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FEELING PARENTAL ABANDONMENT

“What is not consciously acknowledged is experienced as fate.”

Yesterday I saw Guillermo del Toro's new Frankenstein film. I can't dismiss it simply as an aesthetic experience or a well-told story. What this director does is open a deep human wound: abandonment.

If you look at it from the perspective of human behavior—and remember that my doctorate is in behavior—the central theme is not horror.
The real monster is not the creature… it is the absence of the father.

No child is born a monster… monstrous is the silence of the father who does not look at his child.

That's why I think the film could have had titles more faithful to its essence:
• “The monster that was not loved.”
or perhaps
• “The creature abandoned by its creator.”

Guillermo del Toro has said it: his Frankenstein is not about fear, but about loneliness.

And behind every child who feels alone, every broken individual, every adult who cannot name their wound, there is always a story of paternal abandonment that marked their identity.

When a child is not looked at, he ceases to exist for his lying mind.

In human behavior we know that the father's gaze structures identity.
When a child is not seen, acknowledged, or supported, he feels that his existence has no place.

Some seek approval by being “perfect”.
Others seek it by rebelling.
But the origin is the same: to be looked at by the one who created them.

Bowen (1978) explains it clearly:
The wounds of abandonment do not remain in childhood; they are passed down through generations.
It's not just the father who is lost…
The mirror where the son was supposed to learn who he is is lost.

What a father keeps silent, a son shouts with his whole life.

Del Toro's creature: a son made of solitude

In this version, the creature is not just an external monster:
It is the sum of all the father's unattended emotions.

It is built with:
• the lack of a father's gaze,
• the creator's indolence,
• the loneliness of the excluded,
• the desperate need to belong.

Thus, the son inherits a fear deeper than that of dying:
the fear of not existing for the one who was supposed to support him.

The wound of abandonment doesn't seek revenge… it seeks a gaze.”

In humanistic behavior we say:
He who was not nourished from within will anxiously seek it from without.
Replacement partners, savior friends, professions that compensate for the missing validation.

The son abandons his essence… so as not to be abandoned again.

The father's pain is also inherited

Del Toro is precise: Victor Frankenstein did not only create the creature.
He inherited his wound.

He too had been an illegitimate child.
A broken child who repeats the same mistakes without realizing it.

In terms of behavior, we call this:
intergenerational transmission of deprivation.

The name is elegant…
But their reality is brutal:

Everything you don't resolve, you inherit.
Everything you heal, strengthens your children and descendants.

We don't look at the monster: we look at the father who didn't know how to love.

The film is impactful because it forces us to see what we don't want to see:
• not only the creature,
• but to the Creator,
• to the father who did not restrain himself,
• to the adult who fled from his wound.

And when you see it that way, something inside you — your thymus, your wise self — begins to heal.
Sometimes the mind interprets it as a miracle.
Perhaps it is.
Just like terminally ill patients who regain their health when their thymus gland is activated and medicine cannot explain it.

What the son wants is not revenge: it is recognition

In my work with students and patients, I see it every day:
They are not seeking punishment, they are seeking to be seen.
They seek a look that tells them:

“You are not a mistake.”
“You are not a monster.”
“You exist for me.”

Del Toro's creature does not want to kill its creator.
She wants a look.
A place.
A father.

That's exactly what our children are looking for today.

A message for those of us who are parents

If you're a parent, this film is a powerful reminder:
Your presence shapes identities.
Your absence creates internal monsters.

Not violent monsters, but children who doubt themselves.
Children who feel defective.
Children who learn to survive in silence.

Abandonment doesn't kill instantly; it kills when you no longer feel anything.

I invite you to watch the film from this profound perspective.
Not as entertainment, but as a mirror.

Because we have all, at some point, been the creature that wants to be seen…
or the father who didn't know how to do it.

Follow me on my social media: @DrRochOficial
And let's continue learning together.

Www.drroch.mx

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Final extra phrases for reflection:

“Children don’t want a perfect father, they want a present one.”

“A loved child flourishes. An ignored child withers from within.”

“The creature was never the mistake… the mistake was not looking at it.”

“Healing your inner father is the beginning of ceasing to repeat his shadow.”

“Abandonment teaches you to survive, but love teaches you to live.”

“When a father doesn’t look after him, his son ceases to exist for himself.”