[ENFP] Why does our mood plummet??

[Domino]

The mind cannot think of two things at once, just like you cannot have two conversations at once (I talked about this last night, as a matter of fact). So, in focusing on others we do something that we can feel good about and we are around people who can teach us and share with us good examples for living.

This is good advice.

My situation is... complicated.

 

[Synarch]

I am similar to you Pink... I emphathise and so feel the pain of others as if it were my own... Its not something I consciously do it's just what happens when i am around the energy of others or think about them...

Well, this is partly why I suggested the old folks home. They are often so glad to see young people (everyone is young to them) that they are amazingly happy and this happiness is contagious. I have the opportunity to go to an assisted living place to visit a friend who works there and I feel so amazed at how happy the people are there (who are on the downslope of life) that I feel foolish for ever dwelling on my own minor miseries.

 

[Wild horses]

Why do people see the approach of death as the 'downside' of life.. Not directed at you Syn just a wondering of mine.. Anyway, that's good advice Thanks

 

[Synarch]

Why do people see the approach of death as the 'downside' of life.. Not directed at you Syn just a wondering of mine.. Anyway, that's good advice Thanks

1. Your strength is waning.
2. Your health is waning.
3. You time is waning.
4. Your usefulness is waning.
5. Your circle of friends is shrinking.

Life is easing you out. When I see someone happy at an advanced age, I think this is someone I want to learn something from as I will be here myself someday.

 

[Salomé]

If there are people around me that are in a pissy mood, it's likely to affect me in a negative way. I'm also very weather sensitive...stress due to procrastinating and the list goes on D:

I think this is key. ENFPs absorb other people's moods, it's like they have permeable emotional boundaries. The downside of being highly empathic. I was talking about this in Edahn's blog recently.

You have to recognise who/what is affecting you and cultivate strategies to shield yourself from it.

 

[Domino]

1. Your strength is waning.
2. Your health is waning.
3. You time is waning.
4. Your usefulness is waning.
5. Your circle of friends is shrinking.

Life is easing you out. When I see someone happy at an advanced age, I think this is someone I want to learn something from as I will be here myself someday.

This is precisely why we call our Grandmother frequently. Jaye and I are writing her life story for her, and we send her lists of questions about herself that she's filling out and engaging. I think it's a very exciting proposition for all of us, really. I know how I'd feel if I was alone like she is. Not to put too fine a point, but it's very uncool.

 

[Synarch]

That's a great idea. I wish I had done that with my grandmother. She had a lot of recipes and stories I wish we had preserved.

 

[LostInNerSpace]

No, I understand. The trick may be helping people in order to make me feel like I'm changing something bad or righting a wrong which in turn would lighten my mood?

You post a lot. You undoubtedly have some affect on the lives of regular posters, however big or small. How do you know you are not influencing people with your posts in ways that directly or indirectly positively effect the lives of many others?

 

[Synarch]

Shakespeare, Hamlet - "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".

 

[Domino]

That's a great idea. I wish I had done that with my grandmother. She had a lot of recipes and stories I wish we had preserved.

That's sad! Are there any other older relatives who might help you?

My gma was an adopted child, so we still have trouble finding out where she came from (though we've tried repeatedly). I think this makes her feel disconnected. We know she was born on a train headed for a town in our state where her adoptive parents were waiting. They had to stop the train at a closer depot to get my grandmother delivered.

She holds all the information, pictures, lore, etc of my grandfather's family too. Without her, we'd have big stacks of 100 + year old pictures of people I only remotely recognize. For instance, I have a pile of extremely old postcards on my computer monitor. I was in the process of scanning them (my scanner is acting up presently) and loading them at Flickr because not only are they scenes from NC and SC that have changed dramatically from 100 years ago, but the correspondence on back has been very intriguing. I recognize all the names, and seeing them speak to each other over the years in a very casual manner has been thrilling for me.

There was a great great uncle of mine who lived with his two spinster sisters (the others married, though only one child was ever born to the bunch, which would be my great grandfather who was a hellraiser...). He died of consumption (TB) at an early age, and his sisters turned his room into a shrine really. Wouldn't let anyone in there, didn't move his things as he'd left them. My father remembers being in that house and being shoo-ed away from that closed room.

How Southern Gothic and Victorian of us. haha!

I wouldn't know half the stuff I do without my grandmother, and she likes to feel useful and share information. It's mutually very agreeable.

 

[Synarch]

I'm gonna link my great-grandchildren to my posts here.

No, not really. The older relatives do not know the same stuff she did. Plus with her recipes she just used a pinch of this or a pinch of that.

 

[Domino]

You post a lot. You undoubtedly have some affect on the lives of regular posters, however big or small. How do you know you are not influencing people with your posts in ways that directly or indirectly positively effect the lives of many others?

I know I do cause an action in others, just as they do for me. I'd like to think that I say some things that are worth taking away because I get so much from my conversations with others.

Shakespeare, Hamlet - "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".

So stabbing Laertes was okay? Shame on you, Hamlet. For shame!

 

[Domino]

I'm gonna link my great-grandchildren to my posts here.

haha! Good point.

No, not really. The older relatives do not know the same stuff she did. Plus with her recipes she just used a pinch of this or a pinch of that.

Do you not have a family tree of sorts? Granted, we've been building ours for over two decades. I'd hate for your recent history to be lost.

Odd note: the other day when my mother was cleaning out a storage unit (we have/had a lot of old furniture etc because the family was old plantation money which we have no more - faulkner-esque dark mood) and in one of the trunks my mom found three very old photographs. One of them is my great great grandfather as an older gent. Possibly 50s or 60s. I was elated. The picture dates to the mid to late 1800s.

The picture was faded badly in places but I ran it through Photoshop and pulled some of the detail out. He died of typhoid fever (and alcoholism), which was common not only in the South (Southerners were known to have pale complexions from malaria...) but also from the swampland area where our family came from. We have more than a few relatives who met their fate from typhoid and malaria.

 

[Synarch]

Your family sounds cool. I like your story.

 

[soleil]

1. Your strength is waning.
2. Your health is waning.
3. You time is waning.
4. Your usefulness is waning.
5. Your circle of friends is shrinking.

Life is easing you out. When I see someone happy at an advanced age, I think this is someone I want to learn something from as I will be here myself someday.

Exactly. I feel the same way. When I see an elder smiling & looking like he/she is happy, it's a good sight to see. I hope I can be content like that one day.

 

[quietmusician]

I really dislike this when it happens. Like I'll be in an okay mood (INFP's don't get overly excited) and then all of that vague happiness is gone. And that really sucks. Then my nerves start to work up and I go into full INFP mode and shutdown completely. It takes days to recover after something even slightly bad happens.

 

[Eldanen]

Mine just did.

 

[wolfy]

I think it's my thoughts that trigger it. I'll latch onto an idea and it'll pull me into a fog. Just an abstract idea mostly sometimes something or somebody.

 

[cherchair]

Why does our mood plummet?

1. Your strength is waning.
2. Your health is waning.
3. You time is waning.
4. Your usefulness is waning.
5. Your circle of friends is shrinking.

I know I harp too much on disability, but for those of us who acquire a physical disability mid-life, all this happens at once and yet we may have years more to live--usually in poverty. Though alcoholism and drug abuse is rampant in our community, a large number of us come to see it not as the downside of life but as a new beginning. I'm not saying it's not a shock and doesn't require some major adjustment, but for those of us who get over the hump of self-pity and alienation, life is still full of wonder and surprises.

But back to the OP. My mood swings are a medical condition and though I love the highs, I know there's always the risk of a crash into depression. Anyway, besides meds, I'm careful about diet (fresh fruit and veggies, whole grains, Omega 3--I use a supplement but eating salmon or other fish at least 2x/wk works), exercise (this isn't possible now but before I was dx'd and started treatment, I found running 4 mi/day helped more than anything else in keeping my moods more stable. Also, structure and some modicum of routine (especially around sleep) helps.