A Man Hears What he Wants to Hear

As I was on a long drive home yesterday, I heard an old song on the radio by Simon and Garfunkel - The Boxer. This time it struck me how very BPD the lyrics are.

A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest....

is the one that stands out to me the most. And taken together with the last verse...

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

...just makes it so much clearer to me now. We hear what we want to hear because we hear with ears that only hear certain things based on our life experiences. We 'the boxers' carry the reminders of all the pain that others have caused us over our lifetimes. We induce some of it from others due to our paranoia becoming self-fulfilling. And we remember it ALL. You can see it on our faces or in our scars. It doesn't get dealt with and go away. It all piles on top. Mini traumas adding up to one huge one that is so insidious because each horrid memory is linked to so many others. Like trying to get rid of a cancer that has spread off in so many different directions - you cut out the parts you see, but there are parts that still lie deeper that are not seen yet and those tiny strands will just find a way to grow into something that just ends up consuming you again.

In his anger and his shame...wouldn't have BPD if you didn't have these two in spades!

I am leaving, I am leaving... I just leave behind all the crap of a particular situation. It works until the next one comes up and must be dealt with. We never learn how to deal...permanently...with a problem. We leave at the problem stage. One more memory to add to the pile of stuff that eats away at our insides. I have to fight against the urge to just disappear.

But we react to everything in primitive 'fight or flight'...so the fighter still remains...he rages on. But we're pretty beat up. Our fights are not good fights. We always lose. Even if we think we won, we lost. They don't really resolve. One more memory to deal with...

Oh well, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. A more serious one than you thought. One you need professional help with. I've got the help now. I just hope it's enough. I hope all of us here get the help we need to get rid of this horrible affliction.

Thanks for sharing. That was pretty insightful. This is a song I'm about to post is a song I play in my head often. It's kinda in my head the past two days, and I'm trying to figure out why.

makes sense
some hard truth's...
good analyzing :-)

Here's another one that pops in my head when I start to get depressed and hopeless, I think I'm going to write about these two songs today, as I guess it's beginning to come on...we'll see. I'll just try to just keep moving.

could also be a cop out ? my wild imagination takes me there sometimes

I don't understand what you meant.

For me, more like self preservation. I hear the ulterior motive behind everything. "Trust me" means "you can't trust me". "I'm sorry" means "until I screw you over again". "I'll do it later" means "if I just wait long enough, you'll do it for me".

Beautiful song. I've never really listened to the lyrics before. Thanks - I relate a lot to it.

Another awesome song. So sad though. Here's something to pick you back up after you are done writing...

I love that song. When I was on drill team, in high school, we did a lyrical performance to that song. It was beautiful. I also made a CD for my oldest daughter, before iTunes, lol, with songs dedicated to her on them, and this was one of the ones I dedicated to her on the CD from her mom. It' a really lovey dovey nostalgic song for me! Thanks!