[INFJ] INFJ Internal Struggles

[Pseudonym_Alpha]

This has been driving me crazy lately. I actually got into MBTI to try to understand why I struggle so much internally, finding that the J is responsible for so much of it.

I was writing in my journal last night over something that has been causing me to lose sleep for the past two weeks, and I quoted this:



I find that to be incredibly true of me. I find that I'm constantly anxious, stressed, or losing sleep over struggling to answer the self-imposed questions I leave myself, trying to better understand my actions, feelings, and motives.

It's been tormenting me so much lately, especially since I can't pinpoint the reason for my latest internal struggle. It makes me wish I weren't an introvert, so I wouldn't feel so at home in my head and the rubix cube I feel so impelled to solve. It makes me wish I weren't a feeler, so I wouldn't be so strongly affected and tormented by my emotions. It makes me wish I were more of a perceiver instead of a judger so I could let things go. But I would never give up the strength of my intuition. Without it, I think I would be perpetually lost.

Not sure what I'm trying to get across. Do other INFJs suffer so much as well? Have you learned any tricks to make it easier?

The problem solving side, I definitely agree with. I find myself doing the same thing as you mentioned, and you put it so well! Two things I love, grammatical phrasings and problem solving

 

[the state i am in]

i get really frustrated trying to protect my perfect vision of who i should be/what i should be doing, especially when i look at it from every conceivable angle, and am so concerned with doing what is RIGHT (read: perfect) for everyone involved including those who support me. the constant conflict of letting go or holding out for a more perfect STORY of how my life should go and who i should become is really paralyzing and an awful tremor.

no matter how many times i tell myself to just let go and that everything isn't in my hands and that the world is complex and that i should stop trying to plagiarize the story i stole from somewhere and decided to put on a bulletin board as my own is absurd and that i will become whatever the fate of my little science experiment called life decides.

i think, more truthfully, in the back of my mind i use excuses like “holding on to my youth” and “you need the conflict” and “don't give up and cave in until yer at LEAST 30” and “obviously letting go is more efficient but if i lose the complexity and contradiction and chaos i'll die from boredom and turn into one of those old know-it-alls who lost their edge and their confused sadistic desire to get to the bottom of the Question and now just wallow in empty self-righteousness” and “the only really egregious like sinful thing in life is to become callous” and all that self-imposed militant propaganda that stops me from allowing myself to be balanced, normalized, efficient, steady, etc.

yet maturation seems to be inevitable. wanting to do it over and not adapt to the changing circumstances of your own life and idealizing this particular moment or age (with its youthy angst) as the REALLY meaningful (as opposed to the rest) is probably a misguided project anyway. as is waiting until you are *finished* to step out of your shell and start to accept life.

nevertheless i imagine most infjs are late-bloomers.