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To find out how well the series portrays a person with PTSD, we reached out to Rachel Yehuda, PhD, director of the traumatic stress studies division at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, for her take on what the show gets right—and what it gets wrong about the disorder.
The anniversary effect
Stranger Things 2 commences a year after Will Byers was trapped the Upside Down, where he had his near-death experience. Will is experiencing hallucinations based on his time there, but doctors tell Joyce that her son is experiencing "the anniversary effect."
What's that—and how does it relate to PTSD? The anniversary effect is when a trauma survivor has an increase in PTSD symptoms or more severe symptoms at the time of year when the traumatic incident took place. It can occur on the first anniversary, as it did for Will, says Yehuda. Or it can happen every year following the original incident, as it does for many trauma survivors.
"I first encountered this phenomenon when I began working with veterans and saw that January/February seemed to be a time when veterans were very symptomatic," Yehuda tells Health via email. She later learned that it was during these months when soldiers participated in an offensive during the Vietnam War. While it's not clear why anniversaries are so triggering, Yehuda says environmental cues—like the weather, or odors—tend to prompt a recurrence of symptoms.
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Will's hallucinations
Will's hallucinations are actually caused by the Shadow Monster in the Upside Down. But the ways he experiences them is very similar to the way PTSD sufferers experience flashbacks. Whenever a hallucination comes on, Will is frozen in place and unable to move until a friend or family member snaps him out of it.
Yehuda says flashbacks are indeed a symptom of PTSD, but they don't happen as often in the real world as Hollywood seems to think they do. "Flashbacks are among the more rare symptoms of PTSD, but they are often used in movies and TV because they represent hallmark symptoms of PTSD," she says. "Flashbacks are not symptoms of other mental health disorders—and are very amenable to being portrayed in the visual arts," she explains.
Overall, the accuracy of Will's hallucinations is a toss up. Yehuda says trauma survivors can indeed have such vivid flashbacks, they may think the memory is happening in real time. However Will being frozen in place doesn't ring true. "Being frozen in place sounds more like a dissociative episode where one loses track of one’s surroundings and is somewhere else," she says. Dissociative episodes are symptoms of amnesia and dissociative identity disorder, not PTSD.
The way Will often looks sad and distressed
Scenes of Will looking fearful, depressed, and distraught are spot-on and resemble the way PTSD sufferers often look. Yehuda says people with PTSD often experience these emotions, or even emotional numbness, as they come to grips with the traumatic event. These reactions are normal because "trauma effects can last for a long time." Therapy can help trauma survivors address and cope with these feelings.
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Will reacts violently to his family
Once the Shadow Monster inhabits Will, he has episodes where he acts unlike himself. He tells his mother that the Shadow Monster likes to stay cold, and he even tries to physically attack her and his older brother, Jonathan. He almost acts like he's possessed or has a second personality.
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