Fe users and processing emotions

[highlander]

In previous threads it’s been a somewhat regular occurrence for INFJs to represent the Fe pov, if only because we’re the only ones to show up for the discussion. So I am curious about where Fe doms- especially FeSi- stand on this.

There has been a common denominator established in the forum (at least, for NiFe) of needing to process feelings aloud to others primarily to assess how reasonable those feelings are. It’s like a means of keeping oneself in check, to make sure my own anger (or sadness, whatever) is there for the reason I think it is. Or that I'm at least in the correct ballpark. I personally am rarely in a hurry to figure out exactly what I’m feeling- but I am usually in a hurry to know why it’s there, whether the negative emotional charge behind it really is because of what I initially think it is. I believe this is so that I can know how to interact with what I believe to be the source of my discomfort in a fair manner.

I love this quote by Naranjo: “The superimposition of past on present is linked to persons and desires from the past which are not conscious for the subject and that give his or her conduct an irrational seal- the affect does not seem appropriate either in quality or quantity to the real, actual situation.” When I’m feeling any negative emotional charge, it becomes a priority to figure out if I'm assigning an appropriate source. This isn't about figuring out 'who to blame'- this is about figuring out if I'm angry/sad/whatever for the reason I think I am.

And really- that’s the only part I need feedback on, specifically the ‘why’. I don’t really need to work through anything aloud to figure out what I’m feeling. It's not that the 'what' isn't important, but I feel like I have lots of time to figure that out on my own- my priority is making sure I'm being fair and I can't really start working on the 'what' until the anxiety of 'why' has been taken care of. [It seems to me like FiPe/PeFi works in the opposite direction, that they feel anxiety until the 'what' has been relatively figured out?]

I wonder if this has something to do with INFJ combined with Enneagram 5 (which could drive towards the analytical "why" orientation).

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I wonder if this has something to do with INFJ combined with Enneagram 5 (which could drive towards the analytical "why" orientation).

Well I know I remember at least a couple INFJs saying something similar- that figuring out 'what' right away isn't important, but knowing 'why' is. The 'what' almost takes care of itself once the 'why' is in place. How much that applies to ENFJ/ESFJ though, I don't know. (I'd guess it's the same.)

eta: More specifically, it comes up a lot that an INFJ will say they don't see the importance of focusing on identifying the immediate feeling in the throes of being upset because generally that feeling changes with new information. We want to make sure we've got the story straight (the 'why') before we bother figuring out 'what' we are feeling.

 

[skylights]

One of the worst experiences I ever had was seeing the first hunger games when it came out. I didn't want to see it, at all, I KNEW it would mess me up from reading the plot. But, circumstances were such that I couldn't avoid it. Long story short, the movie triggered a depressive episode that lasted about a month. For a few days after the movie, I could barely eat or leave the house I was so distraught. The sheer premise of the movie is distubing. Kids fighting to the death? Their society is forced to deal, and many like it? NO. It also hit way too close to home with worries (at the time) I couldn't let go of regarding the state of the world. It was horrible. I mean, the movie is great, but it fucked me up so much. I felt every stress the characters felt, the entire world just screamed "WRONG" at me over and over and over and I could do nothing to stop it, yet it was realistic enough to be a valid future scenario.

I've avoided the Hunger Games too.

I feel you about the whole movies thing. People are often surprised to learn that my favorite genre is Action/Adventure, not Romance or Drama. But I can't do the big feely ones, unless I've already read the plot and I know the story and I've come to terms with it. Or unless I know it's going to be a happy ending.

 

[Lexicon]

Usually process overwhelming emotions internally (though writing in a private journal was a good outlet/thought sorter, along with the performing arts), but have made efforts in recent years to reach out to others, at times. Oscillates, varies in degrees of content/context. Either to offer clarification for my off/more distant behavior, or just to, well, allow myself to be human, to be cared for when I need to be, get useful feedback from those I trust (to help evaluate the situation/my responses). Exercise trust. Much as my prideful side cringes, it can strengthen bonds with people. To be there for them [when they need it] comes easily for the most part, but it's important also to allow them to be there for you.

As for stories/news/movies.. I'm rarely moved by these things- I keep a detached/analytical pov. Partially because I'm paying attention to the actors, and other events/production aspects in tandem with the narrative itself. Part of me rides out the character's journey, but the cogs are turning elsewhere, too. Hard to articulate. And, I don't mind offputting endings. They can be thought-provoking. And as for the real-life scenarios, it's just how I deal with larger-scale issues. Detach, analyze.

Also, I very much related to this:

Originally Posted by Z Buck McFate
Well I know I remember at least a couple INFJs saying something similar- that figuring out 'what' right away isn't important, but knowing 'why' is. The 'what' almost takes care of itself once the 'why' is in place. How much that applies to ENFJ/ESFJ though, I don't know. (I'd guess it's the same.)

eta: More specifically, it comes up a lot that an INFJ will say they don't see the importance of focusing on identifying the immediate feeling in the throes of being upset because generally that feeling changes with new information. We want to make sure we've got the story straight (the 'why') before we bother figuring out 'what' we are feeling.

 

[Werebudgie]

Well I know I remember at least a couple INFJs saying something similar- that figuring out 'what' right away isn't important, but knowing 'why' is. The 'what' almost takes care of itself once the 'why' is in place. How much that applies to ENFJ/ESFJ though, I don't know. (I'd guess it's the same.)

eta: More specifically, it comes up a lot that an INFJ will say they don't see the importance of focusing on identifying the immediate feeling in the throes of being upset because generally that feeling changes with new information. We want to make sure we've got the story straight (the 'why') before we bother figuring out 'what' we are feeling.

I keep going back and forth about whether to say something about my own experiences as another INFJ in relation to this. I may have kind of a weird twist on what you're describing here (I think ... um, maybe?). And I strongly suspect that what I'm describing below isn't simply Fe, but Ni-dom plus Fe. Actually I could see all of the top 4 INFJ functions interacting in this in different ways at different points in how this works for me.

So first of all, I personally find it useful to distinguish between feeling and emotion. The distinction I make is: feeling is a visceral response to something real in my environment (not necessarily physically concrete, but really happening), while emotion responds to something other than what is in the immediate environment (past issues, triggers etc). So for me, feeling is information that I can use to guide my action in my environment and interactions, while emotion isn't useful for that.

So feeling and emotion are very different things for me, but - here's the thing - they seem to use the same chemical/physical pathways in my body.

I've noticed a pattern in myself. I tend to incorrectly assume by default that negative feeling in me is emotion. What this looks like in practice is that if I don't immediately understand the why of a feeling, I start explaining it to myself as probably about some past issue I've had or some current internal struggle I'm having - basically I find some plausible thing it could be about as an emotion, and talk myself out of it being valid information about my current situation/environment.

And then as things unfold over time, and whatever I was perceiving through feeling shows up visibly as externally real, I learn from newly visible (to me if not generally) external information that I was experiencing a real response to my environment rather than some inner issue I need to work out. (I'm not saying I don't have inner issues I need to work out, just that they don't show up this particular way). And the thing that gets me is, I have seen this dynamic over and over and yet I still have the default in myself to assume that when I feel something that isn't immediately visible in other ways, it must be emotion rather than feeling-perception of something real going on.

In all of this, I often to try to talk things out with someone else, but there's still something blurry for me about that process. It does seem to have something to do with getting externally-sourced information I don't have.

Trying to talk it through used to be almost completely about me trying to get some sort of reality-check about whether what I was feeling was real or not and if so how. The problem with that is that when something isn't visible and others around me have a stake in it remaining not visible, my reality-check efforts just reinforced my default and in the end failed and didn't map to the actual reality that eventually showed itself.

So I try not to do the dialogue-based reality-check thing as much anymore. Instead, I try to sit with the experience when I have a feeling. I try to encourage myself to shift into a default trust that this is more likely to be feeling than emotion given what I have observed over and over and over again in how this works for me. This effort to shift the default is pretty difficult for me still. I'm hoping it gets easier as I keep on it.

But in this process, I still do sometimes seek to process "what's going on" with someone else - trying to track down why I'm having the visceral experience I'm having. And pretty recently, something new is emerging beyond a simple dialogue based reality-check-in-words. It's actually a little intimidating to me. I'm beginning to get glimpses of an instinctive something in me that knows how to move to get the hidden (unknown to my consciousness) external information to surface so I can see it sooner than later. This is intimidating to me largely because a) I don't consciously know how I do this, I feel like it's opaque to my conscious mind what's going on when it's happening, to my conscious mind it feels like getting on a ride that gets me somewhere and this instinct in me is driving the vehicle and I only understand the method to its madness when the key information I need but didn't have actually emerges from the other person/people involved and b) it can be a messy and even painful experience that can include conflict with people I love.

I keep thinking there's got to be a way to be more deliberate in this process so I can get to the hidden external information in a less blurry/cleaner/more efficient way. But as of this point, I feel like my conscious self is pretty clueless about how the instinctive part of me does this. I can see the effects quite clearly, and it's really amazing what information emerges, and so far the information has been necessary at some very deep levels. But my conscious mind doesn't know (and can't even really track in retrospect) exactly how I do it.

I've been hesitant to try to describe this because I don't know if this has anything much to do with what you're describing, Z Buck McFate and I also don't know if it has anything much to do with the OP in this thread. But what the hell, I'll post it, Hopefully there's something relevant/of use here.

 

[Chad of the OttomanEmpire]

Fe-user here.

I can be over-dramatic and intensely emotional, but I attribute this more to my enneagram type, tritype, and instinct, rather than Fe.

For me, what the Fe does, is try to affect others by the expression of sentiments. It's a conscious interpersonal calculation (OK, you can call it "emotional manipulation") and often my true emotions are different from what I express.

I'm actually rather private about many of my more deeply felt issues and I tend to process those alone. There are some that frankly go too deep to articulate.

So I guess the melodrama part is what it is due in part to Fe, but that may exist separately from true emotional processing. (Might help to know my Fe is subordinate to my Ti).

 

[autumnandtherain]

Does anyone else, maybe F types in particular just feel like they get snowballed with emotions? When I hear something that makes me upset I just get overcome with a gross feeling that I then have to unpack layer by layer, usually by verbalizing it to someone else.
If I don't verbally process and unpack I just feel like I'm going to explode.

Is this a human thing? An "F" type thing? Or an Fe thing?

I definitely have to unpack my emotions. I usually have to just deal with "blow" of the emotion(s) myself first though. By thinking and journaling and praying and staring at the wall usually, ha. Then, once I'm over the initial shock of emotion, I have to talk it through with a trusted person (because of Fe, I'm guessing).

 

[Odi et Amo]

My own emotion honestly feels somehow foreign/cryptic to me a lot of the time, like it's stowed away in compartments that must be unpacked...shit that's exactly what OP said...so reaching out to friends/therapist for help in understanding it is frequently vital.

I wonder how Fi handles this, or even Si/Fe.