If you have a supportive environment, I would not agree that INFJ childhoods are bad. Not at all. Mine was full of joy and adventure.
I agree.
I can't help but think at least in some ways my current issues are tied to the lack of respect for me as a person. I never had any of the fallowing.
I had other issues in my childhood to be sure but my family wasn't a safe haven. I'm still not close to my family partly because no one respects introversion or takes me seriously as a person.
- Honor their need for quiet time and alone time to think, play, dream -I was forced into being active even if I didn't want to be or didn't have energy. I can't help but think a lot of my moodiness even today is an indication I don't have any left in the tank and I need to be left alone.
- Speak privately and quietly when you are discussing or correcting their behavior -My mother used public humiliation as a core way to correct my behavior. It wasn't important that I was already an anxious person.
- Try not to raise your voice or yell; apologize quickly if you do Again my mother always raised her voice that was part of the way she parented. It was and still often is being talked at not with when issues come up. The parents in my house never really asked us what we felt.
- Listen and rephrase their feelings to help them to clarify ; talk one-on-one as much as possible
- Help the INFJ see that life is both fun and funny My mother often would tell me how I was feeling. In that she would decide what I was really feeling and then dismiss my actually feelings inserting her ideas of what I felt. I was never allowed to feel my feelings. I was always to emotional and that was a sign of bad social form.
- Respect their privacy This didn't happen until I shut my mother out almost all the way. I was often treated like I was going to do something wrong and my mother had to be in on what I was doing least I overstep.
- Ask for their input and ideas ahead of time; include them in decision making This never happened even as I got older My mother would often decide what I would do. Its still a problem as she will try to guilt trip me or coerce me into fallowing her plans.
- Don’t interrupt or rush them through their talk
- Don’t tease them about their heads being in the clouds-they hear enough of that from the rest of the world Both of these kind of tie together. I was often teased for my ideals and my nature. I was not an ESXJ child so I was not right and I needed fixing.
I had other issues in my childhood to be sure but my family wasn't a safe haven. I'm still not close to my family partly because no one respects introversion or takes me seriously as a person.
I remember the Reagan telling us to fear the commies, one day after little league practice I asked my father if we would survive the thermonuclear bombardment from the USSR. He told me the blast wouldn't get us and we might luck up on the fallout blowing away from us, dad had never discussed nuclear annihilation before...so in retrospect I think he fielded questions like that from a 7 year old pretty well.
Trauma...well the dog bite was pretty traumatic, night terrors and took me awhile to get over people being really close to my face and/or touching my face which I still have some issues with. I did headbutt a few kids in school when they violated my zen bubble and got right in my face. I guess that could be acting out.
Trauma...well the dog bite was pretty traumatic, night terrors and took me awhile to get over people being really close to my face and/or touching my face which I still have some issues with. I did headbutt a few kids in school when they violated my zen bubble and got right in my face. I guess that could be acting out.
ESFJ / ESTJ with a very unhealthy up bringing. It only pushed her harder to avoid conflict. ESXJ can't stand conflict unless they cause it to iron out bigger conflicts. In other words they have to push down any conflict they find threatening. That also means anyone who doesn't fit into their stereotypes of that person.
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I grew up in a broken home and later in a violent household. I was an very much in my own head kind of an introvert the whole time though. After I moved out in my late teens I opened up and made up for lost time, and some, just going full on lemming for a spell.
Neat. during my childhood I was painfully quiet most of the time. I remember always cherishing moments where friends/family/anyone in general became serious, and spoke of their feelings. I recall being a little confused why that kind of expression was the most interesting/fun for me.
As a child I highly anticipated meeting another personality similar to mine. I would try to convince myself we all shared the same train of thoughts, the same patterns/morals. Learning to understand that wasn't the case was difficult at a young age. I had the ability of adapting to others interests/morphing into one of the group, but I had a pretty unhappy childhood- I had a strong desire to make stronger bonds/develop relationships with people who could focus on a real conversation.
I also had an often crippling imagination. Ex. I would be at school sitting at my desk, looking out the window, watching rain bounce off the concrete, to imagine water levels rising significantly at an accelerated rate, the pressure of the water collapsing into buildings, cold water filling your lungs. These powerful images would often cause me to become hysterical, publicly lol.
I spent all those years searching for something that was never there for me. Learning about MBTI, and fitting in our functions into my childhood was one of my most redeeming moments.
As a child I highly anticipated meeting another personality similar to mine. I would try to convince myself we all shared the same train of thoughts, the same patterns/morals. Learning to understand that wasn't the case was difficult at a young age. I had the ability of adapting to others interests/morphing into one of the group, but I had a pretty unhappy childhood- I had a strong desire to make stronger bonds/develop relationships with people who could focus on a real conversation.
I also had an often crippling imagination. Ex. I would be at school sitting at my desk, looking out the window, watching rain bounce off the concrete, to imagine water levels rising significantly at an accelerated rate, the pressure of the water collapsing into buildings, cold water filling your lungs. These powerful images would often cause me to become hysterical, publicly lol.
I spent all those years searching for something that was never there for me. Learning about MBTI, and fitting in our functions into my childhood was one of my most redeeming moments.
Ok, so here I get to talk about what's been on my mind a lot lately, namely, my past and how that has affected my gray matter. Some of this might be tangentially related to the quoted part, but I promise I get to it eventually...
I come from a family of very disturbed people, my mom has always struggled with severe and untreated depression, her mother was emotionally abusive, while my dad's side of the family has a very dark legacy of sexual abuse. His father violently molested him and all his brothers, and his brothers, in turn, became violent molesters themselves. My dad never touched me, but his brother did. From the time I was three until, roughly, the age of six he would get me drunk and then rape me. He took pictures and videos. Meanwhile at home, while my dad didn't rape me, he wasn't exactly the most stable person himself. He would often lock me in the basement, which terrified me, often for vague or poorly defined reasons. Everyone on his side of the family was emotionally abusive to me, they called me stupid, "retarded", strange, the "bad" kid.
Through it all, for awhile, I feel like I managed to cling onto "me". I was shy and quiet and sensitive, I was a frequent pants-wetter, and I cried very often and very easily. Movies and books frequently made me cry, so did anger and rage and sadness from other people. Even if my parents didn't express these emotions outright, I usually picked up on it, and considering that my dad was angry a lot and my mom was depressed a lot, I spent most of my time upset and distressed, which only served to make me more shy and just generally terrified of people. I only had one friend, and we still have an almost psychic bond. Her own father was physically and sexually abusive, and I used to help her hide from him, and it still absolutely destroys me that I never called the police or did anything to save her.
Perfectionism? I had that. If I ever felt like I did anything wrong, no matter how miniscule, I'd start crying and banging my head against a wall.
Then when I was 8 something... changed. A bully at this after-school program I went to raped me, and after that I... went really crazy. I started attacking my peers. I remember drawing graphic pictures of myself killing, harming, and/or castrating people. I started talking about killing myself. My head-banging evolved into a pattern of self-harm, not just about doing things wrong, but because I felt so angry and bad and gross, and became more than just banging my head. I tried to kill myself twice. The second time, I had just turned 9, and that was when they sent me to an institution.
So I was in a place where I became more introverted, and then I was put in a place where I became more.... I'm not sure if extroverted is the word, but I was definitely externalizing my feelings more. Not sure what, exactly, it was about that rape that made me change so hard and so suddenly, but.... there ya go...
