• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

[INFP] INFPs and Low Self Esteem

highlander

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
26,562
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
What would cause an INFP to have low self esteem?
 

Udog

Seriously Delirious
Joined
Aug 2, 2008
Messages
5,290
MBTI Type
INfp
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
If you provide more details I suspect the INFPs would be more than happy to speculate.

My executive summary would involve the fact that we tend to not fit into our environments as a child, which makes us feel like outsiders that have to straddle the line between fitting in and being ourselves.
 

Arclight

Permabanned
Joined
Nov 5, 2009
Messages
3,177
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
6w5
This is just a wild guess and is not at all based on my observations.

Other people.

I can expand on that, but I'll leave it up to INFPs.
 

Nijntje

Warflower
Joined
Jun 7, 2009
Messages
3,130
MBTI Type
CRZY
Enneagram
4w5
EVERYTHING!!!

It's the feeling of being constantly the outsider and not quite like you fit in...
 

rav3n

.
Joined
Aug 6, 2010
Messages
11,655
If you consider the order of their cognitive functions, it's almost a given that there will be some downward spiralling.

Fi>Ne>Si>Te
 

KDude

New member
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
8,243
Some of this makes INFPs sound like they're born with low self-esteem. I don't want to accept that. Why is this an intrinsic feature of a Type?

Just to be clear, I don't mean to come off rude by anything I say here.. I have severe bouts of it myself (I don't want to validate my pain too much.. just take my word for it). I just wonder where it's coming from for you, and what you do about it. Also, I wonder if you have concrete reasons for feeling left out, or is it some hard-to-pin-down existential void? Or maybe a little of both?

At the risk of sounding bombastic, I've always felt something like an alchemist with my issues. Confidence that boils out from within (only to die down again later). I've always somehow managed to transmute these problems into something more.. I could reshape myself if I wanted or needed to experience something new. Enough to even become somewhat popular and leader-like for awhile, then sinking back down, then up, etc.. To put another spin on this process: I went to some acting workshops in my 20's, and within a couple of weeks, the teacher told me that I didn't really need to stay around. "You're already an actor." She wanted me to go out on my own and just audition (ironically, I didn't have enough self-esteem with the reality of that). Point being that I could draw a lot of things out of myself, if necessary. Do any of you feel this way? Or are you consistently feeling low self-esteem? I also hear that INFPs (or Fi period?) are always trying to be "authentic". Do you never lie or channel characters or role models to cope (yes, I'm serious)? Or do you insist on feeling exactly what you feel at all times? Maybe that's the difference. Because personally, a lot of my more courageous moments required that I be completely full of it to get through something.. and in the process, kind of "live it", where it wasn't fake, but a new addition to my experiences.

Sorry for making this long. I'm not trying to talk about myself so much as wondering where the lack of self-esteem comes from, and why INFPs announce it so often. Hopefully I'm contributing to the discussion. There's a trend for people to call INFPs emo and for INFPs themselves to embrace it, and I'm just curious why it persists.

Lastly, I said I wouldn't validate my pain, but I get the impression that someone could be tempted to say they feel more or they're deeper or this or that. I don't know how to symbolize my own sense of dejection other than saying I was sexually abused at 6; I must have gotten in a dozen fights growing too..and things stolen from me.. lots of lame crap in little ways; I also grew up as an Asian in Texas, so that's another contribution to feeling out of place (I can't stress that enough.. get called a gook or chink enough and you start telling yourself that don't fit in). No ambiguous existentism in my case. It's fairly obvious that life can be rotten in concrete ways. Yet I don't want to call myself an emo. What the hell is making INFPs different than me. I thought I had it pretty bad, and here I am wishing I could understand and help.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
3,166
MBTI Type
INFP
At the risk of sounding bombastic, I've always felt something like an alchemist with my issues. Confidence that boils out from within (only to die down again later). I've always somehow managed to transmute these problems into something more.. I could reshape myself if I wanted or needed to experience something new. Enough to even become somewhat popular and leader-like for awhile, then sinking back down, then up, etc.. To put another spin on this process: I went to some acting workshops in my 20's, and within a couple of weeks, the teacher told me that I didn't really need to stay around. "You're already an actor." She wanted me to go out on my own and just audition (ironically, I didn't have enough self-esteem with the reality of that). Point being that I could draw a lot of things out of myself, if necessary. Do any of you feel this way? Or are you consistently feeling low self-esteem? I also hear that INFPs (or Fi period?) are always trying to be "authentic". Do you never lie or channel characters or role models to cope (yes, I'm serious)? Or do you insist on feeling exactly what you feel at all times? Maybe that's the difference. Because personally, a lot of my more courageous moments required that I be completely full of it to get through something.. and in the process, kind of "live it", where it wasn't fake, but a new addition to my experiences.

I know what you are talking about. It's like if I am given a leadership role, I think of it exactly like that, it is a role and not in conflict with my real self. I assume that people know it is a role, and won't think of me as a hypocrite or fake, or something. I can change myself into many different roles, kinda talk myself into having some set of thoughts in the situation, it is very much like acting for me. But this is not something I can keep up. That's why I wouldn't be a good leader every day from nine to five. I can do it for a time, but my real self is by far easier for me. It can even feel like I am sacrificing something to change into the person I need to become. So, I don't do it for nothing, I need to feel there is a reason for the "sacrifice".
 

musicnerd93

New member
Joined
Apr 19, 2010
Messages
249
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
What would cause an INFP to have low self esteem?

Think of it as getting arrested: "Anything you (the non-INFP) say can and will be used against you." :devil:

It all depends, really. I'm not sure quite how to describe it.
 

KDude

New member
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
8,243
I know what you are talking about. It's like if I am given a leadership role, I think of it exactly like that, it is a role and not in conflict with my real self. I assume that people know it is a role, and won't think of me as a hypocrite or fake, or something. I can change myself into many different roles, kinda talk myself into having some set of thoughts in the situation, it is very much like acting for me. But this is not something I can keep up. That's why I wouldn't be a good leader every day from nine to five. I can do it for a time, but my real self is by far easier for me. It can even feel like I am sacrificing something to change into the person I need to become. So, I don't do it for nothing, I need to feel there is a reason for the "sacrifice".

Yes.. sacrifice.. very good way to put it.

I'm mostly asking because I wasn't sure if INFPs got out of that state every once in awhile (Because I think I might be one, but I do get out of that state occassionally). In the example of auditioning that I used, that was definitely not worth the sacrifice for me. So I couldn't do it. Not to mention it was just a hobby, not something worth putting myself through too much humiliation for. It's funny though that I couldn't pull off the role required of "auditioning" (a role that might have led me to play a variety of better roles :D).
 

OrangeAppled

Sugar Hiccup
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
7,626
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
My executive summary would involve the fact that we tend to not fit into our environments as a child, which makes us feel like outsiders that have to straddle the line between fitting in and being ourselves.

Something like this :yes:

Not all INFPs or even most have low self-esteems though. Sometimes, a strong sense of humility is confused with low self-esteem. The INFP may see the accepted cultural practice to self promote as distasteful.

I know on job interviews, I have a hard time "talking myself up" - I feel like a braggart. I suppose it can come across to others that I don't feel confident in my abilities or even know what I am doing. I really have to clench my teeth and get through that BS, because to me, it just reeks of egotism. However, I DO see my good qualities and have a pretty positive view of myself overall, but I feel like these traits should stand on their own. Whenever I have to tell people about them or choose to tell people, I feel incredibly pretentious. I think part of it is also not knowing the appropriate way to communicate these positive feelings without being too intense (and intensity may seem arrogant in this situation) - that's Fe territory.

Interestingly, Gifts Differing says ISFPs are the Fi-dom more prone to low self-worth, or an exaggerated sense of humility. This is because they are sometimes more painfully aware of how much reality differs from their inner Fi ideals, and this may make them feel helpless.

Most Fi-doms experience invalidation as a child - someone tells you what you feel is wrong because its not what everyone else feels. This is often not directly told to you, but observed and noted when comparing others to yourself or from their response to you. Since what we feel IS who we are, it can amount to feeling worthless - you have no place in the world, you're defective, etc. You can start to believe the message that you don't make sense or don't have anything of value to offer the real world.

I was always a little too feisty for those feelings to take over as a kid, and I had a lot of positive reinforcement that countered the negative feedback. I definitely felt alienated, but I tended to celebrate being "unique" to cope with that. As a teen, I fell into the Fi-Si loop for awhile (probably due to exaggerated teenage emotions); I was focusing on negative past experiences and feelings to the point where it affected my self-esteem. I withdrew from people, to reject them before they could reject me. However, as an adult I don't find myself in that mindset very often at all.
 

Southern Kross

Away with the fairies
Joined
Dec 22, 2008
Messages
2,910
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
Something like this :yes:

Not all INFPs or even most have low self-esteems though. Sometimes, a strong sense of humility is confused with low self-esteem. The INFP may see the accepted cultural practice to self promote as distasteful.

I know on job interviews, I have a hard time "talking myself up" - I feel like a braggart. I suppose it can come across to others that I don't feel confident in my abilities or even know what I am doing. I really have to clench my teeth and get through that BS, because to me, it just reeks of egotism. However, I DO see my good qualities and have a pretty positive view of myself overall, but I feel like these traits should stand on their own. Whenever I have to tell people about them or choose to tell people, I feel incredibly pretentious. I think part of it is also not knowing the appropriate way to communicate these positive feelings without being too intense (and intensity may seem arrogant in this situation) - that's Fe territory.
Yeah I totally identify with this; the whole fear of coming off in the wrong way and going to great lengths to counteract the misinterpretation before it even occurs (if it was to happen at all).

I think it also comes from the perfectionistic aspect. Anything I do or create I view with a highly critical eye, to the point where I only see flaws. In my eyes, the positives are simply rendered irrelevant by the mere existence of imperfections. This can give the impression of my being insecure and inept when its actually the impossibly high standards I have for myself. I can't talk myself up for this reason because not matter how great I am at something, I feel I could be better and that completely distracts my attentions.
 

Synapse

New member
Joined
Dec 29, 2007
Messages
3,359
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4
Due to our very nature of thinking and feeling in a baffling way to what constitutes safe for beings of physicality, we are in many ways removed from the processes that create our worlds very early on in our childhoods towards ones that don't fit into our experiences well. As such we are seeing through other peoples eyes rather than our own, we are being told off that our experiences are invalid and that other peoples experiences must be adopted in order to live as a functioning member of society.

We are basically switching off the aspects that are most necessary for us to feel safe. And then trust goes in our abilities as would the internal integrity and instead of believing in our selves we start to go inward, believe we are inferior for thinking and imagining the way we do because everybody else says so in our lives. When this becomes a reinforcing experience would self belief be an inherently INFP characteristic, no.

Would self esteem and assertion then be our validation into what we know and trust, no. Instead our spiral into self doubt, chameleon like adaptability, indeed, low self esteem and anxieties sky rocket. For then we have lost our identity what it means to be at the leading edge of who we are and who we are is great. Except we are people pleasers and as people pleasers we tend to accommodate others before ourselves.
 

KDude

New member
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
8,243
Yeah I totally identify with this; the whole fear of coming off in the wrong way and going to great lengths to counteract the misinterpretation before it even occurs (if it was to happen at all).

I think it also comes from the perfectionistic aspect. Anything I do or create I view with a highly critical eye, to the point where I only see flaws. In my eyes, the positives are simply rendered irrelevant by the mere existence of imperfections. This can give the impression of my being insecure and inept when its actually the impossibly high standards I have for myself. I can't talk myself up for this reason because not matter how great I am at something, I feel I could be better and that completely distracts my attentions.

I hate talking myself up too.. it's a bit obnoxious. But then.. for whatever reason, I realize that the laws of the world are cruel and suppressive to that ideal. I see a future where it just persists, and nothing happens, nothing changes. That's enough to kick me out of it sometimes.. So I try to detach a little, promote something, and make an effort.

It also helps when the people ignoring you are being idiots. Perhaps the problem with some INFPs is wanting to believe nobody is an idiot - but they are unfortunately. The higher ideal is to break inner harmony and pity a fool. To not think of it as "competitiveness" but as "education".

Too much of this though will make you lose your soul, I'm sure. ;) I haven't been doing it myself for awhile..
 

OrangeAppled

Sugar Hiccup
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
7,626
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Yeah I totally identify with this; the whole fear of coming off in the wrong way and going to great lengths to counteract the misinterpretation before it even occurs (if it was to happen at all).

I think it also comes from the perfectionistic aspect. Anything I do or create I view with a highly critical eye, to the point where I only see flaws. In my eyes, the positives are simply rendered irrelevant by the mere existence of imperfections. This can give the impression of my being insecure and inept when its actually the impossibly high standards I have for myself. I can't talk myself up for this reason because not matter how great I am at something, I feel I could be better and that completely distracts my attentions.

Yes, good point. We have such high ideals, we cannot even meet them, so we're our own worst critics. It's hard to act like you're so great when your flaws are glaringly clear to yourself.

I sometimes fear that if I talk about something I have done in a positive way, the other person will see the flaws that I see, and then it will appear that I am all talk. I'd rather downplay it and let them see the value on their own....
 

William K

Uniqueorn
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
986
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
Good points raised above regarding childhood and humility.

A couple of other thoughts
- INFPs tend not to meet the mainstream definitions of success in life. I don't mean we don't have dreams of being successful, but we do tend to be less materialistic about it. Hence there are times when I look at my former classmates and see how successful they are, and feel like I'm a failure.
- We also have a richer (but not necessarily more accurate) inner world so that is the ideal we are comparing with to measure our success, and as has been said above, we don't meet those standards often.
- There is also the whole thing about being praised and being the centre of attention. I like it when other people notice what I've said/done and tell me so, but at the same time I'm not comfortable pushing myself out there. It's a real conundrum, this craving for validation yet not wanting to ask for it for fear of being inauthentic. I guess it's because we don't do things that are important to us in half-measures. When we put ourselves on the line for something (like commenting in a thread), we go all in so anything we perceive as an 'attack', no matter how minor, will hurt like hell.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
3,166
MBTI Type
INFP
I know on job interviews, I have a hard time "talking myself up" - I feel like a braggart. I suppose it can come across to others that I don't feel confident in my abilities or even know what I am doing. I really have to clench my teeth and get through that BS, because to me, it just reeks of egotism. However, I DO see my good qualities and have a pretty positive view of myself overall, but I feel like these traits should stand on their own. Whenever I have to tell people about them or choose to tell people, I feel incredibly pretentious. I think part of it is also not knowing the appropriate way to communicate these positive feelings without being too intense (and intensity may seem arrogant in this situation) - that's Fe territory.

I think it also comes from the perfectionistic aspect. Anything I do or create I view with a highly critical eye, to the point where I only see flaws. In my eyes, the positives are simply rendered irrelevant by the mere existence of imperfections. This can give the impression of my being insecure and inept when its actually the impossibly high standards I have for myself. I can't talk myself up for this reason because not matter how great I am at something, I feel I could be better and that completely distracts my attentions.

Yeah, these issues continue to cause trouble for me...
 

Seymour

Vaguely Precise
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
1,579
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Yes, good point. We have such high ideals, we cannot even meet them, so we're our own worst critics. It's hard to act like you're so great when your flaws are glaringly clear to yourself.

I sometimes fear that if I talk about something I have done in a positive way, the other person will see the flaws that I see, and then it will appear that I am all talk. I'd rather downplay it and let them see the value on their own....

Definitely that and I also agree with your previous post about hating to talk myself up. I do tend to have high standards, and focus on the flaws of anything I've done rather than seeing the positive aspects. Cutting myself slack and giving myself due credit is an ongoing effort. And since Fi is turned inward by definition, I think we judge more internally than externally.

Also Ne tends to see infinite possibility which reality always falls far short of. Ne's vision of potential combined with Fi's exacting nature can make for a pattern of seeings one's efforts always fall short of the imagined perfection.

I think for me, personally, those trends were exacerbated by growing up an INFP in a culture that didn't understand or support my strengths. When one gets judged for one's weaknesses without acknowledgement of one's strengths, it's all too easy to try to adopt the same standards out of practicality alone (since one's internal values aren't getting one anywhere). Then one can become effectively blind to one's own strengths as one tries to force oneself to fit an external mold.

So I suspect I'm not alone in having that experience, since the strengths of Fi are not those valued and expected early in life. We tend to focus early on matters of internal feeling that many people don't become aware of until the second half of life.

Of course, it's also true that any type can grow up in an environment that doesn't appreciate their strengths. And no matter what our strengths are, we all have to make it in the real world and deal with what's there.

Hope that doesn't sound like whining about being an INFP or claiming that we have it rougher than anyone else. We have lots of great strengths, too, but being easy on ourselves isn't necessarily one of them.
 
Top