In regards to fans recently comparing Jonathan and Billy’s respective abilities or lack thereof to cope with abuse, I do think it’s important to talk about not only their different circumstances but the ableist implications of it all.
When I attended an information session on ACEs, the speaker talked about child abuse as a kind of “brain injury” and that changed my perspective on trauma entirely. Aside from the fact that repeated head trauma common in domestic and child abuse survivors can cause significant health problems, any kind of abuse in childhood impacts the developing brain… injuring it. There are ways to mitigate or even reverse these effects, but the expectation that all survivors should be able to behave the same way is actually… ableist. We are specifically trained not to think that way about abuse and it’s survivors. We have to recognize that abuse can impact the brain in different ways.
…and I just think about that in the context of Steve asking him if he was dropped too much and Max saying wrong is Billy’s default. Et cetera. Billy was a relatively healthy and happy child, but he was hit too much. He was yelled at too much. He was left alone with the aftermath of that trauma too much. These are repeated injuries, and Billy’s brain doesn’t work the same way as Jonathan’s or anyone else for that matter. Add onto that, Billy abuses substances to cope because he has no other outlet. It is ableist to assume that someone in that position can radically change their behavior to fit the “good survivor” mold without significant mental and physical health supports.
These are things we know he never got. It is vital to me that regardless of one’s personal feelings about Billy, they understand that comparing survivors and judging Billy based on the perceived superiority of another survivor is so wrong and so ableist.
Let's add to this that he was never *out* of the abusive environment. We have it as canon that his mother abandons him to his abuser, no matter what her reasons for it are. We have it as canon that Susan, his stepmother, the only other adult in the house, watches him get his ass kicked and just kind of twitters about then tries to forget it. How is he supposed to "overcome" his abuse when he is still actively being abused and no adults are there to help him?
You juxtapose that with Jonathan whose mother kicked the abuser out. Whose mother supports him. Whose mother chose him and Will over and over and over. Who puts herself out there and doesn't care if she looks crazy because she loves her sons more than anything.
Of COURSE his path is different. Of COURSE his choices are different. He has his mother's steadfastness and love to help him muddle through things and to lean on.
Billy doesn't have that. After he's drugged, he's pretty much left in the Byers house with no car, forced to walk home to his abuser EMPTY HANDED AND WITHOUT HIS CAR, and no one gives a solitary fuck what happens to him even though MAX KNOWS what will happen to him.
Other peoples' abuse is talked about, to/around Max and she's just chillin there. She blames the victim for his own abuse.
