OrangeAppled
Sugar Hiccup
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2009
- Messages
- 7,626
- MBTI Type
- INFP
- Enneagram
- 4w5
- Instinctual Variant
- sp/sx
^ I have gotten the "snob" thing since I was a teen, but there is also a gulf between how people read me and how I feel.
I would agree that 4s may be read as "I think I am better", but that's not necessarily how we feel about ourselves. I was surprised at that feedback too because it wasn't how I experienced things. Lots of other people sharing an opinion of how you appear is not truth about who you actually are, positive or negative. However, adjusting yourself to not be misunderstood is wise, yes.
And the clinging to certain areas where one feels some strength - that's a compensatory identity. Often, it is an ideal self born out of true strengths, but you give yourself a way too high standard so that you are sure to fall short. The 4 is the masochistic type after all. And envy may not be a problem if you were more realistic....you must compare yourself to extraordinary people, not peers.
Personally, my sense of self as a child was based on feedback from others. I was the arty smart girl because people told me so from a young age. I had other evidence in terms of awards and grades and whatever. Like many 4s, I didn't feel confident enough about any of it to pursue actual accomplishments. I was inhibited by shame. Instead I shrunk away and lived in a fantasy world where I could be whoever I want. The gulf between the ideal self (aka higher potential) and real self gets wider when 4s do this, but I don't think the ideal self is all based on self-delusion; it may simply blow real strengths to crazy proportions so you never can meet it.
I also believed I was cold and uncaring because people told me that, even though it was not how I felt either. Introjection is a 4 problem, and it's both positive and negative messages. The identity is rather unstable because of it. You swing between elitism and inferiority, but even under the elitism is a sense inferiority because of the gap between the ideal and the real self; even if your real self is awesome but you cannot see it because of the envious longing for something much greater.
I would agree that 4s may be read as "I think I am better", but that's not necessarily how we feel about ourselves. I was surprised at that feedback too because it wasn't how I experienced things. Lots of other people sharing an opinion of how you appear is not truth about who you actually are, positive or negative. However, adjusting yourself to not be misunderstood is wise, yes.
And the clinging to certain areas where one feels some strength - that's a compensatory identity. Often, it is an ideal self born out of true strengths, but you give yourself a way too high standard so that you are sure to fall short. The 4 is the masochistic type after all. And envy may not be a problem if you were more realistic....you must compare yourself to extraordinary people, not peers.
Personally, my sense of self as a child was based on feedback from others. I was the arty smart girl because people told me so from a young age. I had other evidence in terms of awards and grades and whatever. Like many 4s, I didn't feel confident enough about any of it to pursue actual accomplishments. I was inhibited by shame. Instead I shrunk away and lived in a fantasy world where I could be whoever I want. The gulf between the ideal self (aka higher potential) and real self gets wider when 4s do this, but I don't think the ideal self is all based on self-delusion; it may simply blow real strengths to crazy proportions so you never can meet it.
I also believed I was cold and uncaring because people told me that, even though it was not how I felt either. Introjection is a 4 problem, and it's both positive and negative messages. The identity is rather unstable because of it. You swing between elitism and inferiority, but even under the elitism is a sense inferiority because of the gap between the ideal and the real self; even if your real self is awesome but you cannot see it because of the envious longing for something much greater.