Laura Cunningham 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.
She was struggling with these issues, which resulted in her developing an eating disorder due to her mother's verbally abusive comments. She even turned to the guidance counselor at her school to get advice on what she could do to aid herself in her position.
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.
After following Eddie to his trailer to get stronger drugs than marijuana to help her relax, Chrissy experiences more hallucinations of her controlling mother. Now fully under Vecna's curse, Chrissy goes into a trance and levitates into the air before Vecna kills her.
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).
In one scene, Max (Sadie Sink) can hear her throwing up in the bathroom, and it's later revealed that she struggles with her mother's emotional abuse over her weight.
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.
Laura was abusive and domineering to her daughter, forcing her to have a perfect figure and image, and would get short-tempered if her daughter got upset with her commands. With Chrissy's hallucinations, it's possible this abuse extended through her husband, silencing him when he objected to her abuse.
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 ...
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.
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.
In the real world, Eddie tried to wake Chrissy from her trance, but it was too late; she started to levitate, bewildering Eddie. Finally, Vecna struck the killing blow; he used his powers to snap Chrissy's limbs and gouge out her eyes, horrifying Eddie and prompting him to flee.
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.
Patrick was targeted due to his father's abuse of him.
However, within the red smoke of Vecna's Mind Lair, it wasn't the song itself that saved her, but the memories it conjured up. What broke through to Max was the happy, loving memories of her friends, particularly Lucas and Eleven, and these were what truly allowed her to break free of Vecna's grasp and escape.
In episode 7, Vecna is revealed to be Henry Creel (played as a youngster by Raphael Luce), the son of Victor Creel (Robert Englund) and his wife Virginia (Tyner Rushing) shown in the 1950s flashbacks.
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.
(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.
Vecna lives in the Upside Down and preys on people's past traumas and guilt. The monster curses its victims, making them relive their trauma in progressively more gruesome ways until it violently kills them. (And we mean, like, really violently.)
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.
They end up going back to Eddie's trailer where he rummages around and Chrissy asks for something called “special K.” Those unfamiliar with the slang word might be confused while watching. “Special K” is a nickname for the drug Ketamine.
And while his usual modus operandi is to embody his victims' negative self-talk (another very real psychological phenomenon), this time he is telling Nancy his plans and then releasing her so she can report back to everybody—Eleven included—that the end is nigh, with the goal of discouraging and disempowering them.