That "inwardly fretting" feeling

It's called stress. Everyone experiences it. INFJs can be especially prone to its effects because they may not be able to ascertain exactly from where it is coming.

It comes in two varieties. Distress, which is the negative fretting feeling you are describing and Eustress for the positive feeling of fulfillment that comes from acomplishment.

 

And it annoys me to NO END!!! GAH!

 

Yes, if anyone has a suggestion for how to deal with it then I would be very happy to hear it. Every book I read on dealing with stress says that identifying the source is the first step to overcoming it. That isn't exactly an option for us Ni types. And it can linger just under the surface for days or even weeks, slowly eating away at me.

 

Yup, I will end up thinking about it for weeks, even months, and no matter what I do, or how I try to distract myself, it keeps going. There have been occasions where it has taken nearly 4 or 5 months to pinpoint the source (with the help of others), and even then I wasn't truly sure what it was.

 

Sounds like typical INFJ stress to me.

Just consider the dominant processes here...

You have a perceiving process that is constantly concerned about how things will turn out and a judging function which puts that concern in the context of people in your life.

Translation: you are always going to be prone to stress when it comes to how your actions affect your relationships. You are going to obsess about saying or doing the wrong thing because of the potential negative consequences of how it could affect the people you socialize with or their perceptions of you.

 

I've been trying to figure out how to stop the fretting, dwelling, obsessing (those are the three tiers I've assigned to mine) for most of my life. I now spend more time fretting than I do dwelling, and it's only rarely now that I find myself obsessing.

It takes a HUGE effort to break the loop, and I'm not always successful.

It strikes me hardest at night when I'm trying to go to sleep. I get stuck in an exhausting loop and end up furious with myself. It doesn't seem as bad during the day, which I can get caught up in projects/tasks to distract me.

This is my Facebook Profile message:

 

I think Ti helps. That ability to detach and analyze the situation as opposed to pretending it isn't there. Whenever I am obsessively fretting about something I usually find myself on INTP Central.

 

Ya I'm exactly like this too. It seems like distraction is the best way to break the loop, but if the thing your dwelling or fretting over needs to be taken care of, then it's best to do so. It's really all in how you perceive an event and if you can change that to your benefit, it will help you quite a bit. Of course that's the tricky par though.

 

Oh I use Ti alot in this respect, concidering it is my 3rd highest function. It can help alot with smaller things. But major thing it can in effect make myself worse. Largely because major issues usually revolve around me not being good enough.

 

"Inward fretting" is my dark passenger. I try to ignore it,
but to no avail it drives into me harder and harder. When I
feel anxious it comes at me, it is all I can think about. I then
get very stressed out and terribly worried. I replay what's upsetting
me over and over again.

I know exactly how you feel. It attacks me from all angles,
my mind, my sleep, my health. It won't go away until I fix the
problem. Which sometimes is very difficult and the thought of facing
the issue which is causing the distress makes it even worse. It's a cycle that I don't know how to get out of. I then find myself retreating inwards. I lock myself away , if I'm out with my friends I appear to be distant and I find it very difficult to concentrate on anything else.