This 100 Percent Nails How I Feel. Who Is Attacking Paul’s Talent Now? Why Do People Think He Needs

Can we all just weep at John’s body language in 3 & 4: “Constantly transferring your weight from one foot to the other or rocking forward and backward is a comforting movement that indicates you are anxious or upset…[rubbing your earlobes] is a soothing action to counter feelings of uneasiness or vulnerability.”

(Also in no.3, John and Paul’s synchronised head turning, ama cry over that as well, they were so attuned to each other goddamnit.)

This is such a weird take that John’s mom dying horrifically in a car accident right underneath his bedroom window counts as hagiography regardless of whether the driver was drunk or not. It was still a traumatic thing for John. Also why is it never acknowledged there is massive hagiography for Paul “everything can be explained away as his actions are always right” McCartney?

It’s also massively problematic for anyone to diagnose anyone else without a formal mental health evaluation and even more wrong for a mental health clinician to do it via taking pieces of biographies out of context. Also Erin Torkelson Weber is biased. Ugh. So many things I hate about this and once again it’s taking a complex person like John and taking out his worst pieces out of context to form a half baked conclusion.

Hi :) my friend just sent me a link to a podcast episode called "The Psychology of John Lennon" by Psychology in Seattle. I'm kind of interested but seeing as the episode so awfully long and I have no experience with that podcast idk if it's worth a listen. So I wanted to ask if you have given that one a go and if so what are your thoughts on it? Is it insightful?

P.S.: I love your blog, I really appreciate all the hard work that goes into your posts and they're always so interesting to read!!

Hiya anon!

Thank you for the lovely “PS” message btw — I really appreciate hearing that!! :)

I have listened to this podcast a few times, and I’ve actually recommended this specific episode (which can be found here (x)) quite a bit – so I’m pretty familiar with it! The short answer here is that I would recommend it. It’s a decent illustration of the key arguments concerning a diagnosis for borderline personality disorder, albeit, not a comprehensive one. But id say the host gets the job done, and it’s a good starting point for wider discussion.

The long answer, is that the episode does have a handful of flaws. There were two main issues I recall having with it, the first being that Dr Honda assumes Mimi’s parenting was not in any way problematic or abusive. He discusses Julia’s parenting, establishing it as chaotic, and also discusses Alfred's parenting —or lack thereof, really— and illustrates how both these early abandonments would have affected John. He even mentions an intergenerational aspect to the family-line which I thought was interesting (I’m actually working on whole post dedicated to that topic!). But then he brushes off Mimi’s parenting as “good-enough”, when it evidently had a more substantial impact on John.

In discussing how a borderline personality might have developed for John throughout his childhood, I just don’t believe you can dismiss Mimi in this way, since she was such a pivotal figure in the formation of his personality. Her treatment of him appears to have been emotionally and verbal abusive — and that isn’t a judgement of her, nor is it to say that she didn’t love him (or that he didn’t love her), but simply that if you read the various accounts of her parenting styles, it seems fairly apparent that it is what would be considered abusive today. I do appreciate that John was probably always going to be difficult, and that she had her own issues largely stemming mainly from her father — but these things don’t ultimately dispel the argument that her parenting could be abusive. So essentially, Mimi's needed to be discussed in more depth for this to be a comprehensive outlook on John’s childhood. As well as this, the episode would have been improved had he dedicated more time into discussing the impact of Uncle George and his death.

The second issue I had with the episode, was that the host largely neglects to discuss John’s relationship with Paul. There are parts of the podcast where he does discuss their closeness, but overall it didn’t feel to me as though he had really recognised the depth of this relationship. Im aware that he recently did an episode on Get Back, which I haven’t gotten round to listening to just yet — but I’m interested to see to see if perhaps his perspective has changed/grown.

There are other things in the podcast which I take issue with (for instance, his understanding of the relationship between John and Yoko could be fairly shallow and one-sided), but it seems to me as though these things tended to be more-or-less related to a problematic historiography. I appreciate that Dr Kirk Honda has done dozens of these kinds of episodes, where he analyses the psychology of various celebrities and characters, and offers potential diagnosis’s for them – and therefore, I’m not expecting him to be an absolute expert on John Lennon. When you’re running a podcast which is fairly miscellaneous in its subjects, there’s an extent to which you can research each topic, and so I cant really expect the host to have studied practically Every Single Area of John Lennon’s life. There are things which I would have been more attentive towards — but I’ve dedicated, frankly, an amount of time into researching him which therapists would find concerning (*kidding*…..but not really). Additionally, I would presume that the shows hosts haven’t read most of the biographies in which they gathered their information from with much critical thought, because they’re not The Almighty Great Erin Torkelson-Webber. So effectively, their understanding of John Lennon is going to blindsided by hagiography — an example of this would be when the host cites that John’s mother was killed by a drunk-driver, which contemporary reports would disagree with. But I wouldn’t say that this flaw is so much so that it spoils their entire overarching argument, its just a notable blindspot and something to keep in mind when listening to their analysis’s.

On a more positive note, there were merits to this podcast. As a professional psychologist, he is able to offer valuable insights into things such as Janov’s Primal Scream Therapy, and illustrate in laymen’s terms, essentially why its a quack. And despite his arguments being, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed since they neglect to account for two massively crucial figures (Mimi and Paul), he’s still able to conclude with a solid, evidenced argument for John having had BPD.

If you happen to be someone fairly ‘iffy’ about diagnosing (or suggesting diagnosis’s) John with a mental illness—especially something as complicated as borderline personality disorder—id definitely recommend giving this as a listen! You might still conclude that diagnosing him is not the right course of action, or that it has little value, or that its just plain wrong etc. but I still think its a good thing for people to at least understand the arguments here, since I know that in the past when I have mentioned that I think John was a strong candidate for BPD, I am often met with a response telling me that I'm just projecting onto him, which does make me wonder if they’ve really understood the objective outlook in this discussion.

Someday I’ll have to sit down and write up an entire post on all this, collecting the strongest arguments for him having had BPD (and someday I will, I swear!) but for now I’ll just leave you a few other relevant links to this topic:

An overview of the John and BPD argument (x) — @thecoleopterawithana

Exposing the voice of truth: a psychological profile of John Lennon — Deborah Fade (x) + additionally you can read the @anotherkindofmindpod critique of it here (x)

A quote from Lesley Ann-Jones and (a more important) addition from @walkuntilthedaylight (x)

Weekly reminder this never happened. Even Paul said it didn’t happen. John also didn’t go in Paul’s house and smash a painting and he didn’t piss on Nuns. Also I love how John, George and Ringo are painted like some kind of Thelma and Louise type characters out for revenge. Like somehow in the year when they put out some of the best albums in rock n roll history they found the time on Paul’s anniversary to roll up to his house and damage it. Seriously? They had much better things to do (and were doing them!)

Wholesome moment! ❤️ love to see it

(From McCartney by Christopher Sandford)

I feel for Paul here and I can see that he is hurt. I didn’t realise until I moved here to the U.K. that there is a whole sub culture of taking the piss out of your friends which at first seemed really mean to me until I realised everyone did it to each other. It could be George wasn’t meaning to hurt Paul but did it unintentionally which to be fair is the story of the Beatles in a nutshell lol

George making jabs at Paul’s work ethic during the Beatles-era and Ringo laughing with him is a whole-ass mood.

—

cr: EMI records & Apple Corps.

@dumbcloud And now the DILF:John Edition.

Yes, I’m aware most of these are from the same couple of days but he looked good on those days

I always love this because due to Paul’s narcissistic tendencies? Arrogance? Insecurity? All of the above? he can’t even be honest about his own feelings of sadness about not telling John he loved him before he died. See it is really GEORGE who made this error and he was so moved abut GEORGE’S mistake that he had to write an entire song about it

Did paul really say THIS ONE was about john? First time I know!

being paul, he didn't say that directly, but he said this: "When you get those moments, and you always think, 'well, I'm saving it up, I'll tell them one day', and what happens with a lot of people, something like John for instance, he died, and I was lucky that for the last few months that he was alive we'd managed to get our relationship back on track [...] but George actually didn't, I don't think, get his relationship back, I think they were arguing right up until the end, which I'm sure is a source of great sadness to [George]. And I'm sure, in the feeling of the song, that George was always planning to tell John he loved him, but time ran out. So that's the song is about, it's like, 'there could never be a better moment than this one', now. Take this moment to say... I love you." (source)

Sharing because I’m a John girl and I need to represent

Top 3:

-Paris fics?

-Liverpool fics?

-modern AUs?

-sexiest fics?

-after Beatles divorce fics?

-time travel fics?

yeah alright then. under a cut to save everyone's eyes.

:)

ok listen. listing 18 of my favorite pieces of fanfiction feels a bit like walking naked through a crowded cafeteria so pls be gentle ok? also be sure to check any author tags in ao3. ty!

PARIS:

Backwards Traveller by @scurator & @paulmcfruity / john remembers paris 1961. When You Are Young They Assume You Know Nothing by @lilypadd23 / cute and charming paris 1961 adventure. We're In A World Apart by RedheadAmongWolves / yes it's an au but it's set in paris so i'm including it here are you can't stop me. john & paul but it's 1966 and they're spies assigned to work together on a very important mission (still updating; 4/6 chapters available).

LIVERPOOL/EARLY DAYS:

non nobis solum by @downtothe-lastdrop / midday rendezvous in 1960. Put My Heart Around the Bend by @strwbryfeels / a journey through 1960. I really wanted to include this one in my hamburg list, but since it splits time between liverpool & hamburg I didn't. so I'm including it now. On The Way to Work by roundthatcorner / life in december 1960.

MODERN AU:

I recently rec'd some by @javelinbk and @theoldmixer which you should absolutely check out and here are 3 more :)

blood on the tracks by @backbenttulips / john & paul fall in love and get married super young, the beatles still happen, and then a double divorce. what then. my love (let me go again) [orphaned] / john & paul meet, really hit it off, and then paul falls into a coma. inspired by the movie The Big Sick. i enjoy the niche genre of j/p aus based loosely on movies and this was a fun one. we push and pull like a magnet do by toppermostofthepoppermost / college au. john is a hot mess and paul is a slightly older hot mess. very cute and silly and features a tattooed paul which I enjoy a lot. for reasons.

SEXIEST OTHER:

oh my god i'm way too embarrassed to admit what I find sexiest! i don't want anyone reading into my obvious [redacted] issues so instead i'm just adding 3 more that I really like :)

Tessellate by cloudy_blue / cyn on john & paul over the years it's good to touch by @pauls1967moustache / john & paul are trapped in a closet where feelings and other things arise. i made a special request for this one so it will always be a favorite ;) 5 Thomas Lane by @chut-je-dors / modern au with extremely domestic john and paul just being dads with a bunch of kids, a dog, and some cats. there's a 'flashback' chapter set in the 90s that I think is the most adorable thing i've ever read.

POST-DIVORCE:

that which resembles the gave but isn't! by @monkberries / from the author notes: 'what if the break-up but EVEN WORSE'. yeah. Adventures In Total Honesty by @merseydreams / john & paul meet up at an after party in 1975. six hours in august by stonedlennon - john & paul run into each other at a gay bar in nyc in 1979.

TIME TRAVEL:

(I've Still Got) You All Over Me by @muzaktomyears / paul has a doppelganger. or does he.... i was a younger man then (now) (post hoc) by @fingersfallingupwards / time-travelers's wife au on our way back home by @purechocolade / obviously! I read this again recently and enjoyed it just as much the second time around.

♪ And you know what it's worth ♪

John Lennon, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards from The Dirty Mac performing Yer Blues (1968)