[MBTI General] xNFJs - Stress Translation

[Domino]

I had a very stressful episode a few days ago.

It was of a nature that I deeply internalized and could NOT objectify. When it's really bad, internal trauma that's close to the worst, I shut down. I stop speaking. Not because I choose not to speak, but because I can't speak. My ability to communicate goes away. I become entirely passive to whatever is happening around me. I can feel nothing. I shut down like my INFJ father when the news is really bad.

I only shut down like this when something really really bad has hit me right between the eyes. No time to defend myself. No time to brace. Even so, any action would be futile. It's of a certain nature - I'm going to shut down, regardless. It's like all the fuses blow at once and the whole house goes as dark and dead as a mausoleum.

My ENFP sister, having seen this a few times with me over the years, just puts her arms around me and hugs me, or just sits next to me quietly patting me. She knows I can't resurface willfully. I have to ride it out.

I react with silence. Then, slowly silence turns into some action when I'm starting to come back to life. Yesterday, I practically vacuumed the entire house.

Misery translates into angrily squeezing my environment until it chokes. Extreme misery translates into me washing out, turning into a ghost.

Can any other NFJs share?

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I am sorry to hear this happened to you.

It's of a certain nature - I'm going to shut down, regardless. It's like all the fuses blow at once and the whole house goes as dark and dead as a mausoleum.

Extreme misery translates into me washing out, turning into a ghost.

That is a compelling description. These two statements resonate the most for me. This becomes especially true in the presence of the person who caused the pain, but also can have a lingering effect is continually haunting.

 

[Lux]

First of all I'm sorry to hear that.

Secondly, yes to the above. When really awful things happen to me with no warning, I stop. Everything about me stops, my speech, my vision, my movement. Everything is frozen. Sometimes it only lasts for a second, and I'm able to jump into damage control mode pretty quickly. Other times last for a longer period.

I hope everything is better.

 

[Domino]

I am sorry to hear this happened to you.

That is a compelling description. These two statements resonate the most for me. This becomes especially true in the presence of the person who caused the pain, but also can have a lingering effect is continually haunting.

First of all I'm sorry to hear that.

Secondly, yes to the above. When really awful things happen to me with no warning, I stop. Everything about me stops, my speech, my vision, my movement. Everything is frozen. Sometimes it only lasts for a second, and I'm able to jump into damage control mode pretty quickly. Other times last for a longer period.

I hope everything is better.

How do you both cope with that level of going into shock? What do you do?

I respond both to emotional and physical tidal waves the same way. When I was in the hospital, I became incredibly passive because I was under so much stress I couldn't be "present" for any of it. It was important that I had my ESFP best friend there - she defended me and held onto me because I was no longer there and needed someone to call the shots.

I respond to horrible news this way too. It's lights out.

 

[TopherRed]

Exactly as you described. I either shut down, or I go temporarily insane, screaming in helplessness at whoever will listen. Usually that's my SJ parents who have no clue. So mostly I've just accepted it, and moved forward.

 

[Domino]

If I immediately get angry or cry, I have a chance. If not, I have no other option but to ride the ghost ship.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

How do you both cope with that level of going into shock? What do you do?

I don't know if I can say I reached the same level of shut-down. The kind of shut-down I have usually involves losing the ability to eat without forcing myself. I tend to crave being alone, and at one point would rent a cabin on the weekend where I could cry for hours because I couldn't when the people were around, but I could when alone. One experience I couldn't feel pain, but just a dull ache and didn't want to get out of bed while the distressing event was occurring. Sometimes I will tend to get cold and analytical shutting down any sympathy for myself.

Sometimes complete sensory deprivation helps. I will lay in a tub of warm water with the lights completely out, even covering any cracks around the door. It is best if there are no sounds or smells of bath oils. If I can't even see my hand in front of my face it is also a kind of relief.

At other times finding a location in the forest, or on a backyard swing where I can just sit in stillness and let myself dissolve into the surroundings brings relief. I might lay against a tree, or sit on one of its branches, close my eyes, feel the bark against me, and start to imagine I am the tree and what it is like to be so still for so long and to feel the leaves grow, and then break away and fall, but then come back again.

 

[Phantonym]

Can any other NFJs share?

Heh, yeah. The story of my life. I'm sorry to hear you had to go through this.

 

[Lux]

How do you both cope with that level of going into shock? What do you do?

For me, an extreme level of stress has only happened a few times. And I go into retreat mode. I don't want to have anything to do with people. I just need to be alone and work out everything in mind myself. I get lost in music, I get lost in books, and I find writing helps me a lot. More than anything though, the solitude helps. It allows me to work out everything without anyone judging me.

 

[toast]

If I immediately get angry or cry, I have a chance. If not, I have no other option but to ride the ghost ship.

God, I am so glad you posted this. I was sincerely planning on bringing this up because I have been dealing with this on & off all year and I really wish I had some magical formula to get through it faster.

Everything you said, everything, rings true for me.

I have been in & out of this for days now. With loss or fear (when I feel powerless in a situation) it just stays until there is some external change, and the moments of interaction and good feelings or responses out of me are just distractions that fade as quickly as they came and leave me aware that I'm still feeling this "ghostly." Its extremely frustrating. I have zero control over my Fi - Ni loop, zero.

 

[Tiltyred]

I go into that mode for awhile. I also find sensory deprivation almost essential to recovery, or being silent and in the presence of trees. The image I have of myself in those situations is like people being annihilated in a nuclear blast -- that I just crumble to ash -- I feel obliterated. Or sometimes it's a slow internal implosion.

In the hospital, however, I am a holy terror such that I don't even recognize myself, and that's just as beyond my control as the shutting down is. Both can be very scary.

 

[Gamine]

Question to the OP (Plus a big giant hug), once the episode/mode/state has passed, what is like for you?

Is it like leaving a sensory deprevation tank and everything is experienced in more intensity?

 

[TheMonocle]

I've learned that if it gets that bad... Let it happen and meditate through it. Emotional hijacks last physically for 20 minutes. I look at the clock and tell myself, "In 22 minutes you will feel better." I lean back, close my eyes and meditate on clouds floating through the sky. I give myself time to let it sink. If I've been pushed past that point... I turn to music, but I can get stuck there. I have to pay special attention to if I've eaten and what my body is telling me.

Daily meditation is a must to prevent it. A check list of daily basic needs helps. (3 meals a day, water goal, meditation, just think Maslow.) I have to maintain myself to be able to be a good place for other people or for that day that tosses me hardballs left and right.

My husband is an ENTP. He has gotten quite good at grabbing my hand and taking me for a walk when I "get too still". We walk to the park and swing. He listens, reminds me of the horizon, and helps me back to the big picture.

If I run completely out of coping mechanisms... I blow. I try not to let it get there.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

If I immediately get angry or cry, I have a chance. If not, I have no other option but to ride the ghost ship.

It’s strange, I was thinking about this last night while trying to fall asleep (hadn’t read this thread yet). I was wishing I had the capacity to get angry at things right away, the way other people seem to be able to. I only get angry after years of dealing with someone’s crap; and the feeling has to almost paralyze me before I recognize it**. I was thinking that if I had the capacity to say things in anger, like most people seem to be able to do, I might be able to avoid it. Yet the ability to articulate what makes me feel this way is one of the first things to go, like Domino wrote: it isn’t that I choose not to speak, I just don’t have access to the words.

**edit: this is only with people I'm close to. I don't have much problem getting annoyed & angry at people I'm not close to.

It's like all the fuses blow at once and the whole house goes as dark and dead as a mausoleum.

This is almost exactly how I’ve described it before. It feels like I’m looking out the window of some high-rise, watching the power grid of some entire city shut down; one city block after another goes dark. And the darker it gets, the less I feel anything. It doesn’t quite feel like a mausoleum to me, though. I don’t feel like I’m becoming surrounded by death so much as I’m becoming surrounded by a very sound sleep. (Something about it reminds me of when I was little- I’d be the only one in the house still awake at night, unable to fall asleep- I couldn’t get myself to ‘match’ the rest of the people in the house.) It’s like there’s at least 5 solid inches of deep sleep and fog in between me & everyone I know- even though I’m very much awake, and the people around me are also very much awake- their words have to go through this ‘deep sleep’ filter before reaching me. Ghost ship mode sucks: I can see the stuff going on around me, but I’m just not really there.

It’s a horrible feeling, because- while I watch it happening- the only thing I can think about is how difficult it is to power everything back up again.

Sometimes complete sensory deprivation helps. I will lay in a tub of warm water with the lights completely out, even covering any cracks around the door. It is best if there are no sounds or smells of bath oils. If I can't even see my hand in front of my face it is also a kind of relief.

At other times finding a location in the forest, or on a backyard swing where I can just sit in stillness and let myself dissolve into the surroundings brings relief. I might lay against a tree, or sit on one of its branches, close my eyes, feel the bark against me, and start to imagine I am the tree and what it is like to be so still for so long and to feel the leaves grow, and then break away and fall, but then come back again.

This helps me as well. I think putting myself in situations where I can’t help but see the ‘power grid’ turn off only perpetuates the feeling and makes it worse. I’ve got to isolate myself in order to tap into the main power source and focus on it, to try to figure out how to connect the power to outside sources again.

The only time I can be around people and it actually helps is if they are in, or can directly remember being in, that same space. I’ve got two friends who can understand it. But it’s such a vague feeling; unless they (or I) have felt it recently, we can’t tap into it well enough to be of much use to one another. When that’s available, it’s fantastic. It’s just not always available.

I’m hoping this all^ makes sense, that it isn’t too cryptic. It’s the best I can articulate it at the moment. And anyway, back to my initial point: I was wondering just last night if learning to recognize and complain- about the small stuff that makes me angry- would help prevent the ghost ship episodes. So reading “if I can get angry right away, then I have a chance…” has kind of struck a nerve.

 

[cascadeco]

My husband is an ENTP. He has gotten quite good at grabbing my hand and taking me for a walk when I "get too still". We walk to the park and swing. He listens, reminds me of the horizon, and helps me back to the big picture.

That is so touching and sweet. I love it!

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To the OP - I'm not sure I have gotten to that level... But I give you a for having experienced it multiple times...sounds awful. I'm sorry.

I think it's my strong drive for self-protection, as well as high levels of introversion. I think I'm one who tends to approach things extremely preventatively, and in that sense I think that's where my 'J' is really obvious. So I'll 'plan' my weeks with downtime, I'll structure my life (sort of) such that I prevent myself from ever having to go there. Obviously there are elements of life that you can't control for and there will always be surprises and turbulence now and then; but generally speaking, I build for down time, and sort of regulate things to prevent myself from ever becoming stressed in the first place....trying to be aware of my emotional state each day, and adjusting as needed to try to keep myself balanced as much as possible.

But sometimes, yeah, I might be really upset, hurt, perplexed, or confused over a certain relationship, or something like that, which will cause me to go into uber-hermit-mode and I'll easily go several days without desiring anything social, because I need to mull over things and figure things out.

The other piece of this is...I never really have anyone around me to observe me when I get upset/withdrawn...so it's never been pointed out to me by others, I guess.