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[ISTP] Unhealthy ISTP

Poki

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OK, you got me. I don't know how much she endured or if I could endure more if in the same situation. My J was coming out in that post- should have known that would get me a little hassled on a SP forum. :cheese:
:devil:

I guess I'm just against divorce. Nobody in my family has ever gotten a divorce, out of grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. I know that people can work things out in a marriage, even though it's not always easy. (If someone is being abused, though, or their spouse has seemingly intractable addiction issues, that's another matter.)

Just because you get a divorce doesnt mean your not against it nor does it mean your against marriage. It is very complicated especially with kids involved. I realize you are an idealistic, but sometimes people get to focused on an ideal that they dont see the damage being done in the process. You get so focused on what "should be" you dont see "what is". You become so close and intimate with the situation you forget to step back and see the big picture.
 

phoenity

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What I hate is not being able to use a concrete term for what I want to describe. "Purple" may describe the taste, but there's a BETTER word for it and I struggle with my own brain to give it to me.

Interesting! Could that be back-to-back interplay between Se and Ni?

Possibly!

I think I can relate to you in the opposite direction.

Sometimes I will see a face, and I get this strong gut feeling that I have seen that face before, yet my mind struggles trying to remember where I've seen this face.
 

jixmixfix

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Ni is a strange animal. My INFJ father and I were sitting in the doctor's office a few months ago. He was chatting with me to take my mind off the 60+ needles being jabbed into my arms. We were talking about introverted Intuition, and he said it reminded him concretely of "Slaughterhouse Five". Jumping from one moment to the next, creating a spider web of connections between seemingly disjointed items. At another appt, he and I wound up talking about John Wayne movies with my INTJ doctor. It got rather existential with all of that unfettered Ni flying around.

I'm always astonished where my Ni will drag me.



Sure, why not! :D





I can answer both of these at once, I think.

In my auto garage, there was an INTP genius. He and I had dated. There was also my laid-back ISTP best friend (who liked INTP and went everywhere with my group). But there was also (in a rival group) another ISTP mechanic that I got entangled with. He was obviously not an N primary, but it was very high tertiary N, and it made him terribly neurotic and maladaptive (drug/substance addictions) at points. He was really smart and shrewd, played his cards close to his chest, was good with his hands, but wanted way more than what was in front of his eyes. He had a level of physical confidence too that seems to exert itself more strongly in Se users. When he was coming on to me, I knew he wasn't just playing around with an idea. It was serious business.

When I looked into INTP's eyes, I could see a brilliant but immaterial human being. When I looked into ISTP's eyes, it was sometimes human, sometimes animal, flickering back and forth madly.

Then there's the irritatingly vague Fe/Ni remark of "the vibe was different".



What I hate is not being able to use a concrete term for what I want to describe. "Purple" may describe the taste, but there's a BETTER word for it and I struggle with my own brain to give it to me.



Interesting! Could that be back-to-back interplay between Se and Ni?

You always point out the most interesting insights that I can completely understand but can never really describe it in words fully. When I'm coming on to a girl I tend to have that "animal" consuming kind of feel/look, more so passionate and serious than playful. hah Quick question wouldn't most ISTP's find ENFJ's (and vise versa) somewhat repulsive due to our functions being completely opposite?
 

Domino

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Possibly!

I think I can relate to you in the opposite direction.

Sometimes I will see a face, and I get this strong gut feeling that I have seen that face before, yet my mind struggles trying to remember where I've seen this face.

Oh, man, I hate it when that happens! I can only speak for myself, but when I can't place something, my brain goes mad, coughing up all sorts of images and scenarios, like a police computer washing a photo through a criminal database.

This may be a weird correlation, but I saw this man who'd inherited a piece of Amelia Earhart's Electra when it roughed itself up on a take-off and had to be serviced. This piece was taken to an exact carbon-copy replica of that Electra (which went down with Amelia into oblivion) and a woman who owned the copy took the piece and crawled all over the plane and ultimately found exactly where the piece would have fit on the original. My brain does that. Grabs a piece of information (a face, a voice, a familiar manner etc) and puzzles over it until the "right" match arrives and the mystery is dispelled.

My J doesn't allow for total mysteries to stand for long.

You always point out the most interesting insights that I can completely understand but can never really describe it in words fully.

Glad to hear it! :D


When I'm coming on to a girl I tend to have that "animal" consuming kind of feel/look, more so passionate and serious than playful.

You wacky ISTPs.

When I didn't know him, and he gave me his number, I initially resisted (my natural knee-jerk reaction in such situations) but he didn't seem put off or affronted in the least, like I'd come to my senses soon enough. lol I remember meeting him like it was yesterday because I was hunched over a hot engine with an ISFP girlfriend and she kept hissing under her breath, "DO NOT turn around... something is stalking you... and it's mighty fine looking."

hahhaha, good timez.


Quick question wouldn't most ISTP's find ENFJ's (and vise versa) somewhat repulsive due to our functions being completely opposite?

Could be, but not from my experience.

ISTPs are so open to everything in general that immediate or patent dismissal of things is somewhat of an anomaly. And as an ENFJ, I've never really experienced any friction on that front.

I've had several varieties of ISTP around me over the years, and they got sorted into three categories: grounded, semi-"neurotic" and "neurotic". (I don't mean "neurotic" to be bad or good... just a designation of what appears to be surges of strong intuition muddying the waters...).

The semi-neurotic and neurotic subtypes were the ones I wound up having entanglements with. I find the grounded ISTPs to be intimidating (but not off-putting). I stare and stare at them like a weird social scientist, picking apart their nuances until I get a cohesive picture of them. The world they inhabit is an astonishing place.

One of my friends from the garage, Blue - he and I were the only punks/fringe people there. He had blue hair (mine was hot pink, or striped) and wore skater clothes. He and I got paired up a lot because he was really good with mechanical things, and was easy to work with. He was droll but hysterical, so he was always doing something silly to make me laugh. Like I said, he sprung me from my snow-bound house the day after a blizzard. Handy guy! I also remember him being especially nice to me when I came back to the garage after a long jag of being ill (onset of what I'm handling even now). I knew we were friends when he stuck around after a lecture, picked up my stuff without being asked and walked with me in silence to the garage.

I have an odd aside. My mother was watching wrestling (I spoke to JAVO about this recently) the other night and this guy was on, Randy Orton, who is so ISTP it's not even funny. It's all male soap opera, of course, which is over the top and hilarious, but beyond the cartoony stuff, I kept staring at the guy because he had this REALLY animal, primal way of moving. It was eerie to look at. My sister was walking by, stopped and remarked on the same thing, that it was like looking at an animal moving around. That level of being in your body, personal ownership I mean, and being unconscious of it is alien to me. I sometimes find it almost frightening, though that's not the word I want.

C.S. Lewis describes the eerie feeling as being a person who's never seen a tiger and is told there's one in the room next door. The feeling isn't fear, it isn't thrilled, it isn't happy or freaked out. It's this intangible, elevated awareness of something next door that could be and do anything. It's that strange pall that hangs over a very very old place, where people have left their mark for centuries and you feel the residue of all those minds and hands and souls.

When my ISTP bff and I rebuilt his old Camaro, the first night he took me out in it, we went to a deserted back stretch of climbing twisting road. He got out, gave me the keys, got into the passenger seat, and told me to romp it. I felt a sort of sensation that I still can't define. The car had gone from fast to warp speed. He used to leave his keys in certain spots in his car, so sometimes he'd come outside after work or school and find her missing (courtesy of me or Jaye) which he found funny. I had a lot of stick time with that car and felt comfortable with it, but after the transplant, she'd gone into realms of power (and I mean CONNECTING power, not tire spinning) that I was very aware that she was possibly beyond me now in her upper registers.

ISTPs are like that. The ones that figure out how to put the power to the ground are like nothing I've ever seen, except maybe ESTPs. I don't fear them or get repelled. I just feel the automatic prompt to never underestimate them.
 

jixmixfix

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Could be, but not from my experience.

ISTPs are so open to everything in general that immediate or patent dismissal of things is somewhat of an anomaly. And as an ENFJ, I've never really experienced any friction on that front.

I've had several varieties of ISTP around me over the years, and they got sorted into three categories: grounded, semi-"neurotic" and "neurotic". (I don't mean "neurotic" to be bad or good... just a designation of what appears to be surges of strong intuition muddying the waters...).

The semi-neurotic and neurotic subtypes were the ones I wound up having entanglements with. I find the grounded ISTPs to be intimidating (but not off-putting). I stare and stare at them like a weird social scientist, picking apart their nuances until I get a cohesive picture of them. The world they inhabit is an astonishing place.

One of my friends from the garage, Blue - he and I were the only punks/fringe people there. He had blue hair (mine was hot pink, or striped) and wore skater clothes. He and I got paired up a lot because he was really good with mechanical things, and was easy to work with. He was droll but hysterical, so he was always doing something silly to make me laugh. Like I said, he sprung me from my snow-bound house the day after a blizzard. Handy guy! I also remember him being especially nice to me when I came back to the garage after a long jag of being ill (onset of what I'm handling even now). I knew we were friends when he stuck around after a lecture, picked up my stuff without being asked and walked with me in silence to the garage.

I have an odd aside. My mother was watching wrestling (I spoke to JAVO about this recently) the other night and this guy was on, Randy Orton, who is so ISTP it's not even funny. It's all male soap opera, of course, which is over the top and hilarious, but beyond the cartoony stuff, I kept staring at the guy because he had this REALLY animal, primal way of moving. It was eerie to look at. My sister was walking by, stopped and remarked on the same thing, that it was like looking at an animal moving around. That level of being in your body, personal ownership I mean, and being unconscious of it is alien to me. I sometimes find it almost frightening, though that's not the word I want.

C.S. Lewis describes the eerie feeling as being a person who's never seen a tiger and is told there's one in the room next door. The feeling isn't fear, it isn't thrilled, it isn't happy or freaked out. It's this intangible, elevated awareness of something next door that could be and do anything. It's that strange pall that hangs over a very very old place, where people have left their mark for centuries and you feel the residue of all those minds and hands and souls.

When my ISTP bff and I rebuilt his old Camaro, the first night he took me out in it, we went to a deserted back stretch of climbing twisting road. He got out, gave me the keys, got into the passenger seat, and told me to romp it. I felt a sort of sensation that I still can't define. The car had gone from fast to warp speed. He used to leave his keys in certain spots in his car, so sometimes he'd come outside after work or school and find her missing (courtesy of me or Jaye) which he found funny. I had a lot of stick time with that car and felt comfortable with it, but after the transplant, she'd gone into realms of power (and I mean CONNECTING power, not tire spinning) that I was very aware that she was possibly beyond me now in her upper registers.

ISTPs are like that. The ones that figure out how to put the power to the ground are like nothing I've ever seen, except maybe ESTPs. I don't fear them or get repelled. I just feel the automatic prompt to never underestimate them.

LOL I was at my good buddy's(ENFP) brothers(ISFP) birthday party last night. After about 10 shots of Jamaican Rum and tequila my neurotic side really came out.LOL I Kept picking at and making fun of my other buddies girlfriend(she seemed like an ESFJ he was ESTP). Her prissiness got me so damn annoyed, and I just kept on being a jerk/breaking her balls haha. My ENFP buddy who introduced me to socionics was like "Dude your Fe is like down to 0 right now, (which was very true)" I tend to be either a sheep or a lion it's quite hilarious. Especially when I'm drunk my Fe literally becomes non-existent.I also tend to act very ESTP. It got pretty intense lol but surprisingly everyone was cool/drunk/high so nobody cared.
 

Domino

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When you aren't lit, how do you respond to things that annoy you?
 

Domino

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A perhaps odd question:

Every ISTP I've ever met - at least the boys, though my ISTP girlfriend is also quite the rebel/independent agent - has had trouble accepting authority on some level. I know several that were in the military and wound up creating chaos in the structure. I tend to view authority as something I tolerate because it suits my designs - like just gritting your teeth and dealing with a really bad/stupid teacher or employer. The ones I can't tolerate are usually tyrants and I wind up going toe to toe with them whether I want to or not. I can't count how many times I found myself battling my way through another coup, and hating every minute of it.

Even the "nice" ISTPs I knew tended to be up to their necks in some manner of conspiracy, trouble, or drama.

Are SPs more likely to resist authority or structure just by nature?
 

jixmixfix

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A perhaps odd question:

Every ISTP I've ever met - at least the boys, though my ISTP girlfriend is also quite the rebel/independent agent - has had trouble accepting authority on some level. I know several that were in the military and wound up creating chaos in the structure. I tend to view authority as something I tolerate because it suits my designs - like just gritting your teeth and dealing with a really bad/stupid teacher or employer. The ones I can't tolerate are usually tyrants and I wind up going toe to toe with them whether I want to or not. I can't count how many times I found myself battling my way through another coup, and hating every minute of it.

Even the "nice" ISTPs I knew tended to be up to their necks in some manner of conspiracy, trouble, or drama.

Are SPs more likely to resist authority or structure just by nature?

Not an Odd question I think the need for SP's independence creates this rebellion against authority. Once that independence is no longer there Sp's tend to rebel. This is because SP's usually live in the moment and find it harder to make sacrifices in the present to compromise the future. The ability to see the bigger picture isn't there and SP's prefer a "quick fix" in order to break free. Again it's not a matter of rebellion for the sake of rebellion but a matter of freedom and personal growth.Like that beastie boys song "you gottta fight for the rightt to partttyyyyyyy!"haha
 

Domino

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(You did not just quote the Beastie Boys! lol! Tisk tisk!)

In that same vein, and again perhaps an exclusively strange NF question, are you aware that you're in the present moment and NOT in the future?

I'm everywhere at once, and I'm very rarely "aware" that I'm doing this. Being present seems to naturally bring on awareness of it, or is that a wrong assessment?
 

jixmixfix

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(You did not just quote the Beastie Boys! lol! Tisk tisk!)

In that same vein, and again perhaps an exclusively strange NF question, are you aware that you're in the present moment and NOT in the future?

I'm everywhere at once, and I'm very rarely "aware" that I'm doing this. Being present seems to naturally bring on awareness of it, or is that a wrong assessment?

I'm usually aware but it's not always the case..I get out of touch with reality at times and my Ti kinda takes over."Could be the antagonizing high N". For the most part though I gain the most satisfaction from being in the moment, not thinking about anything else, just doing.
 

Domino

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Must be nice. :-\ I get tired of sloshing around sometimes.
 

Domino

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Nice, you should turn your closet into a home theater :popc1:

hahah! :D There's a thought! I have a picture of my closet up on my profile, so I clearly have some major cleaning up to do beforehand. :doh: Not to mention that there are things in the bottom of it that I can't remember. I know all of my mechanicking gear is buried in there, along with my motorcycle helmet and 15 years worth of journals. :shock:

The sloshing seems to be a constant, gets stronger or weaker in cycles. I get only bursts of "present" tense. The rest of the time, I'm experiencing you in a past and future life with passages through the present moment. Sometimes I look at Ni like watching spark plugs ignite in Fe flashes in an engine. The Se is necessary for the big boom, of course.
 

phoenity

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(You did not just quote the Beastie Boys! lol! Tisk tisk!)

In that same vein, and again perhaps an exclusively strange NF question, are you aware that you're in the present moment and NOT in the future?

I'm everywhere at once, and I'm very rarely "aware" that I'm doing this. Being present seems to naturally bring on awareness of it, or is that a wrong assessment?


I'm aware of the present as I interact with it, it being my immediate environment, everything I can sense. Recently I've discovered I can feel more present by actually not doing anything at all, just existing in the moment, where I'm only paying attention to the senses coming in, and not thinking.

Doing requires sensing + thinking, and sometimes intuition. Being requires only sensing. Being = tranquility.


There are times when I get in my head, I let go of my grip on the present moment, and I'm thinking of the past and future, exploring my weak imagination. I'm no longer thinking about senses from my immediate environment, but rather events from the past about things I've learned and experienced, or intuitions into the future of how an idea might work out or visions of a situation occurring at a time that has yet to come. These visions are never as real as the moments I sense. They occur to me as very vague general ideas, lacking a lot of the detail that I sense from the present. I could never paint a picture from my head with as much detail as I could paint if were actually looking at what I was painting.

Since my thinking into the past or future always appears so vague and blurred, I tend to want to stay in the present. It's like the present is a more natural, comfortable place for me to be, my grounding anchor, so I can rely on being there and trust that it is exactly what I sense it to be, instead of traveling through time in my mind not being sure what things are.



So, I'm very curious to hear from the other side. How do you go about traveling through time in your mind, the sloshing that you described?
 

Poki

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I'm aware of the present as I interact with it, it being my immediate environment, everything I can sense. Recently I've discovered I can feel more present by actually not doing anything at all, just existing in the moment, where I'm only paying attention to the senses coming in, and not thinking.

Doing requires sensing + thinking, and sometimes intuition. Being requires only sensing. Being = tranquility.


There are times when I get in my head, I let go of my grip on the present moment, and I'm thinking of the past and future, exploring my weak imagination. I'm no longer thinking about senses from my immediate environment, but rather events from the past about things I've learned and experienced, or intuitions into the future of how an idea might work out or visions of a situation occurring at a time that has yet to come. These visions are never as real as the moments I sense. They occur to me as very vague general ideas, lacking a lot of the detail that I sense from the present. I could never paint a picture from my head with as much detail as I could paint if were actually looking at what I was painting.

Since my thinking into the past or future always appears so vague and blurred, I tend to want to stay in the present. It's like the present is a more natural, comfortable place for me to be, my grounding anchor, so I can rely on being there and trust that it is exactly what I sense it to be, instead of traveling through time in my mind not being sure what things are.



So, I'm very curious to hear from the other side. How do you go about traveling through time in your mind, the sloshing that you described?

To me tranquility is boring, I enjoy being in thought or action. I like challenges and get really bored without them. I have tried just sitting and watching life, but I always end up thinking about things or people in my life. To get out of that I need a physical challenge, if I go running down the road I end up in thought, but if I go running over rocks I can no longer be in thought or I will trip and fall. I have to be in the moment to sense the slightest movement of the rocks so I dont trip and fall. To me that is fun, its a constant challenge because you never know what is gonna change under your foot. As I get better I get faster and more careless to keep the challenge exciting. My wife says I have a hidden crazy dare devil side. It comes out when I am by myself, I am not trying to impress anyone so I dont feel the urge to push myself beyond what I can do. Its the challenge that makes me constantly push myself past what I am capable of. I dont need any goals in life, because its the challenge I strive for and enjoy, not the goal.

My uncle talks alot about what a perfect life would be like, and it is usually off on his own where he can just be. I think of a life where there is always something challenging. Where there is always something to do to push myself beyond what I can do. All my toys revolve around this concept, they support me pushing myself to become faster, stronger, and smarter.
 

phoenity

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To me tranquility is boring, I enjoy being in thought or action. I like challenges and get really bored without them. I have tried just sitting and watching life, but I always end up thinking about things or people in my life. To get out of that I need a physical challenge, if I go running down the road I end up in thought, but if I go running over rocks I can no longer be in thought or I will trip and fall. I have to be in the moment to sense the slightest movement of the rocks so I dont trip and fall. To me that is fun, its a constant challenge because you never know what is gonna change under your foot. As I get better I get faster and more careless to keep the challenge exciting. My wife says I have a hidden crazy dare devil side. It comes out when I am by myself, I am not trying to impress anyone so I dont feel the urge to push myself beyond what I can do. Its the challenge that makes me constantly push myself past what I am capable of. I dont need any goals in life, because its the challenge I strive for and enjoy, not the goal.

My uncle talks alot about what a perfect life would be like, and it is usually off on his own where he can just be. I think of a life where there is always something challenging. Where there is always something to do to push myself beyond what I can do. All my toys revolve around this concept, they support me pushing myself to become faster, stronger, and smarter.

I perfectly understand what you mean by this.

I enjoy challenges and interacting with my environment, otherwise I would get bored. My ESTP brother and I used to cause quite a bit of trouble when we were younger simply because we were bored.

So as much as I enjoy the intensity of my interaction, I also enjoy the opposite end of that spectrum just as much.

I enjoy doing, but it's the non-doing that allows me to recharge from doing. I have to have both in order to feel a sense of balance.

From my own personal experience, too much doing eventually led to an extended burnout period where I then didn't do enough doing that led to too much time spent in my head.


An example would be the mountain view in my avatar that I climb up to regularly. I enjoy the challenge of pushing myself to ascend to the top as fast as possible, trying to do it faster than I did the time before. Once I get to the top and my challenge is over, doing is no longer the objective. So I spend an hour or however long I please just being up there and my focus is only on enjoying my senses. Doing comes again when I run down the backside.
 

Poki

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I perfectly understand what you mean by this.

I enjoy challenges and interacting with my environment, otherwise I would get bored. My ESTP brother and I used to cause quite a bit of trouble when we were younger simply because we were bored.

So as much as I enjoy the intensity of my interaction, I also enjoy the opposite end of that spectrum just as much.

I enjoy doing, but it's the non-doing that allows me to recharge from doing. I have to have both in order to feel balanced and healthy.


An example would be the mountain view in my avatar that I climb up regularly. I enjoy the challenge of pushing myself to ascend to the top as fast as possible, trying to do it faster than I did the time before. Once I get to the top and my challenge is over, doing is no longer the objective. So I spend an hour or however long I please just being up there and enjoying the view. Doing comes again when I run down the backside.

To me recharging is listening to other people talk while doing nothing. Its relaxing. One time that I can think of is the other weekend laying in a pool listening to my wife and my cousins talk. Not visualy focusing on anything, just laying on something floating listening to people talk. Not being expected to say or do anything, just listening.
 

phoenity

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To me recharging is listening to other people talk while doing nothing. Its relaxing. One time that I can think of is the other weekend laying in a pool listening to my wife and my cousins talk. Not visualy focusing on anything, just laying on something floating listening to people talk. Not being expected to say or do anything, just listening.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! Just being.

There are no requirements for being. It just involves sensing what is going on in the immediate present moment, and not thinking or doing anything else. If other people happen to be in your environment, then that's what it is. Isn't it a great feeling that you can be with people yet not be expected to say or do something?


That example reminds me of my relationship with an ENTP best friend. He loves to talk to whomever will listen. That's his preferred form of interaction, sharing and expressing his endless stream of thoughts and ideas.

So we hang out with a few others and he talks for hours and I don't do anything but listen for the most part.


However, my most intense recharging comes from being in environments where there is very little going on.
 
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