smell

About the womb envy, I definitely agree with you on that point. The whole idea of womb envy is that the patriarchal society compensates their lack of ability to create life by controlling women's bodily autonomy (legally categorizing women as men's property, restricting access to birth control, etc). Beethoven had a sort of weird Madonna whore complex when it comes to women and absolutely hated them being 'sexually immortal'. I forgot who exactly he did this to but he was staying at this noble lady's house and saw her pay her servant's salary cause you know...servants aren't slaves contrary to Beethoven's beliefs. He immediately accused her of being a prostitute for some reason and got angry??? I don't remember if he apologized or not but Beethoven be so fr rn. I'm sure there's more examples like this that probably come up in your mind because this weird behavior with women was an frequent issue with him.

About the BPD I'm just gonna list off the symptoms and expand on them using accounts in Beethoven's life. Again, I'm not 100% sure about him having BPD but there is evidence.

unclear or shifting self image: I think this quote from Beethoven's letter to Bettina Brentano beat summarizes his view on his image. "I am a wretched creature, and yet I complain of others!!". He never had a healthy sense of confidence within himself. It was either two extremes of being above everyone else due to his talents or being undeserving of it all the love due to his flaws.

Unstable relationships/mood swings/extreme anger: everyone knows about these even if they casually research Beethoven's personal life. He had a hard time keeping people in his life because of said mood swings. He seemingly had two versions of himself, the 'normal' version (who was actually charismatic and kind) and the version he was when he was angry. Many people reported that the smallest things would set Beethoven off in a furious rage even though he was seemingly fine a few moments ago. Many of these incidents would be the cause of estrangement. I just don't like it when people say that this proof of his passion when, in my opinion, it's very obvious that it's a trauma response. Especially with Prince Lichnowsky, I feel Beethoven had a PTSD flashback to when his dad would force him to play for others and that's why he got so angry :(

Fear of abandonment/favorite person or limerence /splitting: definitely seen with Karl. With all those letters begging him to stay with his 'dear uncle'. It was like Beethoven was desperately trying to cling onto Karl with any control over him. Like wdym you're hiring spies to watch your nephew??? Karl was used for reassurance, idealization of the perfect family Beethoven couldn't have, projections of jealousy. There was this cycle of Beethoven spoiling Karl with affection, exploding and hating his nephew for a minor mistake (in his eyes), then spoiling him again as forgiveness. I do think there were some signs of this behavior Beethoven did when he was younger. For example, his idealization of women to a near obsessive level. If you read the first love letter Beethoven sent to Josephine, you wouldn't believe that they were in a relationship AT MAX for 4 months. They're so passionate and beethoven already states that she completes him fully. Idk wether to be flattered or concerned if someone said that about me so quickly. Also his beef with Stephan von Breuning for a bit? The difference between his shit talking letters to Ferdinand Ries and his formal apology to Breuning after is night and day. My favorite part is that we don't even know the root cause of this beef 😭.

Things I'm unsure about (please expand if you can)

Self harm/Suicidal tendencies: We know the heiligenstadt testament but other than that...? I don't really see self harm tendencies in him? You could say his alcoholism but it seems he was more dependent on it to help his stomach issues rather than using it for becoming drunk. I have heard he was threaten suicide later in life but don't quote me on that

feelings of emptiness: I SWEAR HE SAID SOMETHING ABOUT THIS IN ONE OF HIS LETTERS OR IN HIS DIARY but I don't remember for the life of me where it comes from ugh

Impulsive behavior: I'm not sure if he shows this? Maybe his impulsive actions out of anger? Maybe his reckless spending? Idk if he truly understood the value of money? I mean, I think you would understand a little bit if you were the main source of income of your family at 16, right? I truly don't know if he was actually dumb with money or reckless idkkkkk.

Please comment if you have more examples Lowkey my Beethoven hyperfixation is slowly going away cause I literally read so much about him 😭 might shift over to analyzing his music fr.

-josephine anon

HAIAIAI i do feel so sorry for holdin this repost for so long. again, stuff and stuff happening all over. and a bit on my part. this shall never happen again.

the first paragraph, i decided this summer i will from now on save each paragraph and source in folders regarding everything beethoven related.i it only makes me realise how quickly i forget stuff over time and i hate not trying to be more organized . It will Make me more happy to have it set this way so it can also be easier to pull it up each time. my brain had been absolutely scrambled after these uni exams and it makes me feel HORRIBLE!!!!!!!1 i want to go back on track and i will do so well organized.

also it is unfair bcs im so parasocial i tend to pass over any bad behaviour to have an objective take on it. blerppp!!!!!!!!!1 my honest mistake.

the womb thing has been something i have rarely seen spoken about compared to the Madonna-Whore Complex. and i mean in general. I will dare say it can co-exist a bit in Beethoven. He has a weird relationship with BOTH women and servants. i dare say he might had view them even less than him sometimes. maybe not intentionally, but somewhere in his mind he did. i will simply assume its something so so so common of that time that it is the regular way to view stuff, even for someone like him.

also I randomly found this again. we know he fought with servants and all, but how far did these GO? omgg

omg the shifting image on himself , his mood swings towards otherz and attachment is pretty much universally known like sometimes it feels like it his brand and his Brand is being mentally ill. the prince lichnowsky i Always used to think on it as something simple as just passion TOO, but DAMN it might make more sense if its abt childhood flashbacks and being told to play :((((((( grah dont cry dont cry atthsiis hour. the karl stuff keeps me up each time like that boy had NO rest . literally the image of a family cycle abuse. Yes , the letters to josephine too extreme like gen CALM down , UNC!!!!!!1 holy.. Now about the rest:

Suicidal tendencies and feelings of emptiness: ofc that testament is the biggest proof and tbf i alrdy feel like thats big enough as it is. to write to ur brothers who u raised in such way takes lots of determination and thoughts and thinking abt his state of mind when he done it is pretty chilling.

idk if its my alcoholic ass or sum, but is drinking daily considered self-harm??? i think its something we all do at a certain age if we like it. alsoo.. maybe im mistunderstanding something, but didnt the doctors usually tried to put him off wine bcs it caused obvs more trouble? idk if i consider self-harm. maybe thats just me.

regarding feeling empty, i lowk tried to go through my letters book at night and hoped i maybe highlighted. i didnt have the patience to find it again, but i think relevant to death or feeling hollow can also be this. it is fairly even more disturbing imo. like why u wanna manifest death so bad??? hello. chill!!!!!

Regarding being reckless and even a bad spender, i will also say YESS, like he bee crazy. i think i saved this lots bcs im also bad w spending too...

im crying what is wrong with him and horses. also didnt he also forogot to start feeding it and it came up in a big bill? again, he constantly has talks about the money, and at the same time, buys certain things when .. he dont need them? mf just brought a horse ... as you said. you would imagine that he would be more stable regarding that since he had taken care of his family since the youngest ages, but apparently not. again, id say a big sign of BPD.

So everyone, all i think we did is shed more light on the possibility he MIGHT 98% have this. i think it could be too common, and seems fitting for ludwig. dayum.. he cant catch one break. it is pretty cool if u are able to study his music . unfortunately, i still think that is my only wall between me and ludwig and it makes me so upsset. im no musician and besides listening to his music and how it makes me feel, i dont think i will ever be able to comment on his works and such.. keep strong soldier.

all the lovee like always. u def motivated me to sort info out so this dont happenagain. again, i might pos tthat ''feeling empty'' part if i found it in the process. beethoven deserves the most attention, i Had decided.

-Josephine anon

haaaiii yess it did , dont worry, it is there fully BUT considering its so long, i wanted to manage to sit down when i get home and answer as best as i can . couldnt had done it these days bcs dad had to pick me from dorms and THEN we went on a road trip for several days ?? never one normal car trip.

saw many bearthovens! i really wanna go into how beethoven is spiritually a bear one day too lolz i keep thinking of him whenever i have the chance to see these beautiful animals face to face

-Josephine anon

SORRRY if you waited. i finally had my last exam and now im OVER with all of them!!! so everybody expect me to be overly active againnn .

(irrelevant ramble abt what happened lately) i have lots of opinions, although I feel some misinterpret it horribly. Bcs I think I just mentioned Choliszt size difference some says ago and it felt like I push ED or overly feminize Chopin which I didn't mean😭😭😭 I think Chopin's fragility and illness and his extremely low weight is good to analyze not in a twink way, but in an actual addition to his distaste for healthy people and how it contrasts with Liszt in the sense of being unpleasing to even stand or see him maybe. I do anything to see all the nuances of my ships lowkkkk . Also, I understand it might be triggering or uncomfy to speak abt this condition, but I wouldn't it ignore it either, bcs there are real people who deal with similar stuff and It feels like shaming if I call it uncomfy. I just wanna speak as objectively as possible.

About BPD , I always kinda assumed it too, again, even if it's a heavy diagnostic I dont have the calification for. You lowk right, and even more funny, it might feel like it shows even in his music??? . With this study sessions, I had Beethoven on REPEAT and it stood out how sometimes it can sound so heavily or sometimes take me under a storm. It is super interesting and I think undeniably a reflection of his own mind. I used to sometimes get those Historical Fanpages slideshows on tiktok, and more than twice I seen Beethoven diagnosed with BPD. It feels like there couldn't be more of a good diagnosis

The womb envy Thing I seen it some days ago on Twitter from a radfem, and I was reading what she was saying abt how it mostly can be this big reason for patriarchy being the way it is and how men are jealous over it. Fair to say, I didn't knew much about it , and assumed it was a paralel to Freud's "penis envy"🤣 But I feel like the womb envy makes more sense to me in general. So take that, Freudddy (It is very funny to me how he refused to analyze Mozart's poo poo letters like damn how bad can it BE😪😪)

About assigning this to Beethoven, it just came in my mind as I was reading that Twitter Thread. I imagine in Beethoven it might be something building up for a while. It starts with how He looks up to his mother and when he loses her, he becomes the head of the house cus Johann good for NOTHING! (cna we talk how young it was like sometimes it kills me 16 is such a baby nr lik u is still a toddler in my head). It pushes him to be both the father and mother to his brothers.

Now, I think after moving to Vienna , constantly having crushes left and right, he sees women as these simple "beautiful beings" (again yes I dare say Beethoven fell in love a bit shallow and for some reason I also would say he wasn't interested in personality dat much . Is Incel Beethoven thread planned for another day? Might BE), eventually, we will stop seeing it happen from 1815. Why? Because he is obviously busy getting Karl's custody. And I think it comes with the deep unsastisfaction in him about creating so many songs and so much greatness , and yet he might see Women as doing something more complex and beautiful: giving live. Because it's one of nature's biggest gifts do that and he sees these Women he cant get do something bigger than music. I'd say it's also his desire for his own dream of a functional family, but I feel like it could also be this jealousy and resenting of build up frustration on Women and wanting to do the same thing they do; to create life himself when He can't make it work.

His custody fight blah blah blah. Again, we talked about many reasons why Beethoven would push for this, but if there's one thing that still stuck to me since We Had this conversation, it was that little passage:

I gen think Beethoven wanted to feel this connection with Karl as he birthed him in all senses. That it would probe not only that he can be the good father, but again, subcounciously, be the mom who done the miracle , create life and show he is somehow even superior than these women who dared to Reject him. It is fairly insane , I won't lie to you, but Beethoven also claimed he lived for his craft and that's why he can't end his life in the letter to Wegeler. His craft is to give life. Specifically to music, but it can also be prone to wish for more.