Anon wrote: (INFJ. 21) I am ashamed and isolated because my sense of fun doesn't coincide with people and society's sense of fun. I don't drink, smoke or go to nightclubs, and I hate those kind of things, but at the same time I feel I am not allowed to have fun and connect with others in any other way but that, and it makes me feel disconnected from humanity.
Your thinking seems quite extreme and one-sided. Society is a big, big place; we're talking thousands, millions, even billions of people. There are many different kinds of people with many different kinds of interests. Social isolation tends to make people very small-minded. By your own admission, you have been isolated a long time, which means you simply haven't seen enough of the social world to make objective and reasonable judgments about it.
I am a very serious and uptight person in real life but I actually enjoy doing childish things. I like going to amusement parks, dodgems, go-karts, arcades, inflatables, camping, some type of toys like stuffed animals and dolls (I don't collect and I am not obsessed with them though), exploring abandoned places, games such as Just Dance, Twister and housey-housey, jumping and doing acrobatics on trampolines, but also some socially acceptable things such as dancing, skating and barbeques, but I repress everything and I never “have fun” in real life.
I have done almost all of those activities with my friends, and we are all well into adulthood. I've even done them with my parents and their middle-aged and elderly friends of all stripes. I see absolutely no reason to hang our heads in shame. You wouldn't even know about many of those activities if they weren't popular enough to make money and continue to exist. Even if it's true that the majority of people around you don't take an interest in them (which is, again, very few people given how small your social world is), it doesn't make those interests any less valid. Are people not allowed to simply like what they like? Are any of those interests morally wrong? It sounds like there is something very off about your moral judgment, which speaks to a need to improve your moral reasoning skills. Poor moral reasoning is one major reason people suffer from excessive guilt or shame.
As a consequence, I am stuck in a limbo where I am miserable and bored but I also find the things that majority of people do boring, so I am not allowed to do anything. I am not someone who wants to be a child forever, I do have a genuine purpose (which, by chance, happened to be something that's the opposite of childish in society's eyes), ambition and career prospects in life, if that's the “grown up” thing you need from me to prove I'm not a complete extraterrestrial freak.
I have zero interest in judging you. Question for reflection: Why do you feel the need to prove anything? Due to projection, self-critical INFJs always imagine that they are being judged by everyone. This can compel them to try to get ahead of criticism or disprove negative judgments. These quests are a waste of time because 1) you can't avoid criticism in life, and 2) you can't change people's minds when they are intent on believing the worst.
What you can control, though, is how you judge yourself. Shame comes from the way you judge yourself. If you have a problem with being too self-critical, the first step is to own the problem and admit that you are the one doing the judging. Criticism can only trigger you when there is something within you that believes you are deserving of it. There is something about your way of evaluating yourself that needs to change.
Obsessing about how the world doesn't live up to your expectations is merely a distraction. Blaming others for how you feel is one common way to get stuck in Ni-Ti loop. Shame is your emotion; you generated it and it is up to you to understand why. Toxic shame is a serious issue and I have written about it before. It involves 1) believing what others say without critical reflection, as well as 2) believing the worst of yourself even though there is no rational reason for doing so. Given the distortions in your beliefs, it sounds like your toxic shame runs deep, perhaps it's a good idea to get professional help for it.
Sometime ago I found myself together with some early teens so the only thing I spoke about with them was careers because I felt that was the only thing I was allowed to do. I don't need to be told it was weird and socially inappropriate to only ever talk about future professions with those children because I fucking know already. When they started playing catch I wanted to join but I didn't, and I thought it was shameful, twisted, sick and deranged of me to want that, I felt like a pedo so I left.
Pedophilia is defined as sexual attraction toward minors. Are you saying it's impossible for an adult to enjoy innocent play with children because of having sexual feelings? If so, then, yes, that would make you a pedophile and you should indeed avoid children. If not, then why wouldn't you allow yourself to have fun with them, especially since fun is what you really need? Children tend to be accepting and love to play with anyone who is willing to chill and have a good time.
The division between "child" and "adult" is not as black-and-white as you believe it is. There is no legal or moral reason that adults cannot enjoy some activities that children enjoy. You seem to have concocted some very extreme beliefs and inflexible rules about what you can/can't do when socializing. Why?
When INFJs get stuck in Ni-Ti loop, they are resisting Fe development, so they unconsciously invent all manner of false beliefs to hold themselves back from getting the socializing they need. This situation with the children is a good example. If you believe adults shouldn't play with children, how are children meant to learn about the world? They require a positive influence from their elders and you could step up and fill that role for them. Yet, you can't, because you have a personal problem with feeling "childish" and it is too uncomfortable to confront, so rejection of yourself leads to rejection of the kids, thus losing a good opportunity to socialize.
When people stop themselves from fulfilling important needs, such as social needs, they suffer terribly. How can you be happy by constantly depriving yourself? If you treated someone else that way, it would be considered abuse. Why are you abusing yourself?
I think it all started when, other than joining the “adult world” and noticing I can't have fun with others because they don't share my sense of fun, a friend of mine told me I was “childish” for liking to explore abandoned places, and it hasn't left my mind ever since. My requited crush (ESFP) also told me I was weird once, and I started to feel even more ashamed because he's socially adept, popular and belongs to the world, and also kinda conformist because he does and is everything that society deems socially acceptable and enjoys it.
The real issue isn't "childishness" at all. The real issue is you were invalidated and it hurt because you lack the emotional and intellectual tools to handle criticism. Human beings are social creatures and need a sense of social belonging, so invalidation and criticism aren't pleasant experiences for anyone. No society is perfect. Every society has great diversity of personalities and you are bound to run into people who are very different from you, which means there's no avoiding invalidating experiences in life. What matters most is how you choose to respond to those experiences.
On one extreme of the spectrum, people stubbornly stand by what they believe even when everyone tells them they are wrong; on the other extreme of the spectrum, people just believe everything they are told without second thought. If you genuinely want to get out of Ni-Ti loop, you have to actively counter extreme and unreasonable thinking patterns whenever they appear in your mind. The healthy middle ground is to listen to what people say, in case they are making a valid point, and then do the critical mental work to evaluate it objectively, in order to extract truth and utility.
What you've done, through Ni-Ti loop, is taken the pain of invalidation/criticism and run off into the land of extreme thinking, eventually getting lost there. You exist on both extremes of the spectrum. On one hand, you just believe whatever negative thing people say about you, which leads you to feel ashamed. On the other hand, something within you can't agree with what was said, which leads you to stubbornly or angrily defend yourself. When you get stuck in such extremes, it is logically untenable, which means it causes psychological instability. What started out as a small hurt of invalidation/criticism has now been blown out of proportion into something so painful that you need to invent false beliefs to rationalize the terrible position you find yourself in.
These kinds of negative thinking patterns indicate a dire need for you to improve your emotional intelligence. The first step is learning to accept and embrace all of your feelings and emotions so that they don't always get blown out of proportion. Your feelings and emotions are important messages that help you maintain good mental health. However, when you don't process them properly, they have the potential to damage your mental health.
For example, it is quite reasonable to feel hurt by invalidation, but it is unreasonable to descend into shame, anger, and rage spirals in reaction to the hurt. You ought to reflect on the hurt, patiently and compassionately, in order to understand its true meaning. Perhaps it is simply informing you that those people are not well-suited to be your friends. You can try to deny the reality of the situation, or you can accept reality and keep moving forward to seek better social opportunities. There is always a better response you could choose.
Being around him makes me feel even more inadequate and self-conscious and I am terrified of him finding out the childish things I like doing because somebody “normal” such as him would think I am a weird mentally ill freak and that would shatter me to pieces because it would be the ultimate disconnect from humanity for me. So I disappeared and cut all contact with him so that he doesn't find out who I really am and starts using it against me.
Have you done something morally wrong? If you have, then it would be right for people to call you out and shame you. If you haven't, then other people's judgments of you are invalid, perhaps to be taken as proof that they are not relationship-ready, unable to be the friend/partner that you need them to be. If that were the case, the best thing to do would be to let the relationship go so that you could find something better. Use your Ni: What are the implications of continuing to tie yourself to his judgments and then blame him for your hurt? You would be stuck in a vicious cycle of fear and loathing with him indefinitely. Is that really how you want to spend your life? Once again, there is a better choice to be made.
I know everybody thinks I am a weird and deragend freak, so I isolate myself and I never express myself because I don't want people to ridicule and reject me for that again. I know I display a childish and simple-minded mindset, so fucking what? Are my insecurities socially unacceptable now as well? Am I not allowed to feel like this because it's the symptom of a “childish person with low ego development”? I only have this mindset because it's the same mindset everybody else has. How am I supposed to navigate the world otherwise?
"Everybody" thinks you're a freak? "Everybody" has this mindset? More examples of extreme thinking. Unless you have literally talked to everybody in the world and can provide concrete proof of their beliefs, then what you have here is a distorted or false belief, based on your own overactive imagination. Yes, rejection doesn't feel good for anybody, so it is reasonable to be afraid of it. But it isn't reasonable to take that fear and turn it into self-righteous rage. Does it make you feel better to rage against the world? Only for a moment, and then you go back to feeling like you're nothing. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve anything and doesn't get you your dignity back.
It's no use to pull a “gotcha” on me because I reprimanded my crush for being conformist while being a conformist myself. I am just bitter and envious that he manages to do it successfully and be part of the world while still feeling free in doing so. The other reason I avoid him and pretend he doesn't exist is to prevent myself from getting triggered by him.
"Pull a gotcha"? Like many socially challenged INFJs, you seem to have a habit of "mindreading", i.e., assuming you know what people are thinking/feeling or presuming to know what they will say. This habit is very destructive to relationships due to causing unnecessary misunderstanding. Socially challenged INFJs also have the habit of making up an image of people in their mind, and that's what they're really interacting with rather than the actual person. Since you're basically just talking to yourself, shall I leave you to it?
If you really already know all about people, then you should be able to resolve your socializing problems yourself and succeed in every relationship... yet you can't. A common way Ni-Ti loop mentally traps you is by making it very easy for you to believe that you know "The Truth" when you're actually just keeping yourself willfully ignorant of evidence to the contrary. The result is, you live in your own imaginary world. To get back to seeing more clearly (dominant Ni) and functioning well in society (auxiliary Fe), it is necessary for you to open your mind and make it more flexible to seeing the full truth. For Ns, feeling the mind get more and more inflexible is a huge red flag that something is wrong with the way they're thinking.
In running this blog, I am often forced to point out problems with people's beliefs only because it's necessary to correct them to reach the next stage of growth - not because I take sadistic pleasure in being pedantic and "pulling a gotcha". To be honest, I deeply dislike the tedious task of wading through the maze of people's distorted beliefs, which is one of the many reasons why I'm not a therapist. If you're going to believe I have ill-intentions and just want to put you down, you really shouldn't ask me for help, because nothing I say is going to get through your paranoia anyway. It would be a waste of time for both of us.
Are you gonna tell me to grow some balls, get over it and become a well-adjusted person? That's one part I predicted, but I also thought I could also get some useful or enlightening advice on how to get over my shame and reconcile my socially unacceptable interests with my bond with others. I just want to feel accepted for who I am and also “belong” and find my tribe, ideally, but I don't know how. It might not seem like it, but I genuinely want to change and have more courage, I was just letting off some steam. If you are wondering why I am a backlogged and underdeveloped individual like you did with the other INFJ not long ago is because I've previously been a hikikomori for 7 years on a Ni-Ti loop. I had this “childish interests” problem even as a teen, but it was nowhere near as severe as now. I used to completely repress my Fe before and I felt no need for relationships because I didn't know how to keep my Fe in check and, as I predicted, now it's out of control and I feel like a weak loser after my crush has made these repressed and unfullfilled needs of mine resurface. I'd rather you not publish my message but only your answer, in case you'll write it. I already know I am deeply gonna regret sending this to you but it's for the best.
"Grow some balls" is not something I would ever say because I believe that it's wrong to use gendered insults. Are you aware of the crude and vulgar way in which you talk to yourself?
Whenever you interact with people, you are taking an emotional risk, so socializing does indeed require some courage. You are risking the possibility of getting rejected. You can accept the risk gracefully and keep moving forward in life, or you can twist yourself up over it and get stuck in fear and pain. You get to choose.
I have made it clear on the contact page that when people send their questions to me anonymously, I will publish them publicly. I can't respond well if I can't make direct reference to the things you've said. But it's important for you to go back and review everything you've written for two other reasons:
1) Self-Reflection: You need to understand that hurt people hurt people. Your lack of self-respect comes out in how little respect you have shown to me. You don't get to rattle, rant, and rave and then, when you feel better, pretend like you didn't say all those things or that the things you said were meaningless, which is what many unhealthy FJs do. It is disrespectful to dump your emotions on someone, presume to know what they will think and say, and then try to control how they respond to you. I'm not your servant to order around. That is not what healthy socializing should look like.
Even if you could find some friends to be your "tribe", it's likely that you wouldn't be able to keep them for very long because of how easily you get triggered into tertiary loop. There is actually nothing morally wrong with your personal interests despite what the people around you say, but there is something wrong with how your unresolved hurt inadvertently causes you to hurt others.
You need to be a good friend in order to keep good friends, which means you have to face up to all the ways in which your extreme thinking leads to toxic behavior, in terms of misunderstanding, misjudging, and mistreating others. When your initial stance in relationships is defensive, distrustful, and antagonistic, you're making yourself unapproachable and unlikable. This only feeds into Ti loop self-sabotage, by repelling people before they reject you.
2) Self-Awareness: The purpose of my blog is to explore ways to improve self-awareness through type development. An important aspect of personal growth is the willingness to confront the truth of oneself. All the things you wrote above are a reflection of you, your beliefs and your values. If you don't like what you wrote or feel ashamed of it, it's a good opportunity to review and reflect on why.
To break out of Ni-Ti loop, you need to face up to: the extreme thinking patterns; the false beliefs distorting your worldview; and most importantly, the deep unresolved pain you feel from isolation and alienation. How can you heal a wound if you're not willing to look at it, tend to it, and apply the required medicine? Yes, it stings, but it is sometimes necessary to endure growing pains in order to grow.
There are things you can do to heal tertiary loop and I've witnessed many INFJs do it. But you have to be willing to take an honest look at yourself and change what needs changing without always falling into the habit of beating yourself bloody. There are several things you need to improve upon in order to break out of tertiary loop:
emotional intelligence: learn to accept, feel, listen, and understand negative emotions such as shame, rather than run from them, defend against them, or give in to them
self-esteem: admit that you are human (rather than always trying to live up to an unreasonable/unrealistic ideal image) so that you can finally hear and fulfill your psychological needs, which would help you feel better about yourself
self-worth: understand that it is okay to need and want love, and most importantly, believe that you are deserving of it, but learn to look for love in the right places
moral reasoning skills: learn to analyze moral issues intelligently so that you can make sound moral judgments on your own, otherwise, you will always be easily led astray by criticism
social skills: learn what it means to interact with real people rather than your image of them; learn to treat people with more respect and acceptance if you hope to receive respect and acceptance; learn to speak up and draw boundaries whenever you encounter people who are hurtful or toxic
communication skills: learn to express yourself authentically, sensitively, calmly, and assertively so that you are not always at the mercy of others in social situations
conflict resolution skills: there is no perfect way to socialize because conflict is inevitable; accept conflict as a fact of life and learn good strategies for minimizing and resolving it
I have already written about these topics before and recommended books on the resources page. Tried-and-true knowledge already exists for your self-improvement. The final question is whether you are actually serious about learning and changing.
With access to the internet, it is easier than ever to find people with similar interests as you. To achieve a goal, a person must be focused and determined. Focus all your attention on refining your search methods, rather than getting distracted by pointless criticism.
I suggest you broaden and systematize your search, instead of wasting time on the wrong people. The more time you've invested in someone, the harder it is on you if the relationship must end. Therefore, it is in your best interest to show your true self at the start of a relationship so that you know the truth and can make a fully informed decision about whether someone is a good fit for you.
Don't walk around believing that everyone should be your bff, otherwise, it is your own unrealistic expectations that will always do you in. It doesn't ultimately matter what is or isn't "mainstream". Everyone has a right to their own interests as long as they're not harming anyone, and a good friend/partner should be able to accept and appreciate legitimate individual differences. Pick your friends and partners carefully.
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Anon wrote: Hi, I’m INFJ. I need to ask: 1) what I should improve myself to feel less put off at Ts in general, to lessen the T & F difference 2) Tips on communication w Ts, especially INTJ.
Ik you said ppl’s strength underlie their weakness & vice versa, so they have a set of advantages to offer. As much as I’d like to dismiss it, I suck at Ti (I’m improving by learning critical thinking). I need to view Ts less judgmentally.
I had personal motivations for handling immaturity, but that wasn’t the only drive. The other (great) one is my feelings for my childhood INTJ friend, who I’m having a crush on & is asking me out. I’ve had feelings for him since childhood.
I used to think we couldn’t go out because of my immaturity. I suck at handling personality setbacks/criticisms/etc. (all date back to bad Fe & Ti lol). Later, I became more honest w my feelings, better at expressing genuinely, finally more logical than before (some positive changes for my own sake). But I still feel unable to bridge the gap w the Ts (esp TJs).
I hate this state, it robs me off chance for a greater relationship w the guy I’ve loved for years. I’m better than before, but I still fear this won't work. Our friendship is great, time passed but we still share many central values like how close we are to our family, definition of independence, pet peeves, political spectrum. I used to suck at not making a disagreement a heated argument, but with time, I got better at It. We had found the way to disagree while still being able to fully understand the others’ POV. I got more grounded thanks to him, too. But our growth was platonic.
Communication challenges are still considerable. I never used to tell him my feelings and I’ve never been in relationships before. But he’s already been in a few. I’m into this possible change as much as I’m willing to stay the same, because I’m so scared whether being his girlfriend will actually be a good choice. Help :(
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You say you get the idea of everyone having strengths/weaknesses but it doesn't sound like you really do. On the surface, it's not a bad thing to want to improve upon your weaknesses, but your approach to it is problematic. You still haven't understood that the first step must be to accept and embrace weaknesses, because proper self-improvement has to come from a place of love - not hate.
You are standing in front of someone who knows your strengths and weaknesses and still loves you and wants to start a life together. Yet you cannot accept being loved by him. Why? Because you haven't yet learned to love yourself, so you can't imagine that others can, either.
It sounds to me like it is lovingkindness you need to work on. Critical thinking isn't going to help you accept and embrace all of yourself, is it? When you finally learn how to approach yourself, your life, and others with an attitude of love, the relationship problems you've described have no reason to arise.
For example: If you can accept your insecurities, own them and talk about them openly and still love yourself, who can trigger them? If you can accept and love him both for his strengths and weaknesses, why would they cause you any conflict? And when conflicts arise as they inevitably do in intimate relationships, if you approach them with a reconciliatory attitude, why wouldn't they get resolved?
At the heart of your question is not personality but your self-worth and self-esteem. Until you address those issues, your attempts at function development are at high risk of getting twisted up. Ni+Fe should allow you to envision beautiful potential for love, but you are using them to invent more ways to hate and punish yourself.
Relationships aren't about being perfect and being able to handle everything perfectly. If that's what you're unconsciously aiming for, then you're imposing a very unreasonable burden on yourself. Failing to achieve false images of perfection only exacerbates self-hatred in a vicious cycle.
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