[ENFJ] ENFJ behaviour

[Domino]

When I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I was under pressure a lot. There WAS no safe place, and I was not only expected to apparently ignore this fact, but I was also expected to be super-human, affective (react to nothing at all, good or bad), conjure perfect grades, never get sick/tired, never miss an appt, never be late, never complain, always be pleasant and pleasing.

I had to be a good little soldier. This meant never allowing anyone to love me or me to love them back. This meant always being "tough" and never crying in front of others. This meant pretending that I didn't need help or rest or safety.

One of my best friends at the time, an ISTP, had absolutely no problem with the explosions that came out of me. Everyone else, besides my sister and my closest girlfriends, seemed to cower and blame me even more for finally reaching the limit of human strength. They couldn't take me coming apart. Not only did he not mind, he found ways to help me, make me feel safe, and methods to blow off the hideous amount of pressure placed on me in other ways -- before I went supernova. He was one of the first people who didn't treat me like a time bomb, like I was a real generous competent person with legitimate feelings and that I was allowed to blow the roof off on occasion because there was no way any person could bottle up what I was going through.

Because I see some of Poki's wife in me, and I do mean beyond my usual contained fieriness, I think she's wrestling with something and needs to talk to someone outside the family to help her regain her bearings. We have fiery natures to begin with, and that's NEVER a bad thing, but she sounds like I did when I was being besieged and had no coping skills to combat my inner demons and the outer forces that made me feel off-balance.

 

[TopherRed]

When I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I was under pressure a lot. There WAS no safe place, and I was not only expected to apparently ignore this fact, but I was also expected to be super-human, affective (react to nothing at all, good or bad), conjure perfect grades, never get sick/tired, never miss an appt, never be late, never complain, always be pleasant and pleasing.

I had to be a good little soldier. This meant never allowing anyone to love me or me to love them back. This meant always being "tough" and never crying in front of others. This meant pretending that I didn't need help or rest or safety.

One of my best friends at the time, an ISTP, had absolutely no problem with the explosions that came out of me. Everyone else, besides my sister and my closest girlfriends, seemed to cower and blame me even more for finally reaching the limit of human strength. They couldn't take me coming apart. Not only did he not mind, he found ways to help me, make me feel safe, and methods to blow off the hideous amount of pressure placed on me in other ways -- before I went supernova. He was one of the first people who didn't treat me like a time bomb, like I was a real generous competent person with legitimate feelings and that I was allowed to blow the roof off on occasion because there was no way any person could bottle up what I was going through.

Because I see some of Poki's wife in me, and I do mean beyond my usual contained fieriness, I think she's wrestling with something and needs to talk to someone outside the family to help her regain her bearings. We have fiery natures to begin with, and that's NEVER a bad thing, but she sounds like I did when I was being besieged and had no coping skills to combat my inner demons and the outer forces that made me feel off-balance.

= big hug. Pinky, you're a great person, you know that?

 

[TopherRed]

The fact that ENFJs seem to have a much better time with Ti than INTPs do with Fe has always baffled me. I've begun to think that the qualities of the dominant function and how that affects mindset has to do with it. Fe seems more accepting, cohesive, cooperative in general and can find a place for things, like Fuzzy mentioned; whereas I find Ti is just so stubborn, so cutting, so exacting and exclusive it has trouble letting go of control for a process that [to Ti at least] wouldn't know truth if it slapped it in the face.

I think the truth is, many Ti users are emotionally bitter people. They've locked their emotions down, and their emotions rebel in the only way Ti will allow; hidden in opinion, and often with anger. I have a Ti dominant friend who can't stand me being wrong...which I've been known to be. He will literally become angry if my opinion doesn't match with the facts as he sees them (he's wrong more then he'd care to admit, but dominent Fe doesn't say much because Fe encourages people-growth and confrontation, except for extreme cases, is usually not conducive to that with him).

 

[JocktheMotie]

I think the truth is, many Ti users are emotionally bitter people. They've locked their emotions down, and their emotions rebel in the only way Ti will allow; hidden in opinion, and often with anger. I have a Ti dominant friend who can't stand me being wrong...which I've been known to be. He will literally become angry if my opinion doesn't match with the facts as he sees them (he's wrong more then he'd care to admit, but dominent Fe doesn't say much because Fe encourages people-growth and confrontation, except for extreme cases, is usually not conducive to that with him).

I think that's mostly projection, to be honest, maybe because you assume everybody feels everything similarly, just having different levels of ability to control them? Which I don't think is the case. Also, I notice NFs frequently confuse frustration with anger. We're not "angry at you." We're frustrated by your position, because to be quite honest we generally encounter Fe in the environment far more frequently than you encounter Ti, so we can grow tired of beating a dead horse yet again.

 

[Domino]

I think Fe is just more accepting of things that don't make logical sense. People frequently are walking contradictions, Fe knows this, and shrugs its shoulders when the A+B doesn't equal C in concrete terms. I think the nature of Ti is to expose even tiny fallacies (which is what makes it so great in the realm of science, law and math, because it can detect an inconsistency in a swarm of data, reams of thou-shalts, and an ocean of numbers) but when not controlled or balanced, sees human beings as things that MUST make sense and therefore gets strung out dealing with the lack of continuity.

The very nature of Ti, just as Fe is a ball of fire, makes it implacable at times and hard to shut down because it can't simply stop seeing what it sees and wanting to right the crooked picture frame that everyone seems to just walk by or not notice.

 

[JocktheMotie]

I think Fe is just more accepting of things that don't make logical sense. People frequently are walking contradictions, Fe knows this, and shrugs its shoulders when the A+B doesn't equal C in concrete terms. I think the nature of Ti is to expose even tiny fallacies (which is what makes it so great in the realm of science, law and math, because it can detect an inconsistency in a swarm of data, reams of thou-shalts, and an ocean of numbers. The very nature of Ti, just as Fe is a ball of fire, makes it implacable at times and hard to shut down.

I think I agree with this. Like I said, Fe people seem to be far more accepting and cooperative and that mindset carries over to differences, errors, fallacies, contradictions, etc. It is more likely to say "How can I include/accept/find a place for this" while Ti can't excise errors fast enough.

 

[Domino]

Yeah, Ti is what it is, and those who are Ti-primaries are stuck with finding ways to mitigate that kneejerk need to sort and correct in the human realm - no doubt, a very tall order, because even *I*, as an Fe-primary, cannot tolerate discrepancies, lies or what I perceive to be waffling or redundancy without gritting my teeth and counting to 10. My ENFP sister is WAY better at letting these things slide - I think because she's able to say "This ultimately has no bearing on the outcome" which may be 100% true, while my brain is shouting "A few degrees discrepancy landed Amelia Earhart in the OCEAN!! GRRR!!! RAWR!!!"

 

[TopherRed]

I think that's mostly projection, to be honest, maybe because you assume everybody feels everything similarly, just having different levels of ability to control them? Which I don't think is the case. Also, I notice NFs frequently confuse frustration with anger. We're not "angry at you." We're frustrated by your position, because to be quite honest we generally encounter Fe in the environment far more frequently than you encounter Ti, so we can grow tired of beating a dead horse yet again.

Frustration and anger are similar emotions, Jock; frustration can be accurately described as anger due to inability. Therefore, all Ts, unable to utilize F in their explanations, are frustrated with the situation because people who have no T of their own, don't listen to them. And those same Fers, will shut you out more and more, as you get more and more frustrated because they aren't listening to somebody they preceive to be angry with them. Yes, I'm aware you said the frustration doesn't lie with the "F", but rather with the situation. The "F" really doesn't know the difference; when they know they are the cause of your frustration, whether yours is aimed at them or the situation, they take it personally.

You may ask, "How is that, then, my problem?"

I may answer, "Does relying the concept so that the other person will understand, matter to you at all, or are you just talking to exercise your mouth?"

Try a spoonfull of Fe with your Ti and see how far you get. You've stated before that you see Fe and Ti as completely incompatible...as opposing of each other and incapible of working together. That's incorrect. Fe is enslaved to Ti in you...use it as sugar to dull bad tasting medicine that needs to be given, just as I use my Ti to sour emotional dependence on Fe and encourage independence and growth.

If you've got more, I'm willing to listen to it. Forgive my misgivings Jock.

--Fuzz

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I think Fe is just more accepting of things that don't make logical sense. People frequently are walking contradictions, Fe knows this, and shrugs its shoulders when the A+B doesn't equal C in concrete terms. I think the nature of Ti is to expose even tiny fallacies (which is what makes it so great in the realm of science, law and math, because it can detect an inconsistency in a swarm of data, reams of thou-shalts, and an ocean of numbers) but when not controlled or balanced, sees human beings as things that MUST make sense and therefore gets strung out dealing with the lack of continuity.

The very nature of Ti, just as Fe is a ball of fire, makes it implacable at times and hard to shut down because it can't simply stop seeing what it sees and wanting to right the crooked picture frame that everyone seems to just walk by or not notice.

Well put, Pink. You've effectively pulled some Z Buck brain elastic. *twang*

 

[Poki]

Frustration and anger are similar emotions, Jock; frustration can be accurately described as anger due to inability. Therefore, all Ts, unable to utilize F in their explanations, are frustrated with the situation because people who have no T of their own, don't listen to them. And those same Fers, will shut you out more and more, as you get more and more frustrated because they aren't listening to somebody they preceive to be angry with them. Yes, I'm aware you said the frustration doesn't lie with the "F", but rather with the situation. The "F" really doesn't know the difference; when they know they are the cause of your frustration, whether yours is aimed at them or the situation, they take it personally.

You may ask, "How is that, then, my problem?"

I may answer, "Does relying the concept so that the other person will understand, matter to you at all, or are you just talking to exercise your mouth?"

Try a spoonfull of Fe with your Ti and see how far you get. You've stated before that you see Fe and Ti as completely incompatible...as opposing of each other and incapible of working together. That's incorrect. Fe is enslaved to Ti in you...use it as sugar to dull bad tasting medicine that needs to be given, just as I use my Ti to sour emotional dependence on Fe and encourage independence and growth.

If you've got more, I'm willing to listen to it. Forgive my misgivings Jock.

--Fuzz

You are ENFJ. You just created the circle that has no end nor an answer. This is Ti used to logically rationalize NiFe. Frustration is driven by the inability to understand.

T types get frustrated because they dont include F. F type assumes frustration is anger, gets angry back. Causes T type confusion. T types notices anger, responds with anger. Anger leads to anger which leads to anger.........someone finally crashes or gives up.

So why does ENFJ have frustration mapped to anger. Frustration leads to helplessness, anger leads to hate. One is focused internal, one focused external.


edit: my dad gets mad when he gets frustrated. I see alot of men who get mad when they get frustrated. You can tell when they sit there and work on something, cant figure it out and throw or break it. is this a learned response to tie frustration with anger?

Does frustration drive not being able to come to a conclusion which drives helplessness which drives anger in J types?

 

[TopherRed]

You are ENFJ. You just created the circle that has no end nor an answer. Frustration is driven by the inability to understand.

T types get frustrated because they dont include F. F type assumes frustration is anger, gets angry back. Causes T type confusion. T types notices anger, responds with anger. Anger leads to anger which leads to anger.........someone finally crashes or gives up.

So why does ENFJ have frustration mapped to anger. Frustration leads to helplessness, anger leads to hate. One is focused internal, one focused external.

edit: my dad gets mad when he gets frustrated. I see alot of men who get mad when they get frustrated. You can tell when they sit there and work on something, cant figure it out and throw or break it. is this a learned response to tie frustration with anger?

Does frustration drive helpless which drives not being able to come to a conclusion which drives helplessness which drives anger in J types?

I think you missed the point. Use your quartenary function (Fe) to back up your primary (Ti); doing so will help you to teach people in a way they can accept your information; no matter how emotionally off-putting your logic might be by itself. That solves the problem.

I decided to get into it anyway, see below.

Anger does not need to lead to hate, nor frustration to helplessness; one should learn to control his emotions before his "river" takes those courses. Those who don't, aren't monitoring their negative feelings appropriately and cause more harm than productive good.

Frustration and anger often follow parallel courses; in my experience with men like your father (and mine) Frustration often does lead to Anger, especially with more immature types. Frustration (internal) should not be--Fe speaking--an emotion to be vented in the form of Anger (external) onto others, but often is.

T types get frustrated because they dont include F. F type assumes frustration is anger, gets angry back. Causes T type confusion. T types notices anger, responds with anger. Anger leads to anger which leads to anger.........someone finally crashes or gives up.

Frustration is internalized anger. You almost said it...just not quite. F-types, who feel emotion in such a broad spectrum often miss some of the finer shades--I agree that we sometimes mistake it. Other times it comes out in shades of arrogance and anger that were clearly borne out of that frustration; what you described Poki, was one scenario; that doesn't happen between T and F, everytime. Sometimes, it's very much a T-compressed, negative emotion that starts taking a civil conversation down the wrong path. Other times, it's an F-brained, overreaction.

Keep in mind, for Fe types, environmental emotion is personal; if we detect it, it may as well have been said. You can't help that. Just keep in mind that when we are the reason you are frustrated, we feel dumb, so we get angry, because neither of us have the communication skills necessary to reach the other. Patience is in order. And like I said, use your quarternary to support your primary. IMHO, this is a start to reaching Fe's without matured Ti in an entertaining, comprehensive, mature manner.

 

[Poki]

I think you missed the point. Use your quartenary function (Fe) to back up your primary (Ti); doing so will help you to teach people in a way they can accept your information; no matter how emotionally off-putting your logic might be by itself. That solves the problem.

I decided to get into it anyway, see below.

Anger does not need to lead to hate, nor frustration to helplessness; one should learn to control his emotions before his "river" takes those courses. Those who don't, aren't monitoring their negative feelings appropriately and cause more harm than productive good.

Frustration and anger often follow parallel courses; in my experience with men like your father (and mine) Frustration often does lead to Anger, especially with more immature types. Frustration (internal) should not be--Fe speaking--an emotion to be vented in the form of Anger (external) onto others, but often is.



Frustration is internalized anger. You almost said it...just not quite. F-types, who feel emotion in such a broad spectrum often miss some of the finer shades--I agree that we sometimes mistake it. Other times it comes out in shades of arrogance and anger that were clearly borne out of that frustration; what you described Poki, was one scenario; that doesn't happen between T and F, everytime. Sometimes, it's very much a T-compressed, negative emotion that starts taking a civil conversation down the wrong path. Other times, it's an F-brained, overreaction.

Keep in mind, for Fe types, environmental emotion is personal; if we detect it, it may as well have been said. You can't help that. Just keep in mind that when we are the reason you are frustrated, we feel dumb, so we get angry, because neither of us have the communication skills necessary to reach the other. Patience is in order. And like I said, use your quarternary to support your primary. IMHO, this is a start to reaching Fe's without matured Ti in an entertaining, comprehensive, mature manner.

But there are things called Ni and Se that sit inbetween them. That adds color to everything. Ni creates its own color based and Se is like "Show me the color". Ni in an ENFJ is focused externally through Fe. Its not as closely tied to logic, but more of open possibilities. My wife was talking to my sister and she said she got a new job working 3 days a week 12 hour shifts. My wife went through telling me all the new opportunities it opened up for her sister and she went through the entire list she could think of. That is Ni. Now Ni supports Fe. We see how Ni colors Fe in a good way. It then convinces her of how good this is because all the opportunities this opens up. When stressed it colors it in bad ways, this is the storm brewing. All the possible ways that things can be distorted. I hit this state, but for me it drives confusion because its so controlled by Ti.

I can easily reach F types with Fe and Ti. Its easy, but I cant get past the self protection mechanism that Fe creates just like she cant get past the self protection mechanism that Ti creates.

We protect ourself in 2 ways. Our first is to use our aux function, our second is to screw up our tertiary function.

 

[SciVo]

Yeah, Ti is what it is, and those who are Ti-primaries are stuck with finding ways to mitigate that kneejerk need to sort and correct in the human realm - no doubt, a very tall order, because even *I*, as an Fe-primary, cannot tolerate discrepancies, lies or what I perceive to be waffling or redundancy without gritting my teeth and counting to 10. My ENFP sister is WAY better at letting these things slide - I think because she's able to say "This ultimately has no bearing on the outcome" which may be 100% true, while my brain is shouting "A few degrees discrepancy landed Amelia Earhart in the OCEAN!! GRRR!!! RAWR!!!"

Heh... pretty sure that's a sign of a healthy xNFP, otherwise even your sis might not be able to do that. And hey, a few degrees' discrepancy landed Ms. Earhart in LEGEND!! So at least you have that going for you.

 

[TopherRed]

But there are things called Ni and Se that sit inbetween them. That adds color to everything. Ni creates its own color based and Se is like "Show me the color". Ni in an ENFJ is focused externally through Fe. Its not as closely tied to logic, but more of open possibilities. My wife was talking to my sister and she said she got a new job working 3 days a week 12 hour shifts. My wife went through telling me all the new opportunities it opened up for her sister and she went through the entire list she could think of. That is Ni. Now Ni supports Fe. We see how Ni colors Fe in a good way. It then convinces her of how good this is because all the opportunities this opens up. When stressed it colors it in bad ways, this is the storm brewing. All the possible ways that things can be distorted. I hit this state, but for me it drives confusion because its so controlled by Ti.

I can easily reach F types with Fe and Ti. Its easy, but I cant get past the self protection mechanism that Fe creates just like she cant get past the self protection mechanism that Ti creates.

We protect ourself in 2 ways. Our first is to use our aux function, our second is to screw up our tertiary function.

*is enlightened* Thank you poki.

 

[Poki]

*is enlightened* Thank you poki.

With having the functions FeNiSeTi which in order of what supports what is TiNiFeSe which is the same support order of ISTPs. We have TiNi which finds the truth and FeSe which cares what others think about them. I was forced as a child to face the truth. I have learned my whole life to face the truth. You know what, the truth can hurt. This in no way supports Fe. You know what works really good with Fe? "Do unto others as you want them to do unto you" That is the definition of FeSe. So you can see the split. In that order ENFJs learned how to make NiFe work together and I learned how to make SeTi work together. I use Ti as a filter between Se and Ni. I have learned to control my filter and what I see as the truth. You use Fe as a filter between Ni and Se. you control the Fe to decide what parts of Ni you want to let pass. You control how you want others to feel towards you by what you do unto them.

So what determines the order? Which did you need growing up as a kid more to get through life? Were you forced to face the truth or did you have to "do unto others as you want them to do unto you" because the truth was too painful? I was forced to face the truth. I stole from my mom at a young age and she let me know that I lost her trust. When I was a poor sport she stopped playing games. She made me face my actions. How do I fix it. "I try to do unto others as I want them to do unto me". I live and die by these. These are the 2 values I cannot break, I will not break. I assume ENFJ are the same way.

edit: The truth in here is an internal truth fed by Se where Ti limits the possibities. Without much Ti the possibilities are more endless and are closer to ideal than reality.