Can a person with mental illness ever truly determine their personality type?

[dougvincent1138]

[MENTION=37666]natalia93[/MENTION] Yes, it is possible...even if you have MORE THAN ONE self!

Allow me to explain. I have DID. If you're not familiar with that, it stands for dissociative identity disorder, but you might know it better by its former terminology, multiple personality disorder. When we first found out about the MBTI, we wondered if we could type the individual parts/alters within our "system". We tried it, and found out that we absolutely can. It's difficult, but as others in this thread have stated, you have to look past the symptoms of the illness to see who you really are, what really motivates you.

Now, you might ask, how is typing the multiple "you's" separately looking past the illness? Isn't that what the illness of DID is? Well, that's a common misconception about DID. The truth is (and it took us a LONG time to fully understand this truth), that having multiple selves is not the problem. That is something that started as a coping mechanism to help us to manage the true problem, which was the trauma that we experienced as a child. Once we started developing as multiple, that IS who we are. The dysfunction that is a part of having DID comes not from the fact of being multiple, but from the complications that arise due to each self's own trauma history: low self-esteem, trust issues, not understanding emotions, etc. These factors, especially when you also factor in amnesia, cause difficulty in cooperation, communication, and trust within the system, which leads to dysfunction. Once we learn to cooperate with and respect each other, we can learn to function just like any other human being. It is more difficult, because we have to manage interpersonal relationships both internally AND externally at the same time, but it can be done.

And so, for someone like us to accurately type ourselves, we need to type each one of us separately, because like I said, that is who we are. We haven't typed everybody in our system yet (there are seventy of us, so it will take a while), but so far we have found that we have at least 11 of the 16 personality types. We actually see that as a potential strength, and we will be really excited if we eventually find out that we have all 16 within our system. Why? Because that would mean that we could potentially learn to have ALL of the strengths of ALL of the personality types, and avoid our weaknesses by letting someone else who is strong in that area help us.

It can be very difficult for us to type our selves. As our therapist warned us, these personality tests were created with so-called "normal" people in mind, so they are not really made to handle the extra complexities of being multiple. We find that it helps to think, "How would I act if it were just ME in this body?" Because of the fact that we all share one body, we sometimes have to pretend to be someone we're not to keep up the illusion of being one "normal" person. To us, that's part of our way of dealing with our illness. So imagining each self as if we were separate is our way of looking past our illness to the real "us". I hope that makes sense to you, and helps you to better understand both how to type someone with a mental illness, and how DID works.

Take care,

Leyna of the Doug Vincent system

P.s. I'm the one of "us" who started our account on this forum, so INFJ is MY type. Doug's is actually INFP, and like I said, we have at least 11 types, maybe more...

 

[rav3n]

I definitively found my MBTI and enneagram types while I was in the middle of hellish psychological issues, including ASPD-like issues and low-grade paranoia. Needless to mention my physical health problems and total isolation.

I might have thrown off signals that would have confused others, but my essential functioning remained the same, just at lower levels of health.

Actually, I struggled to find my type when I was younger and healthier--I've known about this stuff since high school, yet it took me till I was 30 to actually figure myself out. In my case, family messaging, feedback from peers and teachers, and verbal abuse I suffered caused me to exhibit (or maybe just perceive) atypical behaviors for my enneagram type.

Luckily, as I discovered, this really isn't about behaviors but about your inner mental/emotional structure. How you work. Your psychological underpinnings, attitudes toward life, pattern of intelligence, values, ideal self-image, and ways of perceiving and organizing data. Not your behaviors, emotional torments, disorders, or whatever else.

My feeling is that most people who can't figure out their type are looking at the wrong things, and/or are looking at different sides of themselves and not seeing how they fit into the whole--while neglecting the reality that type is "how you work" and not circumstantial evidence. Speaking from experience, mental and physical illnesses don't touch your innermost functioning, though they may appear to alter its expression.

Highschool's too young for people to try to type themselves. The prefrontal cortex hasn't completely formed for most before 25 years old.

 

[Maou]

With enough 3rd party feedback and honest introspection yes.

 

[Betty Blue]

These threads surprises me as the founding people who were typed were all psychiatric patients. Jung typed his patients, yes it was a different more raw typing system but it is the basis for what we now understand. If these principles are up for debate that I suppose is different. But it does seem there is a disconnect between the general understanding of who the original typing system was for.

 

[Point148]

A person with mental illness can't even determine what gender they are. Do you really expect them to tell something as complex as personality?

 

[Frosty]

A person with mental illness can't even determine what gender they are. Do you really expect them to tell something as complex as personality?

What does this even mean?

I have several mental illnesses and can tell you quite a bit about myself BECAUSE of all the introspection that is involved to fight these conditions.

People with mental illnesses are just people, with additional things to deal with. They are some other species that is incapable of even the most basic of things.

 

[Maou]

A person with mental illness can't even determine what gender they are. Do you really expect them to tell something as complex as personality?

Not every mental illness is dysphoria, this is a non-sequitur. Most mental illnesses are simply patterns in behavior that inhibit normal living. Personality, is constructed of your behavior patterns and preferences. So essentially, they are two sides of the same coin. Just one is considered bad to function with, while the other one is optimal to function with.

So yes, a person with a mental disorder is more than capable of understanding their personality. Take bipolar for example, it simply affects your mood and emotions. It doesn't affect your rationality, or reasoning skills. But living with strong emotions makes you more likely to be impulsive or angry. One with bipolar, can be very aware that these emotions are abnormal apart from their actual personality.

 

[Schrödinger's Name]

I think it depends on the illness.

People say that you aren't your mental illness, which is true. But I can't completely agree with it, it's more of a 'mix' to me. I won't say that I am my mental illness, but it shaped me into the person I am today. Who knows how things could've turned out if I wasn't mentally ill.
My disorder influences my behavior, the things I do (or mostly don't) and the way I think. That's already a big part of your personality.