Abuse

[Shade]

I'm starting this thread to find out people's thoughts, if they have any, on what effect abuse (specifically, I suppose, child abuse, simply because childhood is the formulative time in which a person's personality is formed) has on forming a person's identity and whether anyone here thinks that it could mask a person's true personality. And if so, do y'all think that a person's 'true' personality would make itself known at some point? Or is it something where a traumatizing event actually shapes the person and their personality is actually irrevocably changed by the trauma?
As in, can an extrovert become introverted instead because they feel that they can't trust people as a result of abuse? Or, can a feeling personality type test as thinking because a person is rejecting the presence of emotion in their life because they haven't yet learned to cope with their own? Of course, this doesn't just apply to MBTI, but I used it as an example to show you more specifically what I meant. I would appreciate any feedback!

 

[Simi]

Certainly, in my opinion.

Those kinds of things can permanently damage a person, changing their personality.
Sometimes you can't undo the damage that a scarring event has caused.

 

[Mole]

The Historical Perspective of Personality

It's important to see child rearing practices in historical terms.

So first we had the sacrificial form of child rearing where surviving siblings would know another sibling had been sacrificed or abandoned. And of course this would cause intense fear for their own safety. But the fear was so intense, to survive they had to repess it out of consciousness. So this unconscious fear coloured their personality. And as a result they formed a paranoid personality.

A good example of the sacrificial form of child rearing was God's order to Abraham to sacrifice his son. Child sacrifice was a normal part of early culture and the paranoid personality was normal in early culture.

However as society progressed so our child rearing progressed from the sacrificial form to the abusive form of child rearing. So rather than being sacrificed or abandoned, the child was kept and seen to be at fault and so was abused for being at fault. And so the child formed the guilty personality in need of salvation,

A good example of the abusive form of chlld rearing is the doctrine that all children are born in Original Sin and so are guilty simply by being born, but can be forgiven by washing in the blood of Jesus.

And as society progressed further we moved from the abusive form of child rearing to the authoritarian form of child rearing. The child was not abandoned or abused, rather the child was seen in need of discipline. And so all children were compelled by law to go to school to learn to read and write. As a result the authoritarian and literate personality was formed. This was a great advance on the sacrificial and the abusive forms of child rearing.

And as literate society become prosperous and electronic, the authoritarian form of child rearing was replaced by the helping form of child rearing, where the parents helped the child achieve their life goals. As a result the empathic and creative personality is formed.

And if we haven't been loved unconditionally by our parents, we get a second bite at the cherry by attending therapy with the aim of becoming empathic and creative.

 

[knight]

the authoritarian rearing that victor mentioned

might created submissive passive aggressive adults. if you were an extrovert, yea I think definitely you can change to an introvert overtime. the path of least resistance for a child to adult would be keeping out of the way and making sure everything is taken care of and tip top shape. especially with the father was an abusive nit picking guy looking for an excuse to fly off the handle. I can see the pattern.

with the changing from feeling to thinking. the is plausible as well. I can see how things progressed to the point that the only alternative would be to just move forward and not deal with it, at least until you moved out of the situation. there will though come a time when you will find yourself reflecting and those sad memories will emerge.

so many ways things can go, yes personality does change. depending on where you started from, the journey to becoming who you are might take a while or be short, there after you would move to the other parts of your development

 

[Fluffywolf]

It depends how the abused person is helped/guided afterwards through therapy. People that have been abused can bounce back and become stronger even and better equipped, but it's very unlikely they can achieve that by themselves. People that have been abused tend to close parts off within themselves, they'll have to learn to open them up again first.

 

[Thalassa]

This is a strange question because in my personal experience I was treated very well during my formative years (birth-around six) when the personality is really forming. I was given the confidence and security I needed by my grandfather and real maternal grandmother. However, after my grandmother's death I think I actually experienced a fragility as a child I otherwise would not have had, and to complicate matters further my grandfather remarried an ESTJ woman (who is unwell and eventually had to seek psychiatric help, it's not just because she's ESTJ) who, about a year into that marriage, started to show a very disturbing nature which became increasingly worse. I wasn't exposed to this until I was about 8, thank god, but I think it made me very defensive and probably inspired my Pe/Te loops (ExFP, trying to decide ENFP or ESFP).

I have re-calibrated back to my original personality as an adult. I leaned more toward "J"...even some traits of TJ...because of her heinous overbearing, pushy nature, constantly criticizing me and telling me what I was, was not good enough. Fortunately though, all of my physical needs were entirely met (I had more physical security than some children in terms of stability and even excess material things) and my grandfather sometimes defended me...but it really screwed me up, seriously.

I've gotten better as I've aged. The longer I'm away from her, the more therapy I've had, the more balanced I am, I've even found a way of looking at it where I'm grateful to her that she helped me to develop my Te and outer strength (even while increasing my inner neurosis).

I just want to say here, as a side note, that what I've learned is that *most* abusive people don't MEAN to be abusive. That is my experience. They don't realize how much they hurt other people. A lot of times they have personality disorders or other issues themselves.

Some do, of course, some people are just fucking sadistic. But I'm fortunate that was not my experience, so I got off just being severely neurotic (and diagnosed with disorders) instead of being full flaming hopelessly psychotic.

I don't know what happens to those people. I think if abuse is bad enough, if its severe enough (and I've seen people hindered by this sort of thing, like sexual abuse and/or being drugged by parental figures, or severe physical beatings) it can be very difficult to recover them from it as adults.

 

[Thalassa]

might created submissive passive aggressive adults.

I think this might be more common maybe in IxFPs, INxPs, and maybe ISFJs.

As an ExFP, it made me more dominant and aggressive.

My ESFJ ex, likewise, was made more dominant and aggressive to the point of becoming an abuser himself.

So I think base personality determines if you become submissive, dominant, or become an abuser yourself.

 

[Thalassa]

It depends how the abused person is helped/guided afterwards through therapy. People that have been abused can bounce back and become stronger even and better equipped, but it's very unlikely they can achieve that by themselves. People that have been abused tend to close parts off within themselves, they'll have to learn to open them up again first.

Yeah, THIS.

 

[knight]

it can be overcome, no doubt. just takes time and willingness to meet some of those challenges with thearpy.

 

[Shade]

I think this might be more common maybe in IxFPs, INxPs, and maybe ISFJs.

As an ExFP, it made me more dominant and aggressive.

My ESFJ ex, likewise, was made more dominant and aggressive to the point of becoming an abuser himself.


So I think base personality determines if you become submissive, dominant, or become an abuser yourself.

So then you think that a person's base personality determines still what their reaction to the abuse is, instead of outrightly masking it? For instance, I know that I responded to my abuser and those that I considered to be aiding and abetting the abuse passively-agressively- I never told them off to their faces, but I lied like a rug until I was hopelessly caught, and even sometimes then. Was this because of a deep base-personality response, or is it playing personality disorder roulette- there's no rhyme or reason to where that ball lands? However, I would just like to throw out there, since everyone else seems to be supporting the idea that a person needs to go into professional counseling in order to overcome these obstacles, that I really feel 'over' the whole situation. Is this an illusion in my mind, or is it possible that I really have overcome these things in my mind?

 

[Thalassa]

So then you think that a person's base personality determines still what their reaction to the abuse is, instead of outrightly masking it? For instance, I know that I responded to my abuser and those that I considered to be aiding and abetting the abuse passively-agressively- I never told them off to their faces, but I lied like a rug until I was hopelessly caught, and even sometimes then. Was this because of a deep base-personality response, or is it playing personality disorder roulette- there's no rhyme or reason to where that ball lands? However, I would just like to throw out there, since everyone else seems to be supporting the idea that a person needs to go into professional counseling in order to overcome these obstacles, that I really feel 'over' the whole situation. Is this an illusion in my mind, or is it possible that I really have overcome these things in my mind?

Well according to the original Jungian personality type theory, personality disorders are correlated to type. You can type a person easily by their disorders if you follow Jungian theory (according to one person who has deep study of Jung, he thinks it makes me EASILY ESFP because of my particular issues)...but yeah, I remember being about 20 years old and wondering why I was such a FIGHTER and wondered why I had so much DRIVE to RISE ABOVE IT and BE MYSELF and GROW...while other people layed down and acted like bathroom rugs for the rest of their lives because of any kind of abuse as children.

At one point I wondered if it was because of level of severity - which I do think has something do with it, of course - but I also think it's because of personality type, and Jung really goes a long way in explaining it, it makes so much sense to me.

 

[Shade]

So then when we say that certain personality disorders only occur in certain types of personalities, are we also saying that there are personalities that aren't capable of certain disorders? I believe that a personality disorder as common as depression or as severe as schizophrenia is something that can happen to anyone, whether they're an introvert or an extrovert, perceiving or judging. Likewise, I believe that anyone can mentally deteriorate to the point where they become abusive towards others if they allow themselves to go there in their minds. I'm not sure that I would restrict that dark end to just one group of personalities, or say that Control Group A will only become biploar based on their temperment, but could never develop eating disorders, etc.
And yes, I totally agree with you that the majority of abusers don't see themselves as abusers because they're touched in the head that way. Sadly enough, it would be my very unprofessional opinion that this leads to compounding the problem in the aftermath years of the relationship- the abuser doesn't think that what they were doing was all that bad (if they ever do acknowledge that there was a degree of mess-upedness in the situation) and starts to feel that the abused person is milking it or playing the victim; the abused person starts to question their own sanity and memory. At least that's sort of how I've seen it go.

 

[Thalassa]

So then when we say that certain personality disorders only occur in certain types of personalities, are we also saying that there are personalities that aren't capable of certain disorders? I believe that a personality disorder as common as depression or as severe as schizophrenia is something that can happen to anyone, whether they're an introvert or an extrovert, perceiving or judging. Likewise, I believe that anyone can mentally deteriorate to the point where they become abusive towards others if they allow themselves to go there in their minds. I'm not sure that I would restrict that dark end to just one group of personalities, or say that Control Group A will only become biploar based on their temperment, but could never develop eating disorders, etc.
And yes, I totally agree with you that the majority of abusers don't see themselves as abusers because they're touched in the head that way. Sadly enough, it would be my very unprofessional opinion that this leads to compounding the problem in the aftermath years of the relationship- the abuser doesn't think that what they were doing was all that bad (if they ever do acknowledge that there was a degree of mess-upedness in the situation) and starts to feel that the abused person is milking it or playing the victim; the abused person starts to question their own sanity and memory. At least that's sort of how I've seen it go.

Depression can be genetic, and schizophrenia and bipolar disorder definitely are. That has nothing to do with type. But the various personality disorders and varying neuroses, and even particular manifestations of HOW someone is bipolar (how they experience mania and depression) can be related to type, I think.

Yes abused people can start to question their own sanity and memory because of abuse-related issues, and I think some people do this more than others based on personality...like I had absolute conviction that my ESFJ could be abusive, and he was not able to convince me otherwise, no matter how hard he tried...I'm like, "what do you think I'm an idiot?" And finally he accepted it, and he even told his mother "I am a monster. You cannot blame her for how she has reacted to me." It's really sad, because he has serious issues of his own because of his father, and he consciously made sure he wasn't as bad as his father is, and he isn't. His dad is just crazily sadistic abusive, at least my ESFJ was like Dr.Jekyll/Mr.Hyde, and I questioned at one point if he actually had multiple personalities, and so did my mother, because he would actually FORGET things he did in a heightened state.

 

[Thalassa]

Oh I think this may have to do with if anyone has ever treated you well, btw. I think people who have NEVER been treated well by a primary caregiver have more issues with differentiating what is abuse and what isn't.

I think that's also why I'm able to differentiate so clearly and without question, and won't stand for it.

 

[Lark]

I really want to respond to this thread because I've dealt with vacarious trauma and some more mild examples of trauma myself, worked with people who've experienced trauma in a professional capacity and studied trauma, I've also studied some of the key developmental, formative and personality theories, such as attachment, and considered how they correspond to MBTI (even the apparent abscence of personality typology when tested by decision making in lab conditions) but I've not time to do it justice right now. Proteanmix could write an awesome response to this thread too but I've not seen them for a while.

I would say though that people can and do recover from trauma, including childhood traumas, spontaneously, it doesnt always take a skilled intervention by a professional. Some people can find that helpful and I would positively suggest that some people would find it a hinderance, and its not just a matter of the skill or philosophy or practice of the professional either, although those are contingent factors. The mere prescence or availability of helpful others, whether they are family or friends, could prove a positive hinderance to recovery from trauma and any post-traumatic growth or development.

The reality is that what counselling achieves is, in part, co-regulation of emotional states with a view to enabling the development of a capacity for self-regulation, that can be achieved through reliance on family, friends, even in some instances reference to media like books, films, other things that assist in processing events, its why there is such a thing as spontaneous recovery. However there are some people dont recover that self-regulation, usually because they dont want to, at some level, and prefer dependency on other people or other things, like habits, routines, addictions.

If your trauma occured in childhood then it could effect your baseline functioning, you could be in a feedback loop of even physiological hyper arousal or stimulation, making you more susceptible to states of agitation and distress. I'm a very strong believer in personal responsibility and that with insight into the internal and external triggers people can and should learn to cope and manage their rational-emotive functioning.

There are some links with MBTI but I think this is something that overrides it as a theory, personally I think that people will under stress or following traumatic episodes manifest functions they have disowned in their psyche, although this could just be poor functioning rather than abnormal (for them) functioning. I dont know. I do think that MBTI type is fixed and could be fixed as a consequence of developmental challenges or obsticles in early life, I dont believe this in a fatalistic way, your early life diet could determine your height or weight but its not the end of the world if you know what I mean.

 

[uncommonentity]

I'm starting this thread to find out people's thoughts, if they have any, on what effect abuse (specifically, I suppose, child abuse, simply because childhood is the formulative time in which a person's personality is formed) has on forming a person's identity and whether anyone here thinks that it could mask a person's true personality. And if so, do y'all think that a person's 'true' personality would make itself known at some point? Or is it something where a traumatizing event actually shapes the person and their personality is actually irrevocably changed by the trauma?
As in, can an extrovert become introverted instead because they feel that they can't trust people as a result of abuse? Or, can a feeling personality type test as thinking because a person is rejecting the presence of emotion in their life because they haven't yet learned to cope with their own? Of course, this doesn't just apply to MBTI, but I used it as an example to show you more specifically what I meant. I would appreciate any feedback!

Being sexually abused as a child I'd say that it pretty much fucked up my ability to calmly recieve any forms of touch or affection and obliterated any trust I had for authority figures and humans in general. Would I say that it changed my personality? I'd say it changed it for the better because I learnt to be cautious and aware of my surroundings at a much younger age than anyone else. To me, it's healthy to have a little paranoia in your veins. I believe if something is ever going to change you. It will when it decides to happen to you. I think you're in for it from the day you're born regardless of if this something is going to change you as a child or an adult. You can't escape from the sporadic unfolding of your own life and how it'll change you. It's life. We're all born bundles of impressionable mush that then get moulded by the experiential timeline that is our life. I'd say regardless of abuse, absolutely everything, especially phobias are ingrained into our minds at a young age and we have no real control over it unless we started raising our children in glass bubbles and even then when they were released they'd have a bubble complex and struggle to understand the dimensions of the outside world until they were learnt. Our brains have the ability to learn relevant information and adapt to situations. Other people are slower than others when it comes to change but I believe permanent changes can be made in the right and relevant enviroments. Some swimmers kept in a desert for a long period of time will eventually forget how to swim. Some will hold onto the information if they choose to keep it active like bilingual people do with languages. Unless someone is being held captive and constantly abused there's a nice likelyhood of them warming upto the security of trustworthy individuals just like those chirpy, recovered animals you see on ASPCA ads. Not everyone who has been sexually abused stays cold and not every high school drop-out becomes a criminal.

 

[Shade]

If your trauma occured in childhood then it could effect your baseline functioning, you could be in a feedback loop of even physiological hyper arousal or stimulation, making you more susceptible to states of agitation and distress. I'm a very strong believer in personal responsibility and that with insight into the internal and external triggers people can and should learn to cope and manage their rational-emotive functioning.

Well it's good to hear from a professional perspective about what this sort of thing can spawn... do you mind expounding on what baseline functioning is? I'm sorry, I'm such a newb, I really want to understand. I believe that you're saying that a person's personality is intrinsic and unchanging, but that abuse can affect the level of a person's ability to function in the real world, is that right?

 

[Lark]

If your trauma occured in childhood then it could effect your baseline functioning, you could be in a feedback loop of even physiological hyper arousal or stimulation, making you more susceptible to states of agitation and distress. I'm a very strong believer in personal responsibility and that with insight into the internal and external triggers people can and should learn to cope and manage their rational-emotive functioning.

Well it's good to hear from a professional perspective about what this sort of thing can spawn... do you mind expounding on what baseline functioning is? I'm sorry, I'm such a newb, I really want to understand. I believe that you're saying that a person's personality is intrinsic and unchanging, but that abuse can affect the level of a person's ability to function in the real world, is that right?

I believe that once it has developed a person's personality is unchanging, or at least highly resistant to change, in that respect I'm a hard determinist, its the same as someones height, it can be influenced by genetic heritage and diet or other factors influencing or prejudicing growth but at a certain point you are as tall as you are likely to get and that is you. However you decide what you are going to do with your height, you could use it and become a basketball player or something requiring height or you could not, its a matter of personal choice and self-determination.

Your base line functioning is an idea from the stress model of crisis, everyone is susceptible to crisis, if you imagine a curve like a hill, the steady state straight, flat surface is your base line, that's how you are normally, abscence of stress or stimulus, then sloping up the way you have agitation, aggression, outburst/episode, recovery and that's something anyone or everyone can experience, however depending on either trauma or your development your baseline could be set so you are in a state of agitation regardless of external stress or stimulus. Or you could be lucky and be an abnormally resilient individual, less susceptible to stress, less likely to experience crisis, more likely to quickly recover from crisis.

Determinants of your baseline include attachment style, that's the earliest relationship which anyone has and patterns your brain with your expectations of all others, the categories are generally secure, avoidant, ambivalent, they compare or correlate with Karen Horney's responses (neurotic trends) to basic anxiety, or so I think, of moving towards, moving away and moving against others, although a secure attachmetn style would probably be the opposite of any neurotic trends. Attachment style is important because determining how you relate to others can have big consequences for whether or not others will be a source of stress or support, that's per se, before you get into whether or not others are objectively either a source of stress or support.

 

[mrcockburn]

I was abused, never got therapy, and I think I'm OK...so far. Lived with my mother until 13, who'd constantly scream at me and tell me that she hates me and that I cause her to drink herself to death, blah blah blah. She also forgot to feed me a lot as a kid and refused to take me to the doctor when I was violently ill - because she was "sleeping."

Then my stepfather left her, took me with him, and was abusive in another way (making me take ice cold showers (in my swim wear, thankfully), forcing me to meditate (lol the irony) and literally forcing me to study (as in, drag me by my arm and throw me down in the kitchen chair), tickling my neck mercilessly (I am horribly horribly torturously ticklish there, and he found that out and exploited it). One time he slapped me for calling him a "faggot man-cunt."

I've known people who had worse childhoods, and sadly, most of them refuse therapy to come to terms with their past. For myself, I figure, it was what it was. It's no excuse for me to be violent myself.

That's not to say that others wouldn't be more affected by what I went through - I don't think there's such a clearcut definition of abuse.

 

[Kierva]

I think this might be more common maybe in IxFPs, INxPs, and maybe ISFJs.

As an ExFP, it made me more dominant and aggressive.

My ESFJ ex, likewise, was made more dominant and aggressive to the point of becoming an abuser himself.

So I think base personality determines if you become submissive, dominant, or become an abuser yourself.

This made me question my type.

I'd say as a kid (6 years and below) I did have a bit of "abuse" I guess; I don't know to call it abuse or discipline, since asian parents are the type to beat up their kids to "be good". For the most part I was taken care of by babysitters and/or left alone. I was staying home alone when I was 3 or 4 years old.

When I was 8 onwards then the abuse started to happen. I won't go into details here but over time it has made me more defiant and aggressive. I decided that I am not going to let anyone assert control over me because I have been pushed around way too much. As a kid, well, it just got you beaten up even more.

I think it's because I don't fit the definition of a good kid because I would abuse my brother and fight back to my parents. I did not know why exactly, but I do know that I did not like what I see; preferential treatment given to the other, hence I felt as though my abuse was justified.

Now as I have grown I have become a lot more assertive than I used to be as a kid; they'd push me around and I was a sensitive kid -- but tears did nothing to solve the problem. I just sucked it up and fight back. My temper has decreased since turning 15 and, well, I don't know. My family members know when I am angry and will stay clear if they don't want to get hurt. This happens at a much lesser frequency than it used to be because I have channeled my frustration to tumblr and I keep doing what I enjoy doing: class.