How does the relationship advice Max gave relate to childhood trauma?
I HOPED SOMEONE WOULD ASK LETS GO
so this is the advice she gives to el, right? what i'm going to go into here is max's trauma about her parents' divorce and her feelings on her stepfather.
this is quite long so i've divided it in parts for you: part 1 which has two sections ('the divorce' and 'emotional abuse') and part 2 which has one section ('conclusion'). the first two sections are basically explaining what happened within max's family, the conclusion is how it all affects max and a tl;dr of sorts.
ALSO THIS IS NOT BILLY HARGROVE FRIENDLY, GO AWAY BILLY STANS
TRIGGER WARNINGS: discussions of divorce and emotional child abuse (nothing graphic)
THE DIVORCE
so, the first question out of the way: can divorce cause trauma? the answer is a quick and easy yes, especially in max's case.
in the book runaway max, which is probably at least half-canon, max describes both her parents. her mother seems to be quite weak-willed, but still seems to just want the best for max. however, it is clear that max doesn't get nearly as support as she needs from her. max is an incredibly understanding and kind child, because she understands that her mom isn't really the supportive type, more like someone who takes care of her without the emotional support part. (NOTE: susan is NOT abusive. one of the reasons why she can't support her daughter is because they understand the world, themselves and each other in drastically different ways: susan cannot reach out to max because she doesn't understand her, and therefore cannot give her the emotional help or support she needs).
sam (max's father) on the other hand clearly understands max much better and doesn't question her boyish style or how she's Different than others (which could be autistic coding but thats for another day asjhshjs). in this case, he could be there, but he isn't, being too busy for her.
we can assume that max, as she was so young, was not given a talk about the divorce as a whole after the divorce had actually happened, given that her mother doesn't really seem the type for big, emotional conversations. she most likely got a simplified version of what was happening and why she'd be seeing her dad less because she was so young (around 8-9 based on max/billy's memories), which lead to misunderstanding and, as her father understood her more, she was naturally defensive of her dad (which is why we see her quick to defend him in the bus talk), and naturally a little resentful of her mom, especially considering she didn't truly grasp what had actually happened due to being so young.
this resentment would grow when susan starts dating again: in runaway max, it's mentioned that susan had flit from boyfriend to boyfriend, each of which eventually leaves because of personal issues (gambling, debts, etc). max sees this as a kind of betrayal to sam, and a complete change in what her family had been like - she would later know, around s2, that the cracks had always been there, and it was just a matter of time, but for now she's too young to think that her ex-family was anything but perfect, so she holds resentment towards her mom and starts to put her dad on a pedastal, as well as thinking that men are liars and cheaters.
EMOTIONAL ABUSE
then susan marries neil, and with him comes billy. max, at first, was hopeful that she'd have a family again after her last one broke, only to be let down very quickly. here's a heartbreaking excerpt from runaway max:
billy doesn't treat her like a sister: in fact, he insists she's not his sister constantly, and emotionally abuses her.
'yes, yes, anthony, but what is emotional abuse?' i hear you cry. here's a definition from google itself:
Emotional abuse involves controlling another person by using emotions to criticize, embarrass, shame, blame, or otherwise manipulate them. While most common in dating and married relationships, mental or emotional abuse can occur in any relationship—including among friends, family members, and co-workers.
the parts in bold are the parts that are relevant to max herself and billy's abuse of her. here's some symptoms and signs of emotional abuse, as well as some examples of said symptoms, taken from healthyplace.com:
you'll notice that billy has almost all the signs and shows off many of the examples given, particularly in episode two. there's this great post by @madcleradin (hey sierra, tell me if you want be untagged) with my reblogs to show the examples themselves and this is the root of max's self hatred and self blame, but the very short tl;dr version is that his abuse of her affects her perception of others and herself in a negative way.
neil also plays a role in this - max probably thought he was just another one in the list of shitty boyfriends, except when things started getting more serious, she started to get confused, though she was happy when told that she was going to have a family again, because at the time she was still in the mindset that 'family = comfort' because again, she was never told what caused the divorce, which lead to her thinking it was sudden and doesn't alter her view of what 'family' just yet.
she was excited to have a comfort, excited to have someone to talk to other than nate (her best friend), because she still associates family with comfort. but when billy abuses her, at first she's confused on why family would treat family like this. that's when her view of what family means does a 180º.
because they told her that neil and billy were family, she started associating the word 'family' with violence, fear and control. as she grew up, this just got planted more and more deeply within her, all while she still resents susan a little for a) leaving her dad and b) marrying neil and bringing him and his son into their life, a decision which has only lead to fear and pain on max's half.
CONCLUSION
you may be wondering what any of this has to do with max's advice to el. well, dear anon and readers, i am here to tell you.
in this, max isn't seeing mike as how she remembers him, and is thinking back to all those times those shitty boyfriends of her mom did the same thing, not realizing that it's not like that because mike genuinely does care about her and because they're fourteen (yk how when you're young you don't feel young until you look back when you're older? yeah that) it's not that deep yet. max has been thinking and calling the shitty boyfriends pieces of shit for years.
NOTE: max does NOT think mike is a bad person, nor does this mean she hates him. she just thinks what he did is shitty, but she clearly thinks he can make up for it (note how she says 'if he doesn't fix this, doesn't explain himself', which i doubt any of the boyfriends of her mom did). this is NOT a mike hate post, he's one of the characters of All Time, this is just about max's trauma !!!
now, this obviously isn't her talking about lucas (see here why honesty is a vital part of why lucas and max are friends), so max is almost definitely referring to her mom's boyfriends and can't see that mike isn't like those guys, as mentioned above.
this is straight up projection. really, all of max's lines regarding mileven this season are just projection, but this really shows. i cut out the part where she says that if he doesn't explain himself, then el should dump his ass because that, as mentioned above, is because mike is still her friend (if tentative because yk).
she doesn't understand why her mom can't just up and leave neil, and so when she sees el who she probably subconsciously parallels to her mother (in runaway max, her book, she describes her mom as "her personality changing into every guy she meets", so she's scared of that happening to el) and so she unintentionally projects her desire for susan to break up with neil onto el.
she wants susan to break up with neil, but as she can't have that and she has trauma from living in close quarters to an abuser she's dealing with her trauma this way.
NOTE: she is NOT using el only for her own gains. she genuinely thinks this is good advice, if only because of her warped perception of love and her mother's (failed) relationships.
this line is also evidence of max projecting onto el and mike, except this time she's not projecting her mom onto el, but instead herself. we know, via scenes in season two, that billy is extremely controlling of max. he gives her unspoken and spoken rules (unspoken would be don't speak back, don't blame him, etc etc; spoken would be the threat of what he'd do if she 'disobeyed' him). she has been controlled for a good near-half of her life via rules, especially considering we can presume neil also controlled her (although much less than billy did). she's been so roughly handled and controlled using rules, rules which she has to go by to survive in that household, that she literally can't see the tons of rules put on el being for her safety, because that's never how it's been for her.
a tl;dr of that paragraph: rules have been used on max with malicious intent for so long that max cannot recognize that the rules on el are for safety and come from a plce of love.
and a tl;dr for this whole essay: all of max's advice stems from her childhood trauma from her parents' divorce, her mom's boyfriends who were liars, and her abusive stepfamily
hope you liked this extremely long essay.... and aren't too upset when you asked for a page and i made you a book shshjshjhjss
yeah this was very long but i loved talking abt it, slr i've been busy but i've been excited to get this finished.
also... if im gonna be honest most of this was just me looking way too deep into what were actually just jokes abt female humor by the duffers and ik that but also like. its a trauma thing because max's experience of love and men is very different and shapes how she views them so ofc her relationship advice was off
anyways if youve read all that i'm platonically in love with you
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