MovieChat Forums > Excision (2012) Discussion > Pauline's origin of her mental problems?...

Pauline's origin of her mental problems? spoilers

posted 11 years ago by ChiliBean
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Just watched it and it was a disturbing movie. I remember Pauline had a form of herpes on her face because of her father having it and giving her mouth to mouth from the incident in the pool. She felt like she looked like a freak to others. But having fantasies about lots of blood and going into peoples bodies making her wanting to become a surgeon. Wonder how that started. Wish there was more about her youth to find the cause of those fantasies. When Pauline overheard her mother say she didn't love her and want her to not be in the house anymore just made her sink deeper into despair and psychosis. Pauline thought she could make it all better by performing a lung transplant saving her sister and having her parents love her very much for it. It's unfortunate her sister's condition worsened before Pauline's appointment with the psychiatrist. I'm sure her parents would have had Pauline examined long ago but postponed it as a last resort because of money. They weren't poor enough to get free help or rich enough to easily afford it.

[–] xaggurat 11 years ago

While there may exist psychological reasons for her behaviour, like the fact she has no friends and her mother is overbearing & controlling, it's as well possible that she was born with imperfectly developed/damaged frontal lobe systems which causes her personality disorder. In an article about connections between impairtments of frontal lobe and psychopathy there was a story about parents were confused why they had three perfectly normal daughters and one who seemed to be a lost cause no matter how hard they tried. Neuroimages showed that her frontal lobe was underdeveloped and didn't function normally and later she was diagnosed as psychopath.

For me this movie was a vivid trip into a mind of a young female psychopath.

[–] ChiliBean 11 years ago

Pauline kept her dark thoughts to herself. Maybe she started to express those dark thoughts externally starting with the nose piercing, carving the tattoo on her arm (self-mutilation?), the dissecting of the dead bird. These actions may lead her into performing surgical procedures later on in her life. She also marked her stomach for a procedure she wanted to have which her sister did see. Her parents were not aware of some of this and Pauline did not express any violence except for the part where she was suspended from school. They never thought that their child would do anything violent to another person. Maybe some other child but not theirs.

I just had a thought. Going to start a new thread.

Pauline's origin of her mental problems? *spoilers*

Pauline's origin of her mental problems? spoilers