#what is your opinion on people suffering from npd btw?

[ink-man-sam]

They hate me for my neurodivergend swag (extremely angry all the time, threatening and insulting people for the smallest things, guilt tripping and emotional manipulation)

[good-to-drive]

how would you say the fab four's self-esteem issues manifested differently, and thus affected the way they were perceived?

i was reading some comments saying how george didn't have an ego at all, while john was a complete narcissist, for example, and many people agreed but i don't think i do. what's your take? btw i love your insights <3

Thank you so much for this ask!! It’s such a fascinating question, which is why I took a little while to try to answer it well. (Also, thank you so much, I’m so glad you enjoy my ramblings!! <3)

I considered breaking this up over four posts, but it's only about 2.5k words altogether, so y'know what it's fine...

JOHN

I think the question of John's self-perception (and how this manifested in his behaviors) hinges heavily on whether you think he may have suffered from borderline personality disorder.*

I once read a really poignant description of BPD (and many other personality disorders) as someone whose inner self is a “dark room," meaning that when they look inward they see only darkness and emptiness. There are things in the room – they absolutely have just as much inside of them as everyone else – but because they’ve never been able to see it they feel like some sort of empty, subhuman creature who could never possibly be loved.

Over time (and usually through therapy), the person can begin to “raise the lights”, so to speak, and see who they are on the inside and begin to develop a sense of self and identity and from there a sense of worth. Unfortunately, I think John didn't get the opportunity to do this work until late in his life, if ever. He spent most of his adult life contending with that perceived emptiness and the constant psychic pain that accompanies it, and I think that's what most defined his self-perception.

In terms of how this manifested in his behaviors, while the intensely idealized relationships often formed by people suffering from BPD largely function to reassure them that they aren’t completely and totally unloved, they can also be a way of soothing that feeling of unworthiness. The thinking is something like "At least one person thinks I’m worthy. And it’s this incredible, amazing, perfect person who’s too special for everybody else, but they’re not too special for me. And no one who's a part of something this special could truly be unlovable."

But, of course, those relationships also tend to be extremely volatile. And when the person switches their "special connection" to another person, everyone else who came before becomes a threat to this connection and therefore an enemy. And when you're on the wrong side of this kind of thing it feels exactly like malice or cruelty. So, in regards to how this defines the way John is seen by us/fans, I get why it's so tempting to frame him as a cruel or malicious person.

It's easier and perhaps more satisfying to attribute his volatile relationships to cruelty rather than a deep-seated schema of unworthiness, or to attribute his determination to be seen and loved to ego and then characterize that ego as reprehensible. But, with the benefit of time and distance, I think we can probably see that it was a way of trying to survive inside of a broken schema that put him constant psychic pain.

There's also a whole 'nother conversation about to what degree John did or didn't use his public image to self-soothe his feelings of emptiness, which actually brings me to the idea that John was a "complete narcissist."

I’m not sure if the comments you saw meant it in the reddit-y “narcissists are assholes so therefore all assholes are narcissists” kind of way, or if they mean that narcissists have insanely high opinions of themselves (which is true of neither narcissists nor John), or if they were actually using the word correctly.

But if they were using it to refer to the personality disorder, it's probably worth mentioning that people on the NPD spectrum also often struggle with those same intense feelings of unworthiness, emptiness, and self-hate. And John most likely did have some narcissistic tendencies that affected his behavior, but overall I honestly think he was more aligned with the BPD tendency to over-rely on idealizing a personal connection than the NPD tendency to use outside praise and approval as a replacement for internal self-worth.

*I recently became aware that some psychologists believe BPD is actually a form of CPTSD. I’m continuing to use the term BPD, but the truth is I’m not in a position to say whether people with BPD should more accurately be placed under the umbrella of CPTSD.

PAUL

I think the most important consideration when we look at Paul's self-perception is the fact that he most likely was on the NPD spectrum, and I genuinely think to some extent he relies on his public persona because he was denied the opportunity to develop a strong sense of self as a child.

(Off topic but it drives me fucking crazy that narcissist is slowly turning into a synonym for asshole and people with crippling childhood trauma and mental health issues now face even more of a stigma because whiny bitches on reddit couldn’t come up with a better word than “narcissist” when they were big mad. Argh.)

Okay, with that out of the way, I think in looking at Paul's self-perception we have to look back at his adolescence and take into account the fact that he was heavily burdened by his father's addiction and later his mother's death.

There's a quote from Paul about the day Mary died and Paul saying something to the effect of “What are we going to do without her money?”, which people erroneously interpret as Paul being cold (????) but I think obviously indicates a child who was pushed to take responsibility for his family’s financial problems (and by extension his father’s addiction and by extension their continued survival) from far too young an age and was existentially terrified that they wouldn't stay afloat.

(To be clear financial stress is just one tiny piece of being the child of an addict, but I think it's illustrative.)

Anyone growing up under that kind of pressure would be affected by it, and I think in Paul’s case it overwhelmed him with a sense of responsibility and corresponding fear that put his mind more on his family's survival than on himself. Which meant that as an adult he didn’t necessarily have a strong internal sense of identity to fall back on when he was experiencing internal doubts or outside criticism, and other people’s opinions became even more important to him than they are to most people.

In terms of how this manifested, I honestly think it turned him into one of the most media-savvy people I have ever seen. Which, yes, sometimes reads as performative. But for some people their feelings are realer when they’re seen. By making it public/visible they make it a part of how people see them and by extension a part of themselves.

This is also why I think it’s a little bullshit when people try to assign this duplicity to the way Paul intentionally/consciously overhauled his brand after the beatles – just because he wanted everyone to think he was Ultimate Wife Guy/Number One Dad it doesn’t mean he didn’t actually want to be that person. In fact, I think it meant that he did.

All that being said, it’s probably smart to remember that any image we see of Paul (and any other celebrity) isn't a reflection of who they are but rather of how they wanted to be perceived during that particular conversation. Every conversation has an audience, and sometimes for Paul that audience is a literal audience, and it's a little naive to treat the statements he makes publicly like some kind of unfiltered stream-of-consciousness peek into his mind rather than, y'know, public statements.

It’s not that anything he says is necessarily false, rather that things we enjoy hearing may be overrepresented, things we don't care about may be underrepresented, and it will all likely be portrayed in a way that's generally pleasing. In that way, Paul might sometimes function as a mirror to our own feelings about the beatles and their legacy (or our feelings about Paul and his legacy). I talk a little more about this in the replies here.

It kind of reminds of a quote from Marc Maron's podcast about Paul that I can't find the exact text of, but it was roughly "He's become a theme park where people go to relive their memories of The Beatles, and he's okay with that." Paul is a generous, savvy performer trying to perform something we will enjoy without totally selling out the sense of self/identity that he experiences vicariously through his public persona. So it’s both very sincere and very performative. They’re not incompatible. 

GEORGE

There’s arguably some conflicting ideas about George’s self-perception, with the general fan assumption that he was overwhelmed with insecurity not really aligning with how the people around him often described him as having a strong internal sense of identity, individuality, or confidence. That being said, it can absolutely be both.

I think we in the beatles fandom tend to assume that George had terrible self-esteem because we tend to see him through the lens of the beatles (actually I guess we see them all through that lens, but it’s arguably the most limiting with George), and it just seems like common sense that if you were trying to be a songwriter in the shadow of the two greatest songwriters of all time you’d end up feeling pretty shitty about yourself. 

Then, on the interpersonal level, there’s the fact that both of the people we often see as George's most important friendships (although I’m not at all sure they were the defining relationships of his life) were extremely focused on conveying to everyone around them that they preferred each other. Which is a very natural thing for a hyperidealized bond to do, btw – oftentimes people with BPD need everybody to know that their idealized bond is extremely special and their idealized person prefers them to everyone else.

(That's not to say Paul and John were friend-excluding jerks, btw. It's obvious they were very close with George, not to mention Ringo. It's just that it was probably soothing to them to perform the specialness of their relationship in front of others, to convey to people that their closeness is extreme and important and unlike anything they have with anyone else, or, indeed, unlike anything anyone else has ever had.)

But I honestly think this perception of George as someone overwhelmed with insecurity is yet another perspective on George that only really makes sense if you insist on exclusively seeing him in the shadow of the beatles. Put it up there with “George didn’t play well with others." It’s something that feels intuitively right… as long as you don’t really know anything about him that doesn’t directly involve Paul and John.

I'm not saying he was never insecure and never tried to talk shit about himself, but look at how many people described him as individualistic, confident, etc., from a very young age. Also, frankly, he just never seemed super concerned with controlling how he was perceived or searching for validation via his public image. I don’t think it’s a case of outgrowing John and Paul’s shadow, either, because apparently he was literally always like that.

I know people will immediately point to George's bids for connection in Get Back, how they sometimes took the form of "I'm bad at music" and then waiting for the "No, you're not!" and how this contrasts to Paul's bids for connection, which were more like "No one likes me" or "I'm bad at being in charge."

I have my own issues with GB (it's got every reality TV red flag under the sun) and even more issues with how it's perceived, but, yeah, this definitely points to George at that point in his life feeling a sense of musical insecurity. Or, at the very least, using his perceived musical inferiority as a bid for connection.

And it’s also probably worth noting that George really did describe himself as a “pretty good guitarist” who wrote songs that “weren’t that bad”. Which honestly doesn’t strike me as someone with horrible self-esteem (especially because he seemed basically fine with that tbh), maybe more just someone with a self-deprecating sense of humor who was self-aware about being “economy class” and didn’t think (or expect other people to think) that he was one of the best musicians of his time. But, yes, if we’re looking at him in contrast to someone like Paul who once described his musical oeuvre as the only true equivalent to Mozart, it’s obviously pretty different.

So I'm not saying we're all totally delusional when we say George seems insecure compared to the other beatles. Rather, I'm saying that his insecurity seems more like it existed against a larger backdrop of security in the self that probably came from a relatively stable childhood.

I’m semi-familiar with a difference in psychology between self-esteem issues that develop in response to childhood experiences and self-esteem issues that develop in response to things that happen when you’re an adult, and I know George joined the beatles well before he became an adult, but I honestly think it might come down to something like that. Maybe having a base/core of knowing yourself and feeling some degree of inherent value as a human being meant that while he certainly had a lot of experiences throughout adolescence/adulthood that could theoretically make him feel unworthy, it didn’t really get at the core of his being.

RINGO

With Ringo, I do question a little if his self-perception was actually that well developed when he was young. I talked about this a little bit elsewhere, but some of the stories about his childhood make me think he experienced some degree of emotional neglect that prevented him from learning how to identify and cope with his own emotions.

Which is a really common thing for people who grow up to self-soothe with alcohol – because you don’t know how to recognize your emotions you can’t even begin to cope with them, so you feel your only option is to numb them with alcohol.

(It can actually cut both ways, too – depending on how young you were when your parents realized they could shut you up with alcohol, you might have been prevented from learning how to recognize and cope with emotions by the fact that they were always being numbed. Given that he first got black-out drunk around age 9, I think this might be true for Ringo as well.)

I think in a weird way this is also why people tend to overlook Ringo and/or not have a particularly vivid image of him as a person who feels things or does things. We don’t always portray a very complex inner or emotional life in him, but obviously he has one, it’s just that for a long time he himself may not have known that he had one. And I sometimes think this perceived "blankness" (as opposed to emptiness) defined his self-perception, defined the way he was seen by the people around him -- as a blank space where they could pour out their own emotions, and now defines how we see him as fans.

Which is a little frustrating because he's been sober for over thirty years and I strongly suspect that he has a very developed sense of self and self-worth at this point in his life or he wouldn't have been able to get and stay sober for thirty fucking years. Also, frankly, even back in the day he was probably living in the same repeating prison that all addicts live in, but because he wasn't overtly aware of it he wasn't overtly expressing it and as a result we all sort of fail to see it even looking back.

(I'm not excusing myself from this either, btw. The other day I caught myself saying John and George were probably the most open to changing as people, and then I remembered that Ringo was an alcoholic until he was almost 50 years old and still managed to get and stay sober and realized I'm an asshat.)

Self-esteem issues and self-hate come rolled together with any drinking problem. It’s hard to get sober without facing what you’ve become and it’s impossible to face what you’ve become without hating yourself. I suspect Ringo has had a profound and painful journey with his own self-perception and sense of identity, I'm just not sure I know what it is. Which, yes, makes me the asshat.

All that being said, the blankness/simplicity we project onto Ringo does sometimes work in his favor. He's been very open about the fact that he considers his behavior towards his wives to be abusive, and he almost never gets called on it the way beatles fans call out John, and I suspect it's partly because we insist on seeing so much more complexity and importance and frankly more humanity in John's story than in Ringo's.

[honeydew-wecantwo]

Hi! I've been wanting to learn more about transabled folk so I'd like to ask you a few questions. I'd specifically like to know more about transautistic and what that means/is because I'm actually autistic. (If you're not transautistic I'm sorry I'm just asking a bunch of people the same thing)

Why do you want to be autistic?

Why do you want to be disabled?

How are you trying to be autistic?

How are you trying to be disabled?

Why don't you think it's insulting to pretend to be disabled?

Why don't you think it's insulting to pretend to be autistic?

Ok that's all my questions. Now I'd like to explain to you why it's hurtful to be transabled (specifically transautistic)

1.Actually autistic people suffer a lot

Because you're not actually autistic I wouldn't expect you to understand but, autistic people go through a lot. We are constantly misunderstood, we are constantly told we're disrespectful, communication can be very difficult, we get overstimulated easily and a lot.

Now I'm going to talk about my personal struggles that I have because of my autism. I struggle to eat and sleep because of my sensitivities. I struggle to work because I have meltdowns over really small things, which means that I don't want to work on (the thing that made me have a meltdown) and meltdowns are very emotionally and mentally draining so I don't have the energy to work after them. On bad days, 5 people talking in a room is TOO LOUD and will trigger a meltdown or shutdown. Because of my autism, ADHD, and possible NPD, I have some of the highest highs, when I feel unstoppable and invincible but because of my autism, ADHD and possible NPD, I have some of the lowest lows as well. When that happens, I can't move. I can't talk. I can't BREATHE. It's all too much.

By identifying as autistic, you insult the people who struggle because they're autistic.

2. Autistic people are actively discriminated against

There are so many shows, movies, books, etc that depict autistic people in hurtful and insulting ways. There are companies out there right now who want to "cure autism" (I'm talking about AutismSpeaks btw). They want to CURE us for being different. Many autistic people are forced through FUCKING TORTURE (ABA "therapy") because they're autistic.

And here YOU are. Identifying as autistic because it's "quirky and cool"

Fuck you and I hope you have a terrible day <3

hi! honestly, i was debating on responding to this, because you can't just start a conversation with 'i just want to learn', pepper it with wild accusations, and end it with 'fuck you'. but, even if i don't change your mind in the slightest, i can probably reach to others.

(three chunky paragraphs under the cut!)

first of all, i feel like your discomfort at and hate of transautistic people comes from the fact that you see being autistic or disabled as an inherently negative experience that no neurotypical or able bodied person in their right mind should want to go through. this, obviously, is wrong, and in my opinion more harmful than transautism itself. taking away autistic people's agency and just tell non-autistic people that the life of a neurodivergent person sucks so hard nobody should feel a connection does nothing but spread more ableist rhetoric. anyway,most of your questions can be answered by the fact that autistic people, though it's sometimes more difficult than neurotypical people, are just as capable as anybody else to have a happy and fulfilling life. and such, someone wanting to be autistic is not as utterly disgusting, insulting, and confusing as you think it is.

secondly, i was born neurodivergent and disabled and belonging to several other marginalized groups. i identify with transautism because i'm likely autistic, but because of how expensive getting therapy and all of that is, im not able to get a diagnosis. i struggle with meltdowns, sensory issues, social isolation, etc in a similar way to you. i struggle with seizures and such a big heat stroke risk that i can only go outside hours before the sun comes up. being able to get a diagnosis because of the economic class i was born in does not just magically make me a privileged neurotypical, able-bodied asshole. and honestly, most people in the transautistic community aren't privileged, neurotypical, or able-bodied either. if you float around the community for a little while, you'd start to realize that (/nsar)

and thirdly, and this is a bit of an aside, but you've got to learn how to phrase a question if you actually want to learn about this community. maybe you wrote it while in a fit of anger, i'm a bit frustrated writing this myself, but it sounds like you just wanted an excuse to white knight in someone's anon, lol. questions like "why don't you think it's insulting to pretend to be disabled?" and statements like "you only want to be autistic because you think it's quirky and cool" already put so many words into the recipient's mouth and so many assumptions into the world that anyone else in their right mind will just end up ignoring you.

hope this helps, if you ever even read it :3

[bullworthdrabbles]

This might be a controversial opinion here, but I'm really sick of seeing this in this fandom.

Stop giving one of the few canonically neurodivergent and mentally ill characters who already informs us of his diagnoses even more diagnoses without researching the disorders you intend to give him.

The number of times I have seen Gary get falsely diagnosed with disorders he canonically has never been diagnosed with and in many cases are outdated diagnoses that he doesn't even begin to fit the criteria of is fucking atrocious and I'm fucking done.

Many of y'all are basing the diagnosis of "sociopath" (which I will state isn't a diagnosis anymore) on a few lines of dialogue FROM HIS ABLEIST ASS PEERS. Last I checked not a single student in Bullworth is qualified to diagnose anyone with a broken bone much less a personality disorder. Imagine if you received a diagnosis just because your bullies called you OCD in high school, that's what I see a lot of you doing with this shit. And it's not just ASPD (the actual disorder you guys mean when you say "sociopathy" which you would know if you did a 10-second google search) many are labeling him with NPD, and/or megalomania (this one isn't even a diagnosis and is related to Narcissistic personality disorder which once again is easy to find out with a google search. The DSM doesn't even distinguish between Megalomania and NPD.)

By y'all doing this you are only further stigmatizing cluster B personality disorders which are already stigmatized enough. These disorders often come from years of abuse and neglect from a very early age and are born as responses to that abuse. These disorders are serious and can damage the quality of life for the person suffering from these conditions and those closest to them. People with these conditions actually deserve more empathy and understanding because of the toxic environments that these folks had to endure which contributed to them developing these disorders. Also just so y'all know, many people who have these disorders with treatment can be perfectly normal members of society you wouldn't otherwise know had these diagnoses. You doing this just goes to show how you view those with cluster B personality disorders as not deserving of empathy or understanding often treating them as subhuman and it's fucking gross.

So by labeling the openly neurodivergent and mentally ill villain the "sociopath", or "narcissist" without any research into these disorders you are very much displaying a lot of casual ableism because you are saying the only reason Gary did what he did was due to a disorder we never once get informed of him having, the only confirmed canonical diagnosis he has IS FUCKING ADHD. Btw, as someone with ADHD, I can confirm that even in my unmedicated state I have never harmed another person intentionally or taken over any schools.

I know part of the problem was back in 2006 Rockstar's shitty ass writing stated that the reason Gary did what he did was that he went off his meds and implied he was all this stuff through the other characters, but c'mon people use your critical thinking here. We don't have to write and talk about Gary the same way some lazy ableist ass men back in Rockstar did. If we can all acknowledge all the fucking ableist ass slurs in the game are fucking wrong and shouldn't be used, why tf can't we come to an agreement that this is also not fucking acceptable. I'm not saying you can't write him with any other disorders aside from ADHD, but you need to at least do basic ass research and write with a certain level of understanding and care of and for these disorders.

We are in 2022, many of y'all have your own fucking diagnoses, so why tf am I still seeing this shit? Do better.

[dialovers-translations]

Hello! I'm gonna add my HUMBLE opinion on Christa since we're on it; this is not an attack, mind you, just wanna discuss it, anyway sorry for my English and let's go-

Well, I've gotta say that i read your opinions on her and there's something that worries me, when you say that you "won't excuse her just because she was abused too", and also when you say "she could have treated Subaru better" etc... Except that.. she couldn't, and you know why?. Because she was CRAZY and wasn't AWARE of it. That's it, Christa, thanks to his loving husband, became literally delusional and in my opinion she didn't even know it, she simply snapped and wasn't aware of her condition. And when you're not aware of something you just CAN'T CONTROL IT. How can you?? Sometimes you can't even control something even when you're aware of it!

So, when you say -"I won't excuse her, because she could have left Karlheinz, be a damn good mom and care about Subaru more (even though she had no control over her emotional state because she became practically crazy and didn't even know it, great)"- to me it's like saying to someone who suffers from ADHD- "Why can't you just concentrate like others and be normal even though you absolutely have no control over that?!!". That's what I don't like about your reasoning (unless i misunderstood), unfortunately, it's not like "she could have been different", no, there's no "different", she couldn't change herself because she was just crazy mad, like, i don't know, schizophrenic-mad, that's the truth. It's not like ASPD, or NPD or whatever where you go to a therapist, they tell you from what mental illness you suffer and then you try to change yourself to be a better person and function in a society, no. Christa, in our society, would be locked up into a psychiatric hospital, there's no therapy for her, as bad as this sound. That's why I think you're argument doesn't work, you talk as if she had control over her state of mind and consciously did all that shit, but that's the opposite. It doesn't matter if she knew that Karlheinz was using her (I think first she fell in love, then when she found out the truth, she couldn't believe it and just snapped); she probably forgot about that in some of her attacks (when she treated Subaru aka Karlheinz with love), and then remembered that in some others (when she told Subaru aka Karlheinz she hated him). And if you say "yes, i know she didn't have any control over that but she still did it and I hate her for it".. well, the same argument can be used against people who suffer from Alzheimer, like- "I know you have a syndrome that let's you forget your own name but I still blame you and held you accountable for it"... Like, sure.

So, am I justifying her?? I think, yes?? I mean, how can you not?? She was mad, unaware of it, and even therapy wouldn't be able to help her honestly. And if people blame her i think they should also blame people with Alzheimer or ADHD (a mental illness where you can be aware of your problem but still find it impossible to control it, ahahah) etc.

Btw, I'm not arguing about who's the best diamom and all that shit, i don't care, i just think that this reasoning is stupid and, believe me or not, ABUSIVE. Because this way you're gonna blame "neurodivergents" (people who suffer from mental illness) for things they can't control. And that's a problem, because you could say things like:

ASPD/NPD- Why can't you just feel empathy for other human beings even though during your childhood you were emotionally, verbally and maybe even physically abused and as a defense mechanism you literally switched off your own empathy to not feel other people emotions because you are terrified to be hurt again?

DEPRESSION- Why can't you just be happy and smile a little more?? The world is so beautiful! (People don't know that the ones that suffers from Depression usually have a different brain structure from the one of a 'normal' person)

And so on. And to make you understand the stupidity of this argument even more, look at this-

ASTHMA- Why can't you just breathe??!! There's so much air outside!!

I don't actually think you'll use or have used this argument for people with mental illness (tell me you didn't pls). You seem like a good person. Of course, neurodivergents should be held accountable for things they CAN control, and they should try to be better people (not all of them have the humility of doing that unfortunately), but when I read your opinion I got a bit worried honestly. Today, mental illness are very stigmatized, and people in general should start to learn more about them, me included. Hope I didn't offend you, if there's something I misunderstood about your opinion then sorry

Of course, if Christa were a real person, it would change the situation and my opinion on it entirely. I also fully realize that she probably had episodes where she completely lost control, while at other times the rational side of her takes over again and she can think more clearly. (e.g. when she was dying from the poison)

However, since she is a fictional character and not a real person, I don’t necessarily judge her by the same standards. The original question was whether or not Subaru’s DF route made me like her more or redeemed her character, to which the answer would be ‘no’. I genuinely found her constant SCREECHING and crazy behavior to be annoying and I really couldn’t bring myself to sympathize with her. :/

I guess my issue with this whole deal is that Rejet touched upon subject of mental illness in a very shallow way by not fleshing out her character more through flashbacks of her younger years with Karl, her internal struggle between loving and loathing him, etc.

It is mentioned in bits of pieces but only on the side because Yui, Subaru and the Founders all need their screen time as well.

As a result, we’re left with somewhat of a clumsily put-together character who just comes across as a crazy lady throwing anger tantrums because her crush doesn’t like her back.

Christa did have a lot of potential for sure, but a character with such a complex emotional state of mind needs her own whole story to be done justice, rather than serving as a side character to stir up drama or provide the plot with some juicy angst.