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[ENFJ] The ENFJ shadow...

Domino

ENFJ In Chains
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The worst part for me is that no matter how much you prepare for it you still can't do anything to avoid it.
You can say, "Ok, I'm not going to freeze up, they are just screwing around" but the same thing still happens.

Yes! This! It's automatic, isn't it! I feel it coming on like a sneeze and I can't throw the brakes on.

I just can't disassociate myself from what they say quick enough.

I can't believe it - you understand the Freeze Up. Wow. I try to explain it, but I never articulate it well enough. I told my sister that I CAN'T make something not hurt or option to not care. Everything affects me. It goes into me like a bullet and clearly you can't unshoot yourself. It takes x-amount of time to walk it off and purge myself of it too which is frustrating. I find I resent people sometimes because if they're toxic or careless, I'll be paying for it later, not them.
 

SpottingTrains

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It goes into me like a bullet and clearly you can't unshoot yourself.

Best. Analogy. Ever.

It takes x-amount of time to walk it off and purge myself of it too which is frustrating.

Yeah, I find it really depends on the situation and tone they said it in. Even the smallest thing will take some time and the bigger ones *a lot* longer.
 

Domino

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I talk about it with my ENTP friends, deeply wish for their ability to dismiss. They just listen and then tell me that living in my brain, with storms rolling through and then clearing, must be some kind of hell. My ISTP bff used to tell me that he loved me because I always cared, but it was too much and he wished I could shut it off to save myself.
 

SpottingTrains

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:Sigh: Yeah, I know what you mean but at the same token when I think about not having that instant shock to what people say I would think it would influence how I would treat people. A curse and a gift I like to think of it :)

Both of my best friends are ENTJ's and one of them even has ADD as a kicker. Being with them is an experience I must tell you lol.
 

Domino

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Get outta town. I have an ENTJ bff too! A girl, even. Only one of two ENTJ chicks I know. They make great company.


I know I wouldn't want to change the Shock Factor. Mine's just a bit scalded right now. *pushes at it*
 

Domino

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I was wondering how you deal with it all, how do you actually regenerate fully after getting "slapped"?

I have to find a "safe" place/person. We were once watching some documentary about tiger cubs at a zoo. One cub in particular was a total handful, brash, getting into everything. My sister said, "That one is YOU." I laughed. Then a few scenes later, he gets too close to an adult who pretty much gets the baby's whole head in his mouth. The baby was unhurt, but he immediately fled to his handler and crushed himself up against the guys legs looking for reassurance. Many pats and head rubs and reassurances that everything is okay, and the baby recovered himself, started nosing into things again. My sister looked over, said, "That's so you it's scary."

I have to have time to reboot. It usually requires being able to get myself away to be alone, or if someone is there, I can break down around them without repercussion. After a particularly nasty shock, I have to have time to circle the source of the antagonism and reach equilibrium, or have a safe person (or handler) show me the thing that set me off and help me cope with it, or show me ways to avoid another nasty shock like it.

If I'm alone, I walk. A lot. For me, it helps to listen to "my" music, like the Clash, while I'm walking or pacing. It's a safe place. Forcing my feelings to right themselves before they're ready is a huge mistake.

I tried to express how I do it in the second half of my post in this thread (http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/nf-idyllic/2482-hate-enfj-tell-us-why-35.html) but I don't know if this is he best way to actually deal with it. Who knows, meh.

I don't know if there IS a good way of handling it. I think we're in a unique position of having our internal organs on the outside of our bodies without the shielding and "power to the ground" of Si. I think ESFJs have a leg up on us in that area.
 

Domino

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That link didn't work either :D ahee... But I know which post you mean, I think!

From a male perspective this is one of the toughest things for me to deal with. I find that I only internalize the emotions that emotionally damage me, anything else will be shared with joyous abundance I am hoping dealing with these internal emotions will get easier as I mature more (21st birthday approaching). The best solution I have found to do is either A. Do a massive amount of cardio that would make the average person think I had a pack of swooning lepers chasing after me or B. Take a bath, turn of the lights and just go through every emotion, this isn't anything dark or evil, just a realization of all the emotions I have internalized. I guess this all comes back to the whole thing about ENFJs not being able to open up themselves to others. Quoting runvardh from one of the first posts in this thread: "It's a real pain in the ass to show them that yes you really do give a shit, 100 fucking %". No one has been able to convince me of that yet.

I do both A and B (those lepers sure do run fast). I find myself processing over and over the morass of feeling when I'm doing something like showering or getting ready for bed. I set up the sensation (isolated from it's friends for dissection) in various scenarios to see if it sounded or felt any different. I do probably cry out my frustrations way more than my male counterpart, but I like to do this alone where no one can get at me. I don't like people to know that I've been crying for some reason.

I've reached 31 and I'm still coming to terms with both the ups and the downs of my blowtorch personality type.


But yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me what you just said. I think my problem is that I don't have people to really breakdown near so I have to figure out different ways to go about it. I blame the tech school I am going to for draining my soul :)

Tech school killed my entire fambly.
 

SpottingTrains

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I do both A and B (those lepers sure do run fast). I find myself processing over and over the morass of feeling when I'm doing something like showering or getting ready for bed. I set up the sensation (isolated from it's friends for dissection) in various scenarios to see if it sounded or felt any different. I do probably cry out my frustrations way more than my male counterpart, but I like to do this alone where no one can get at me. I don't like people to know that I've been crying for some reason.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense :)
 

Thursday

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Ani_DiFranco-Marrow said:
i'm not listening to you anymore
my head is too sore and my heart's perforated
and i'm mired in the marrow of my well... ain't that funny bone
learning how to be alone and devastated

where was my conscience?
where was my consciousness?
and what do i do with all these letters
that i wrote to myself
but cannot address?
Yet another excerpt from the ENFJs darkside
 

SpottingTrains

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I still don't think that is really what the "dark side" consists of but what again as an addendum, I hate reading music like that lol.
 

Kalach

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The Shadow as I imagined it begins to sound like emotion or shock left unprocessed but the memory or instinct of it is still present and guiding. Or perhaps shadows arise as (negative) awareness that shock is so easily come by and so difficult to escape. So... negative control.


Assuaged by Ti made sympathetic by Ne, perhaps?

That's a thing I get signs of, like submarine pings, around ENFJs... the need to have what I don't have, Ne, because they (you guys) need someone to see you.

(Um, that comment I just made ^^, is that like a slap? It seems like it might be. (Or is commenting on it as a slap the thing that makes it a slap?) Or do I just not know?)




Ani DiFranco pretty much has to be INFJ, yeah? (Or has an INFJ lyricist she likes. :D)
 

Thursday

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Ani is an ENFJ
 

Kalach

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J'accuse moi-meme.

Guilty of assuming only I's reflect on negative self imagery.


Ack, Te is such a ham-fisted device sometimes.
 

Thursday

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J'accuse moi-meme.

Guilty of assuming only I's reflect on negative self imagery.


Ack, Te is such a ham-fisted device sometimes.

No.
So what say ye, counselor?
 

Kalach

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No.
So what say ye, counselor?

I say, it momentarily seemed to me that if there is this ENFJ dark side--unmentionable, unannounced, but seemingly obviously present--then having Ani sing it out for everyone to see...

Anyway, I still think of the Shadow as turmoil. Resisted trumoil. Perhaps denied. I assume it to be part of the process by which ENFJs judge. Something about memory and response and planning. The difference between future dream and reality. And history. And hope. Perfectionism. Dunno. I suppose I'm talking about it as a way of finding out how to... take part, maybe?


I also get a strong, strong feeling that when I have at these things with my Te voice and background Fi, that I'm scraping away at something, like a guy with a straight razor and a blindfold and a ride-on mower. Woo hoo! Beating rainbows with knobbly sticks!

It's a vexatious conundrum and one unfortunate factor is my own version of Fi values tends me to expect other people to toughen up sometimes. To me experience says its seems wrong to warn FJs to toughen up, but value says they should, but logic says their particular toughness is in other areas, but... and so on.
 

Jeremy

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I agree with you that the ENFJs have a shadow. Their shadow is what they don't tell others. What they omit from their conversations. Why they don't want to be alone. It's easier to drown out pain and suffering if you keep yourself busy with the problems of others, and pretend to wear your emotions on your sleeve. In reality, ENFJs (and I would argue ESFJs as well) have a well-developed inner world, but it is surprisingly dark. Darker than they allow others to see.

ENFJs and SFJs like to project themselves as being emotional, being able to be overcome by emotion, but only as an act for others, not for themselves. Fe to me is just that. It's being concerned with social niceties, not necessarily because one is "fake", but, just like all personality types, as a way of coping with reality. Fe types tend toward the outer world as a way of rejecting the reality inside them, just as Fi types can sometimes forsake the outer world as a way to reject the reality that exists outside of them, which can leave us feeling dejected and alone at times.

The result is usually that Fe types can forget that they can be happy without projecting their emotions onto others, and all of their effort goes into projecting that happiness. Fi types, on the other hand, begin to question the emotions of the outer world, refusing to project much emotion onto others except as a means of self-affirmation. That is the origin of the shadow in both types.

If I completely missed the mark, lemme know. I didn't read the middle of the topic. :p
 

Domino

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My encounters with my Ti when under stress don't make a very rosy scene. Turning into a cold affective automaton, not charming. I was just telling my sister last night what a monster Fe is, floating so close to the surface. It's shock therapy, both good and bad. Some days you just don't feel like sticking your finger in the light socket.

Does anyone else go into automatic "fix it" mode? Jaye is constantly telling me "You don't have to fix this" when I hear another problem come up. It's knee jerk with me though. I don't realize that I'm in trouble shooting mode until it's pointed out. I hear the threat and set about neutralizing it immediately.
 

SpottingTrains

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My ENTJ friends break things and I fix them, that's usually how the system goes lol.
 
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