INFJs, how did your folks treat you when you were children? | INFJ Forum

INFJs, how did your folks treat you when you were children?

ordz404

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Dec 29, 2020
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This is much a post of self reflection about my own family of origin and psychopathology. I didn't start out as an INFJ, I actualy started out as ISFJ in 2014, and from 2016 - 2020 for the most part i was INFP, now after that tumultuous journey, i've solidified my type as an INFJ.

How was everyone else's experience? I'm curious about parental influence on how that has shaped some of us to become INFJ. My folks never really addressed hard issues. I never had an honest talk with them and i didn't know how to until recently when i had to learn that skill myself.

My dad was for the most part, someone who provided dough. He's good at that, but not so much relationships. And for my mum, i've pretty much maintain a distance with my mother, whom even up to this day, has little self awareness about the toxic and unhealthy rhetoric she spews out, (things which inconvenience her and the sacrifice she has given toward the family, and how it affects her in her tunnel vision.

How about the rest of you guys?
 
Oh boy.

My immediate family were very judgmental growing up. They spent more time worrying about what other people thought than if we were actually flourishing and bonding as a family. An older sibling bullied me and my parents held us kids to an impossible standard, which changed on their whims. Success was not met with praise or encouragement, failure never went unpunished, emotional crises were brushed off as "temper tantrums", gifts were used as leverage for manipulation, women were shamed for their biology, etc. It resulted in a version of me who was very emotionally confused, socially inept, and intensely prejudiced all, of course, bolstered with a strict religious upbringing. We were all toxic.

I tested as ISFJ in my late teens to early adulthood. Only in the last 5 or so years have I tested as INFJ. It's easily explained by my early home-life having me in a constant state of anxiety - I was at the mercy of my emotions, which I did not understand at the time.

I don't talk to them much. After a lifetime of seeking their favor, their disinterest is finally clear to me in adulthood. I'm seriously ok with it but I have to be honest that I do get irritated when they try to pretend we were ever a close family.
 
My grandpa farted in my cereal bowl, that was the first time I felt a burning resentment because I literally thought it compromised the flavor of the milk. Everyone laughed at me, and it made me more angry because they didn't understand how I felt.
 
My grandpa farted in my cereal bowl, that was the first time I felt a burning resentment because I literally thought it compromised the flavor of the milk. Everyone laughed at me, and it made me more angry because they didn't understand how I felt.
Well, fortunately it's not the worst thing that he could have produced by similar means. I'm sorry you experienced that.
 
I was a jerk.

I would literally just take people's toys because I could. I hated sharing and I would only be friends with people who wanted to play with me.

I would literally spit on people and climb tables like a maniac. My mother couldn't believe it because I was so tame at home, but once I left her sight I was really an absolute bastard.
 
My brother and I were expected to contribute to the household, in a similar way that our parents did, and we were also included in most of the recreational activities of our parents. We were pretty much treated like mini adults.
 
My grandpa farted in my cereal bowl, that was the first time I felt a burning resentment because I literally thought it compromised the flavor of the milk. Everyone laughed at me, and it made me more angry because they didn't understand how I felt.
I identify with this experience so much.
:m106:

Why do people think it's funny to play mean tricks and pick on children?
 
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My grandpa farted in my cereal bowl, that was the first time I felt a burning resentment because I literally thought it compromised the flavor of the milk. Everyone laughed at me, and it made me more angry because they didn't understand how I felt.
...How? This post needs a diagram.
It's entirely possible that it did in fact compromise the flavor. There's particles and stuff! It's science!
 
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This post needs a diagram.
It's entirely possible that it did in fact compromise the flavor. There's particles and stuff! It's science!

I was about 6 years of age when it happened. Woke up like any regular day with the gentle sunlight seeping through the window blinds. Mom was sitting at the dinning room table, grandpa in the kitchen probably washing dishes was so tall at the time. My height just reached below his waistline, eagerly carrying a cereal bowl with some freshly poured milk, unaware of the motions that were about to talk place as I carry my bowl closer and closer towards the drawer for a spoon. I Everyone's back turned from me, I just see these long legs and then suddenly a loud prtrtrtrgurtrufnasutututut. My face fell, I was in horror. My cereal bowl was just inches away from grandpa's posterior that just made a horrid sound and then the stench of rotten eggs. My dreams that day of having sweet, crisp, pure, untainted cereal with fresh cold virgin milk were shattered. I screamed, "YOU FARTED IN MY CEREAL!!!!!!!". Yes I was so entitled to that dream of having the best cereal in the world. There was an explosion of laughter. I was so angry I was in tears. I realized that day that you must always take safety precautions when walking behind an asian grandpa. Without fail, without warning, a granpa's fart can ruin all your dreams of having the best cereal.
 
I was about 6 years of age when it happened. Woke up like any regular day with the gentle sunlight seeping through the window blinds. Mom was sitting at the dinning room table, grandpa in the kitchen probably washing dishes was so tall at the time. My height just reached below his waistline, eagerly carrying a cereal bowl with some freshly poured milk, unaware of the motions that were about to talk place as I carry my bowl closer and closer towards the drawer for a spoon. I Everyone's back turned from me, I just see these long legs and then suddenly a loud prtrtrtrgurtrufnasutututut. My face fell, I was in horror. My cereal bowl was just inches away from grandpa's posterior that just made a horrid sound and then the stench of rotten eggs. My dreams that day of having sweet, crisp, pure, untainted cereal with fresh cold virgin milk were shattered. I screamed, "YOU FARTED IN MY CEREAL!!!!!!!". Yes I was so entitled to that dream of having the best cereal in the world. There was an explosion of laughter. I was so angry I was in tears. I realized that day that you must always take safety precautions when walking behind an asian grandpa. Without fail, without warning, a granpa's fart can ruin all your dreams of having the best cereal.
Revenge is a dish best served cold. Perhaps over his own bowl of cereal all these years later.
 
Everyone's circumstances are different. Will you find some common factors between INFJs and their youth? Of course, but you'll probably find just as many similar experiences between INFJs and other types.

I'm torn on whether our parents actually have a hand in making our personalities, or if our personalities are already there and charge through whatever others and circumstances attempt to make us become.
 
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My parents were flawed, but well-intended and hard working people. They did some damage and I had a few resentments from it, but their influence overall has been a net positive. They're amazing and I wish they understood how much I value them.

I don't know how this influenced me. I probably can't know. But it obviously did and my life is better for it.
 
My parents let me do whatever I wanted which was pretty awesome.
There was an unspoken deep respect they built with me as I grew up, through lots of conversation.
My "role" within our immediate family was largely perceived as a ruler/controlling. This is kind of in my family DNA, apparently.
I respect and love them deeply, and they have always returned that in kind.
Thankfully I was never interested in hanging with bad crowds because I could have fallen hard in that direction.
I always felt a sense of safety because they offered some "no questions asked" freebies.
It was liberating, and also bolstered self accountability for me.
I never did have to use a get out of jail free card.
Some of my friends weren't as lucky.
 
The short version is that my mom didn't care what anyone thought about her and did what she wanted. A lot of the ways that I operate come from her example. My dad would cut anyone off that would look at him the wrong way which I thought was a bit absurd because it meant that I was cut off from his entire extended family, but so it goes. Our household was not really "warm" and affectionate but I had complete trust in my parents to respect me.

I had panic disorder and clinical depression as a young kid and my parents did their best with me given the circumstances but they didn't really "get it" so I was mostly isolated in that sense and had to figure out how to navigate that on my own and here we are.
 
Special Edition hit on a theme that sounds familiar to me---I had to figure out how to navigate on my own. I think we INFJ's navigate a lot. Maybe that is a common trait among all personalities...Moonflower makes the same point.
 
My mother was a coddling, helicopter parent, constantly anxiety ridden, full of suspicion, pessimistic and obsessed with harm coming to me. She held me back in plenty of respects due to her fear harm would come to me. I also think her paranoid, obsessive approach to my health in my childhood is responsible for my hypochondria.

My father was distant and generally insensitive, and bought affection with material presents.

I don't think any one of them affected my Jungian personality, but I do believe that my mother's personality and her way of parenting shaped me into the ennea type 6 or 6 wing I am.
 
I was constantly antagonized by my mother, growing up. On top of that, I was never allowed to visit any friends, or talk to people online. In short, the only people I was allowed to talk to regularly was my family.
 
My parents had challenging childhoods themselves and also in their early marriage. But, they gave my brother and me all they had. In retrospect, we were poor financially, but as children, we didn't know that! We were rich in the experiences they gave us: family picnics, trips to grandpa's farm, supporting us in activities, helping us with homework assignments as needed. Most of all they modeled the values of family that have carried on to this day. How little we knew at the time, what they were giving us?