Tabula
New member
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2010
- Messages
- 302
- MBTI Type
- IxFx
- Enneagram
- 9w1
- Instinctual Variant
- so/sx
In order to have a personality type, does it not implicitly necessitate the presence of a PERSONALITY to type?
personality-
Psychology .
a.
the sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual.
[One of many definitions from Dictionary.com]
What if I don’t really think [about X]? What if I don’t DO anything at all? What if I have no interests, talents, or tendencies (aside from being characterized entirely by inertia?) I haven’t any friends, nor do I feel at a loss because of it. It’s difficult for me to figure my interaction style, as I don’t interact. I don’t hold any opinions, goals, or ambitions. Regarding intelligence and potential, I fall somewhere below average. I’m not being negative; this is realistic, and as honest and objective an assessment of myself I can possibly muster. As for emotions and feeling, I don’t KNOW what I’m feeling at any given moment. It takes something quite extreme to cause a reaction enough for me to recognize that I am, indeed, feeling something. The only feeling (of which I’m in a constant state regardless of environment, and therefore regard more as a trait than an emotional tendency) is anxiety. I’m afraid of everything, more specifically, humiliating myself by being seen as, or actually being, stupid and not knowing what I’m doing. I’ve always needed to know exactly how to do something, or have a complete understanding of it, before I could feel comfortable trying/saying/explaining/demonstrating it. I’ve had serious trouble reconciling this fear bearing in mind the fact that I know I’m not intelligent, and therefore CAN’T ever adequately understand anything at the depth required of me to feel comfortable and thus eradicate the fear. (Paradox? Maybe. Irrational? Definitely.) This, I guess, coupled with the fact that I haven’t allowed myself to try things, and essentially shielded myself from everything (by way of living as a hermit through my formative years) manifested in me a frank inability to deal with the world in any real way. I’ve infantilized and immobilized myself, inhibited growth and disallowed for the development of a full, honest identity.
[Aside: There is nothing clinically wrong with me (psychologically.) I am not depressed or schizoid. I don’t have an anxiety disorder. This is just me.]
Do not people naturally change (in general) during adolescence and young adulthood? Or perhaps not “change†so much as “grow into themselves?†There has been no abuse, great tragedy, or difficulty in my life to warrant the predicament I’m in, or the way I am. Understanding this, I can only infer that this is what I “grew†into; it’s not a compensatory "non-identity" for horrible life circumstances, rather, as ugly, unsavory, and embarrassing as it is, entirely of my own doing—the result of all the choices I have made for myself (not making decisions is a choice and [realizing this in retrospect] was mine.) Mea culpa.
I guess it could be said that I am not “healthy†in the MBTI sense. But what exactly constitutes “health†in this way? Surely no one out there is 100% “healthy†but this doesn’t seem to hinder their ability to type themselves. Or maybe this is not so much a matter of health, as I’m simply just unremarkable and boring, and because of that, don’t have any preferences strong enough to accurately place me anywhere, nor an identity understood to an extent necessary to know what they’d be (not want to be) if I were. I’ve nothing on which to base a clear, demonstrable preference for any function.
The seeming passivity of this post is in no way an attempt to deflect blame for my own shortcomings, nor a backward way of proclaiming, “Ooooo I’m just so enigmatic that I can’t be typed!†[] It’s quite the opposite. I’m wary of the ramifications of trying to type myself because of this, despite my selfish and obvious desire to do just that.
In short—is MBTI, or any personality typology, “not for everyone†considering the aforementioned reasons? Or can my lacking of all these things somehow be a characteristic on its own, and I’m just not able to recognize it for what it is? Hmm…
[I apologize for the length and will completely understand a TL;DR response or no response.]
personality-
Psychology .
a.
the sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual.
[One of many definitions from Dictionary.com]
What if I don’t really think [about X]? What if I don’t DO anything at all? What if I have no interests, talents, or tendencies (aside from being characterized entirely by inertia?) I haven’t any friends, nor do I feel at a loss because of it. It’s difficult for me to figure my interaction style, as I don’t interact. I don’t hold any opinions, goals, or ambitions. Regarding intelligence and potential, I fall somewhere below average. I’m not being negative; this is realistic, and as honest and objective an assessment of myself I can possibly muster. As for emotions and feeling, I don’t KNOW what I’m feeling at any given moment. It takes something quite extreme to cause a reaction enough for me to recognize that I am, indeed, feeling something. The only feeling (of which I’m in a constant state regardless of environment, and therefore regard more as a trait than an emotional tendency) is anxiety. I’m afraid of everything, more specifically, humiliating myself by being seen as, or actually being, stupid and not knowing what I’m doing. I’ve always needed to know exactly how to do something, or have a complete understanding of it, before I could feel comfortable trying/saying/explaining/demonstrating it. I’ve had serious trouble reconciling this fear bearing in mind the fact that I know I’m not intelligent, and therefore CAN’T ever adequately understand anything at the depth required of me to feel comfortable and thus eradicate the fear. (Paradox? Maybe. Irrational? Definitely.) This, I guess, coupled with the fact that I haven’t allowed myself to try things, and essentially shielded myself from everything (by way of living as a hermit through my formative years) manifested in me a frank inability to deal with the world in any real way. I’ve infantilized and immobilized myself, inhibited growth and disallowed for the development of a full, honest identity.
[Aside: There is nothing clinically wrong with me (psychologically.) I am not depressed or schizoid. I don’t have an anxiety disorder. This is just me.]
Do not people naturally change (in general) during adolescence and young adulthood? Or perhaps not “change†so much as “grow into themselves?†There has been no abuse, great tragedy, or difficulty in my life to warrant the predicament I’m in, or the way I am. Understanding this, I can only infer that this is what I “grew†into; it’s not a compensatory "non-identity" for horrible life circumstances, rather, as ugly, unsavory, and embarrassing as it is, entirely of my own doing—the result of all the choices I have made for myself (not making decisions is a choice and [realizing this in retrospect] was mine.) Mea culpa.
I guess it could be said that I am not “healthy†in the MBTI sense. But what exactly constitutes “health†in this way? Surely no one out there is 100% “healthy†but this doesn’t seem to hinder their ability to type themselves. Or maybe this is not so much a matter of health, as I’m simply just unremarkable and boring, and because of that, don’t have any preferences strong enough to accurately place me anywhere, nor an identity understood to an extent necessary to know what they’d be (not want to be) if I were. I’ve nothing on which to base a clear, demonstrable preference for any function.
The seeming passivity of this post is in no way an attempt to deflect blame for my own shortcomings, nor a backward way of proclaiming, “Ooooo I’m just so enigmatic that I can’t be typed!†[] It’s quite the opposite. I’m wary of the ramifications of trying to type myself because of this, despite my selfish and obvious desire to do just that.
In short—is MBTI, or any personality typology, “not for everyone†considering the aforementioned reasons? Or can my lacking of all these things somehow be a characteristic on its own, and I’m just not able to recognize it for what it is? Hmm…
[I apologize for the length and will completely understand a TL;DR response or no response.]