cattywample
New member
- Joined
- May 30, 2009
- Messages
- 41
- MBTI Type
- eNFP
(Edit: Woops, typo in the title. Make that *STJ.)
As I mentioned in my post title, I'm an ENFP who grew up in a heavily xSTJ environment.
First, a quick personal story about me and my family. As a heads up, this issue is a very sensitive one for me, so I'm probably going to come across as wounded and subjective. I apologize for this in advance. :/
While my family (all strongly xSTJ individuals) is filled with good people who mean well and who supported me financially while I was an adolescent, we disagree on everything from ethics to what kinds of behavior we find publicly acceptable. Moreover, we disagree to a great extent over whether it's better to be practical and truthful, or emotionally supportive. (I prefer emotional support over criticism, but when I try to express this I get head-tilts and side-eyes all over the place. There's just no consideration of my feelings, or the idea of treating people kindly first, and criticizing second. They see what I'd consider being kind as coddling me and withholding the truth.) When I'm with my family, I always end up feeling ganged up on, and I hate it because when I'm ganged up on I get combative and angry and I really dislike feeling that way. My emotions are also usually treated as either irrational or an overreaction, regardless of what I'm upset about. (My father's response to a period of my life when I was very depressed was to call me "disturbed". Despite his own tendency towards depression and anger, he doesn't seem to understand displays of strong emotion as anything but unwanted/signals of mental instability.)
Through no fault of my family's, I grew up feeling very isolated, alone, and like the person I am and the thoughts I have are wrong and fundamentally unacceptable. I grew to be afraid of showing and offering public displays of affection, all the while craving them deeply. I clung to belief that something was wrong with me until I was 22 (I'm 23 now) wherein I started to accept my identity and depend less upon my parents' perceptions of me as markers of objective truth. To be clear, their criticism and general dismissal of important parts of my identity do still affect me sometimes, but I've learned to consider my viewpoint valid and dismiss their worldviews as ideas that work perfectly well for them-- but not for me.
So, anyway, my personal story aside, have any other xNFPs experienced something like this? How did you/do you cope with it? Is there a way for an xNFx in an overwhelmingly xSTJ family to coexist peacefully with people who don't appreciate (and fundamentally don't understand) xNFx "free-spirited"ness in whatever ways it expresses itself?
Thanks in advance to everyone who reads/responds to this. <3
As I mentioned in my post title, I'm an ENFP who grew up in a heavily xSTJ environment.
First, a quick personal story about me and my family. As a heads up, this issue is a very sensitive one for me, so I'm probably going to come across as wounded and subjective. I apologize for this in advance. :/
While my family (all strongly xSTJ individuals) is filled with good people who mean well and who supported me financially while I was an adolescent, we disagree on everything from ethics to what kinds of behavior we find publicly acceptable. Moreover, we disagree to a great extent over whether it's better to be practical and truthful, or emotionally supportive. (I prefer emotional support over criticism, but when I try to express this I get head-tilts and side-eyes all over the place. There's just no consideration of my feelings, or the idea of treating people kindly first, and criticizing second. They see what I'd consider being kind as coddling me and withholding the truth.) When I'm with my family, I always end up feeling ganged up on, and I hate it because when I'm ganged up on I get combative and angry and I really dislike feeling that way. My emotions are also usually treated as either irrational or an overreaction, regardless of what I'm upset about. (My father's response to a period of my life when I was very depressed was to call me "disturbed". Despite his own tendency towards depression and anger, he doesn't seem to understand displays of strong emotion as anything but unwanted/signals of mental instability.)
Through no fault of my family's, I grew up feeling very isolated, alone, and like the person I am and the thoughts I have are wrong and fundamentally unacceptable. I grew to be afraid of showing and offering public displays of affection, all the while craving them deeply. I clung to belief that something was wrong with me until I was 22 (I'm 23 now) wherein I started to accept my identity and depend less upon my parents' perceptions of me as markers of objective truth. To be clear, their criticism and general dismissal of important parts of my identity do still affect me sometimes, but I've learned to consider my viewpoint valid and dismiss their worldviews as ideas that work perfectly well for them-- but not for me.
So, anyway, my personal story aside, have any other xNFPs experienced something like this? How did you/do you cope with it? Is there a way for an xNFx in an overwhelmingly xSTJ family to coexist peacefully with people who don't appreciate (and fundamentally don't understand) xNFx "free-spirited"ness in whatever ways it expresses itself?
Thanks in advance to everyone who reads/responds to this. <3