her troubled home life. She endures constant body shaming and emotional abuse from her mother Laura, which eventually drives Chrissy to bulimia—a development revealed when Max crosses paths with her in the bathroom.
Chrissy's trauma is the verbal abuse experienced at the hands of her mother, while other victims are targeted due to accidental car crashes and parental abuse. Max herself is targeted due to the trauma of watching her brother Billy be possessed by and ultimately killed by the Mind Flayer in Season 3.
Chrissy is suffering from serious self image issues and depression due to the emotional abuse that she suffered from the hands of her mother. We can also see that Chrissy is terrified as throughout the episode she experiences disturbing and disorienting hallucinations.
Though Fred appeared to be bright and level-headed, he harbored extreme guilt for his role in the fatal 1985 car accident, and believed many people look at him as a "murderer." This guilt and mental unrest made him a target of Vecna.
While intending to get his revenge on Eleven and Brenner, Vecna also goes after victims who have dealt with traumatizing experiences in the past (reminiscent of his childhood and his time at the Hawkins lab).
One of the most important sequences in this episode featured Vecna showing Nancy the real circumstances of the “eyeball murders” in the 1950s, with flashbacks indicating that young Henry Creel murdered his family when his mother tried to get him psychological help and he intentionally framed his father Victor for the ...
Once he takes control of the mind, he traumatizes them by showing the visions of their dark past. He takes them to unknown places and gives them a glimpse of himself. The pain of his victims doesn't end here. Every single one of his victims experiences nose bleeding and severe headaches as well.
Brenner (Matthew Modine) states in the Stranger Things episode "Papa" that Vecna "consumes" everything about his victims, Vecna targets traumatized victims because it builds for him a well of sad and angry memories to draw from. With each victim, he can become gradually more powerful.
Vecna's first season 4 victim is Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien), who is targeted based on the trauma she carries due to her body-shaming mother.
Chrissy 86 Necklace:A Replica of Strange Things Chrissy Cunningham Senior Pendant Representing 1986 -- Her Grad Year.
She seems to have it all as a bubbly cheerleader who is dating Jason, the captain of the basketball team. But we quickly discover that there's something sinister going on with Chrissy. Her mother is verbally abusive, a trauma that Vecna capitalizes on to haunt her.
This is compounded by Vecna torturing her and making her life a living hell until he declares, “It's time for your suffering to end,” only to then kill her in the most horrific and gristly fashion imaginable—breaking all of her bones and crushing her eyes.
Vecna adopts psychological warfare to target his prey – which, you could argue, very much serves as an allegory for trauma, depression and mental illness, which is all too real.
As Sink put it: “You kind of learn in the season that he targets people that are in a real [bad] place, and Max is obviously one of those people. Just with everything with Billy, so she was kind of like the perfect target.
(All of which have been cited by show creators the Duffer brothers as inspirations for the villain.) But he does have a surprising weakness: music.
While caught in Vecna's grip, a tear in the dark dimension reveals her friends on the other side, desperately trying to save her from Vecna's curse. Of course, it's "Running Up That Hill," blasted into Max's headphones that breaks Vecna's hold on her.
His first victim was Chrissy Cunningham. Vecna targeted Chrissy by using her depression and eating disorder against her in his visions. Chrissy was killed in Eddie Munson's trailer, and the first gate was opened on the ceiling.
"Vecna really is a creature that has mutated in the last however many couple of decades during his time in the Upside Down," prosthetics designer Barrie Gower said. "This is where he has become more overtaken by the Upside Down world and become pretty much possessed and mutated."
Curiously, he also seems obsessed with time, projecting strange visions into his victims' minds—including of the grandfather clock from his home in the Creel House. Vecna's obsession with time appears to be linked to his hatred of humanity.
Vecna's use of his victims' guilty conscious to terrorize his prey is an obvious tool in his arsenal. What is more subtle and powerful is that he uses shame to isolate and control. All of his victims, starting with Henry's father, believe that if people know the truth about them, they will face rejection.
It's probably safer to say that Billy was chosen as the Mind Flayer's first victim because of his fragile state of mind. He was constantly angry, overwhelmed by his abusive father, and became abusive himself in return.