[Type 4] Fours: What were you like as children?

[Sunny Ghost]

I'm curious.

 

[Standuble]

Anything in particular you are after?

-I was shy, sensitive, cried a lot but was defiant at times with my family.

- Occasionally brilliant and insightful. I forget how old I was but I remember deducing that the Sun was nothing but fire which couldn't escape as it was being pulled inwards.

-Scored maximum marks throughout junior school for the school Spellathon every year (written test).

- Likewise in junior school was the class "geek" or "boffin" (even though I don't think I ever truly felt intelligent). Somehow managed to equal my "rival" (envy came early for me) in Maths throughout the year (or was it two years?) at being top of the class for Maths (the guy ended up going to Cambridge so sometimes I wonder if I could have achieved the same if I hadn't of been lazy.)

- I vividly remember writing a creative writing story in third grade where two aliens have a mega duel in space (one was on Mars and the other was on Mercury). Gravity had no meaning in that piece.

- I once proudly exclaimed that the road I lived on at the time goes to Saturn. It actually goes to London so I wasn't far off.

- I forget how old I was but I recall being upset after realising that my mother will die one day.

- I supposedly spent my time at nursery doing "logic puzzles". I think much of my childhood was influenced by inferior Te.

- I was bullied in my earliest years of school by students who kept threatening to kill me. I forget for certain the extent of the misery (if any) it actually caused outside of a desire to avoid them at break times. If such a thing happened today I think I would be unaffected if people said such a thing today (I would probably ask them to try it.)

- I complaine and whined a lot and I was bad tempered at times. I also resisted external control; answering back elders etc. All these traits survived to the present day in full force.

- I used to create fantasy worlds and play them out with my friend in the school playground.

 

[Sunny Ghost]

[MENTION=14363]Standuble[/MENTION] Nothing in particular. Just what qualities did you see at being 4-like when you were a child.

 

[Standuble]

[MENTION=14363]Standuble[/MENTION] Nothing in particular. Just what qualities did you see at being 4-like when you were a child.

Hmm well apart from the above I would not know what else to say. What qualifies as "four-like" would be something I can't express - there aren't words for it. But if you wanted behaviours I would say (apart from the above) was that I was somehow less of a person as in that I felt that I didn't have the same rights as others. I spoke and expressed what I wanted but I didn't think anyone would or should listen or respect them. Likewise I believed on some level that everything I believed was wrong in a way in the respect that I did not expect others to accept it, obey it or respect me for having them.

These are still technically in effect today but they have been watered down in favour of assertion and appeals to empiricism.

 

[Noll]

I was the outgoing, charming, teacher's-favorite class clown but I liked staying at home painting/writing cartoons and playing drums, I also liked videogames and making nonsense-videos. Members of my family considered me quite peculiar, in a funny/charming way, calling me "the scientist" or something weird like that. Yet I was very sensitive, too sensitive. I was alright in school, though I've always been (very) bad at math. I took pride in my superior Swedish and English skills and liked boasting about it to classmates.

Started feeling more and more detached from humans somehow in 4th grade and it's been getting worse ever since.

 

[hjgbujhghg]

I was hyperactive and crazy, but also overly sensitive, which was the reason I often cried. I was constantly full of new ideas, there was one crazy experiment by the other. I loved to create my own fantasy worlds and I had imaginary friends. I loved to write since I learned how to hold a pen. I was very much living in my fantasy, very passionate, very self expressive...sometimes the passion combinated with expressivnes made me look like the real fool .

 

[Chad of the OttomanEmpire]

- At my very youngest, I was quite extroverted and outgoing. My mother would marvel at my people skills and exuberance. I was also weirdly easy to content, capable of obscene amounts of focus (like when I was 3, I apparently sat still for two hours straight trying to read a book), and very self-entertaining.

- I was willful and tempermental (always)

- In the third grade I became super-withdrawn due to bullying that I was taught to "ignore". I ignored it by withdrawing, and that, unfortunately, became something it took the next two decades to break out of. I think I'm back to normal now, though.

- I was still a brat at home, though. A horrible nasty willful spoiled brat. If I met my childhood self, I'd smack me.

- Also, I was the way most 4s were--creative, "gifted" (it is not a gift, lol), idiosyncratic, imaginative, "different and special", created a lot of imaginary friends and liked arts and crafts. I also liked science. Lots and lots. I was known as "the scientist" by my family. And I liked animals. I actually thought I was an animal. I was convinced I was part cat, part dog, part human. Yep. "Different". XD

I could go on, but I'm trying to be less of an egomaniac here.

 

[Galena]

- At my very youngest, I was quite extroverted and outgoing. My mother would marvel at my people skills and exuberance. I was also weirdly easy to content, capable of obscene amounts of focus (like when I was 3, I apparently sat still for two hours straight trying to read a book), and very self-entertaining.

Oh hi, me.

- In the third grade I became super-withdrawn due to bullying that I was taught to "ignore". I ignored it by withdrawing, and that, unfortunately, became something it took the next two decades to break out of. I think I'm back to normal now, though.

Yeah! Still breaking out here, and it's inspiring to see other people return to themselves from it.

- I was still a brat at home, though. A horrible nasty willful spoiled brat. If I met my childhood self, I'd smack me.

*meets child self at home* *smacks for being too bratty*

*meets child self at school* *smacks for being too fragile (somaticization galore) and oversensitive*

Why I could not handle time travel, and pretty much the thread for me. I have anger issues toward myself as a kid that I'm working on, with help. The problem is pinning my past self, who was too young to step outside of it the way I can now, up as representative of what a woman shouldn't be and what could pop back out if I cut myself any slack in the present.

Not that I wasn't as much of a perfectionist back then, too. In fact, my exterior wispiness may just have been because I wore myself down to a raw place internally by being my own tyrant. Introjected a lot of expectations from the environments I was in and cranked them up to unreasonable benchmarks, leaving myself in a constant state of striving that does not do a body good. Artist who never leaves their study. "I might not be an emotionally or physically strong girl, but I can produce things that are beautiful and excel. Every time. Or else." You can't tell me to GTFO because I can't handle life, because then you'd lose these with me. Such becomes a new norm after a while, and putting in the same hours as everyone else accordingly begins to look like failure in comparison and just isn't an option.

- Also, I was the way most 4s were--creative, "gifted" (it is not a gift, lol), idiosyncratic, imaginative, "different and special", created a lot of imaginary friends and liked arts and crafts. I also liked science. Lots and lots. I was known as "the scientist" by my family. And I liked animals.

Oh yeah, these.

 

[Chad of the OttomanEmpire]

Oh hi, me.


Yeah! Still breaking out here, and it's inspiring to see other people return to themselves from it.


*meets child self at home* *smacks for being too bratty*

*meets child self at school* *smacks for being too fragile (somaticization galore) and oversensitive*

Why I could not handle time travel, and pretty much the thread for me. I have anger issues toward myself as a kid that I'm working on, with help. The problem is pinning my past self, who was too young to step outside of it the way I can now, up as representative of what a woman shouldn't be and what could pop back out if I cut myself any slack in the present.

Not that I wasn't as much of a perfectionist back then, too. In fact, my exterior wispiness may just have been because I wore myself down to a raw place internally by being my own tyrant. Introjected a lot of expectations from the environments I was in and cranked them up to unreasonable benchmarks, leaving myself in a constant state of striving that does not do a body good. Artist who never leaves their study. "I might not be an emotionally or physically strong girl, but I can produce things that are beautiful and excel. Every time. Or else." You can't tell me to GTFO because I can't handle life, because then you'd lose these with me. Such becomes a new norm after a while, and putting in the same hours as everyone else accordingly begins to look like failure in comparison and just isn't an option.


Oh yeah, these.

Hi, other me!!

 

[Qlip]

I remember myself as child not as a 4, but more of an ENFP. Continually bored, experimental, and in trouble a lot for talking in places where I was supposed to be quiet.

 

[brainheart]

At my youngest, I remember being incredibly dramatic. I loved to listen to music like Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet and 'inhabit' it. It was like no one else existed and I would feel all of it, dancing, until I collapsed to the floor, weeping.

I loved to live in big emotions. The way I expressed those was through dance, music, acting. My parents didn't encourage any of these things- being overly emotional was seen as a bad thing, so I escaped into books and learned to hide my feelings. It's like my feelings became my own little secret that I shared with no one else, and I was ashamed when I did, when I couldn't contain them. I became the child who shares nothing and does everything right so no one thinks to ask whether they're ok, whether this is what they want. Secretly, I thought I was some sort of genius, that I should be a world class ballerina or a musical prodigy. I knew I had the potential within me, because I had the emotion and love for it- and that if I were encouraged, if my life circumstances were different, it would happen. It was like I was biding my time, waiting for someone to unlock the key and lead me to this other world where I was these things, but time progressed and those opportunities became fainter and more unrealistic.

It wasn't until I got older that I realized how angry I was with my parents about this, and how I have done self sabotaging things to punish them for it. I want them to see how they fucked me up, how they ruined me. It's been really hard to forgive them, and it's even harder to let go of the masochism because, ultimately, I know it's more my fault than it is theirs. If I had been stronger, more bold, I could have been those things.

 

[Amargith]

An exposed, raw nerve. Drove my parents crazy.

 

[MWill]

I'm a 4w5. As a child, I was shy but active. Unconnected given the degree of daydreaming going on. Feelings of not belonging in my own family predominate. The arts have always been my center, but it wasn't until I left my family that I discovered other people out there who might understand. Unfortunately, they'll never replace or resolve the disorientation I felt growing up.

 

[renaiziphonts]

From what I've been told, I was a pretty good kid. Pretty wild and uncontrollable (I've mellowed out considerably), but also I had loved learning. I remember I had something strong against reading, but I did enjoy math and science. I even got a science fair medal once, can't remember what i did to trick them into giving me that thoug!

Still, I was a second child, and my brother was the biggest and meanest brother you could have! Truthfully, we loved eachothher, but we fought constantly. He mellowed out as well, so that ended up alright,

 

[LadyLazarus]

A cry baby(ok fine; an even bigger cry baby), petrified of people, solitary/ preferred to play alone, even more bad-tempered, even more stubborn, book worm, and even then sensitive to the unauthentic above all.

My mom says that when I was a baby I used to cry whenever I was near certain people, people who later turned against me and my family at the drop of a hat but pretended to be good, loyal family friends during my childhood. I've always been very sensitive to the truth and authenticity of an individual, it's always hard for me to be around people I feel aren't genuine, all my life I've always felt a strong wave of repulsion when faced with the insincere.

 

[Odi et Amo]

When I was 4 or 5, I loved cars (still do) and used to collect car brochures from dealerships. I gave them all names and anthropomorphised them. I had my 5th birthday party in a car dealership. No fucks given.

I used to get sent into the hall for asking, "Why?", to every single lesson in elementary school.

When I was 8, I sheared off half of the hair on each eyebrow with a pair of scissors because I was bored in CCD and wanted to look different.

I would sing incessantly to myself as I walked down the halls, which I still do. No fucks given.

In general I read a lot, cried a good deal, was a perpetual contrarian, and practiced the creed of academic heterodoxy.

 

[neko 4]

Very moody. Shy at school, brat at home. Good student until junior high when my life fell apart.