The Creature and I

Digital Self-Portrait

The more time that passes, the more I feel a deeper connection to the themes of Frankenstein (2025). I just remember watching the credits roll and thinking to myself: “Same dude”.

Both my father and Victor Frankenstein found a way, naturally or otherwise, to create life and both became disinterested once the person they created started living a life of their own.

Both raging narcissists, my father and Victor both seemingly only had one motive when it came to “having children”: make sure they look good so they can make me look good.

Any psychologist will tell you that narcissists don’t see their children as separate beings with lives of their own but instead, extensions of themselves. The child’s achievements are their achievements, the child’s talent is their talent and so on and so forth. The more you make the narcissist “look good” in the public eye, the more praise they’ll shower you with. My father wanted me to be everything he wanted to be, do everything that he failed to achieve.

“Just like her old man.”

“That’s my girl”

“ That’s mine. That’s me” is what he was really saying.

The Creature and I, we were both trophies to our fathers in a way, both loved for our actions and achievements. But this was only a conditional love.

All of that love went away once we stopped doing what they wanted, when I found interest in different things…When he wouldn’t say any other word other than “Victor”.

Children of narcissists often find themselves in a similar situation to that of the Creature because we too are beloved for a brief moment then lamented once we do not fulfill our maker’s wishes. Towards the end of the film, Victor describes the Creature as “something” to which the Creature corrects him “Not something. Someone”.  Not a thing to be shown off or a thing to be ashamed of but “someone”. That’s what found families and friends are for. The Creature received better care from that old blind man than Victor would ever dream of providing. There are people out there who see you as someone, you just have to find them.

Digital Sketches of Frankenstein’s Creature

One of the wildest things about the Creature’s story is that the fiction does not begin with the fact that he’s a man created from reanimated corpses, but that his narcissistic parent sees the errors of his ways and asks for forgiveness. Most of us will never receive that kind of closure. I would love to forgive my father for that he’s said and done to me if only he admitted that what he did was wrong. He still believes that he is blameless and that’s the awful reality of narcissistic parents: They’re never wrong.

My shared experience with the Creature ends there as, unlike him, I had two makers and my other maker, my mom, loves me very much. Unconditionally and constantly.

I may be the creation of two parents but I’m only the daughter of one. And that’s more than enough for me. Some children don’t even get that luxury.

I’m incredibly lucky to have not only mom but my brother and his wife and a plethora of friends and supporters around me to love me and lift me up. Most of them do not share a single drop of blood with me and yet love me more than the man whom I share half of my DNA with.

My one wish is that after those credits rolled, the Creature eventually found that for himself too. 

That despite his maker, he found love.