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[sx] sx/sp brooding and the need for self-expression

the state i am in

Active member
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
2,475
MBTI Type
infj
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
if i don't get a serious connection going, after a few days, i start brooding hard. i need to write to curb the overflow. but that doesn't work, you still need prompts, you still need connection with something, purpose, something someone would read, something valuable to others. just this need to be validated, recognized, merged with someone, sharing values, sharing worldviews, sharing stories, sharing truths and falsities.

maybe the lack of so makes us in even greater need than sx/so. they can push forward, make something happen, spread their energies into a more diffuse cloud of themselves. with me i can either dissolve everything (to free myself from desire), or i overidentify with desire, with the desire to reach out, to jostle and be jostled, to need someone else to wake up myself and them, that waking up requires the both of us.

what is the answer to this difficult question/problem? is this pure and simple intimacy addiction? (and why can intimacy save everyone from themselves, and make me so much more open to others? why is the possibility of intimacy the only reason for talking, the only thing worth getting up for?) --> (is it this huge need to be seen not with others but apart from them, to be distinct, to be validated not for your commonality but for your difference? is it pure competition and objectification of contents?)

sx/sps, how do you feel about intimacy? what are your major conflicts? how have you learned to manage yourself and your overidentification with desire better?
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
50,187
MBTI Type
BELF
Enneagram
594
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I thought it was interesting how you referred to connection as something that just doesn't happen with people but with anything, including a purpose, goal, idea, project, or whatever. Thinking briefly about it, I think that does gel with my personal experience -- and I find that when my energy is getting invested in people and that need for connection is being satiated, the need to create a connection through some other means does ebb some, and when I'm absorbed in experience that connection with an idea or project I'm immersed in, my need for people connection ebbs. So it makes me think that it is drive by that desire to be in connection and immersed in something, be part of it, merge with it.


I don't know if I would call it an intimacy "addiction" per se, although it could end up being that way. I've had to learn in life that it is okay to possess different "tiers" of relationship to people. I used to feel morbidly depressed with the idea that I could only find a "spark connection" with a minority if people and disinterested in pursuing relationships where that level of connect didn't seem possible or desired; but as I walked through life and had to make everything 'work,' I had to accept that just because I can't connect with someone on that pure powerful inherently electrical charge level doesn't mean that another form of relationship with them is pointless or "less than." I learned to value the few people I could connect with in the level that made me feel more alive and where a "mutual merging" could occur; and meanwhile foster relationships that would enable me to be productive in my day-to-day practical life.

My major intimacy issues:

1. The push/pull of wanting to merge with someone but wanting to remain autonomous and with a clear sense of myself simultaneously.

2. The tendency I have to mirror people (instead of being my raw unique self) in order to accommodate that merging. Or, probably put better, my tendency to only show the facets of myself that align with the person I'm merging with and not giving credence to the facets of me that would jar that merging. (I don't "lie" and be someone I'm not, I just "tailor" myself by allowing different parts to be seen.) However, I think doing this prevents me from living instinctively and wholly, and it can also end up distorting my sense of self.

3. I've had to establish space boundaries to be fair to others as well as to myself. I have one friend right now, for example, where we have a very intense bond when together that neither of us quite understand, we've both simply acknowledged it and go with it... but when we're apart, she goes through the weird push/pull too and usually hangs back from too much contact. I can sense that, and I force myself to accept it because she needs more space than me. (I think she's ISTP, and she's typically more sp... it's only with me and 1-2 other people she's ever had this intense bond with, and otherwise she prefers to not deal much with people and/or only in surface ways rather than personal ways.) I accommodate that because I value how deep we do go fearlessly and unconsciously when together, and I know that to demand more would be more than she could reasonably give; she needs that space to retain her own sense of self (where I guess I can get closer without losing sense of me), and I have no desire to take that away from someone.

why is the possibility of intimacy the only reason for talking, the only thing worth getting up for?) --> (is it this huge need to be seen not with others but apart from them, to be distinct, to be validated not for your commonality but for your difference? is it pure competition and objectification of contents?)

I'm not sure of the answer as to why we're this way. It's just all tied into my feeling of depth. I am diving into a deep pool with someone, going deeper and deeper into their soul, and I want to explore the mysteries and understand and be part of them through that understanding, and I am looking for people to enter me and merge with me in the same way, i guess. I was never much one to swim on the surface. There's a sense not only of intricate mystery under there, but also the awareness that I am being permitted access to someone's deepest recesses, and not only do I consider that a gift but a statement about my worth to them. And yet, like I said, even in that merging (a twist on the "vulcan mind meld"), I need to retain a sense of myself in the process; I need to be immersed in them, yet still retain self-awareness.

Or maybe sx/sp is TRULY at odds? SX wants to merge partly in order to purge the burning sense of self-awareness that leaves one feeling alone and naked, yet sp considers that merging to be death and thus something to shy away from even as the compulsion of the mystery entices one deeper? I don't know.

As far as the competition angle goes... no. Not at all for me.
 

Salomé

meh
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10,527
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
what is the answer to this difficult question/problem? is this pure and simple intimacy addiction? (and why can intimacy save everyone from themselves, and make me so much more open to others? why is the possibility of intimacy the only reason for talking, the only thing worth getting up for?) --> (is it this huge need to be seen not with others but apart from them, to be distinct, to be validated not for your commonality but for your difference? is it pure competition and objectification of contents?)

sx/sps, how do you feel about intimacy? what are your major conflicts? how have you learned to manage yourself and your overidentification with desire better?

I don't identify with this kind of neediness. I have no desire to merge with anyone, though I very much would like to be able to experience the world through someone/thing else's eyes - that's not the same as merging though, more curiosity.

My sx/sp are quite finely balanced and definitely at odds. In a relationship, I notice the sx more, out of one, the sp.

For me, the desire for intimacy manifests as not settling for anything less than intense, profound, boundary-less, focused connection and total acceptance. If I can't have that, I accept no substitute.
 

gromit

likes this
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
6,508
I thought it was interesting how you referred to connection as something that just doesn't happen with people but with anything, including a purpose, goal, idea, project, or whatever. Thinking briefly about it, I think that does gel with my personal experience -- and I find that when my energy is getting invested in people and that need for connection is being satiated, the need to create a connection through some other means does ebb some, and when I'm absorbed in experience that connection with an idea or project I'm immersed in, my need for people connection ebbs. So it makes me think that it is drive by that desire to be in connection and immersed in something, be part of it, merge with it.

I think I'm actually sp/sx, but I definitely relate. Passion for a project I am working on can in some ways can reduce the need to connect with others, and vice versa. But they cannot completely replace one another.

I love to immerse myself in the creative process. That is interesting that you use the word 'merge' with this. But it kind of is how it feels when you're really into it. Somehow merging with a creative process doesn't seem as... wrong (?) to me as merging with another person. It actually feels quite right.
 

the state i am in

Active member
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
2,475
MBTI Type
infj
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
it doesn't just feel like needing to establish boundaries with other people. it feels like having to learn how to say no to oneself. not rehearsing what you want and building it up to a crescendo. because yes that energy can get you going, but it can also burn you the fuck out. especially when you're being unrealistic, or when you're not willing to do the work to take the small steps to make the long-term improvements that are necessary to dig yourself out of your rut. but damn is it hard to do!

but also, the 5w4, the sx/sp, it makes me feel really unsmooth in general. when engaged, i am great. but the opening and the closing, the being able to initiate connections with others i don't know well while managing the so type cues and maintaining a broad enough social performance for everyone, etc. i get immersed and then become self-conscious because i realize that i have COMPLETELY STOPPED MONITORING EVERYTHING AROUND ME and that they may think i'm a crazy person, or worse! i'm currently trying to work on this very hard, because i keep having situations where this keeps happening, and i end up behaving so skittishly it drives me fucking crazy! because i'm so close to removing the wall that has been placed around me, and then the stakes go up and i get more and more self-conscious. it's no problem at all with people i know, but it's this huge desire i have to improve my ability to initiate contact with people who i have not started a story with, but know i ought/want to. also, i think i just inadvertently quoted the song "temptation."
 
B

brainheart

Guest
because i'm so close to removing the wall that has been placed around me, and then the stakes go up and i get more and more self-conscious. it's no problem at all with people i know, but it's this huge desire i have to improve my ability to initiate contact with people who i have not started a story with, but know i ought/want to.

Wow. I totally get your whole post, totally relate. The part I excerpted, I thought that was my social variant freaking out. Those social four feelings of self-conscious shame...

Although I also have this problem with people I know, especially if I feel like I've been too revealing and too in their face.
 
B

brainheart

Guest
All right, I'm realizing now that, just like with the enneagram typing, it doesn't pay to read the instinctual variant personality-type sort of descriptions. All that matters, courtesy of http://www.ocean-moonshine.net/e142857369/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=27&MMN_position=55:55, is the basic focus:

SELF-PRESERVATION

"Those individuals who are dominated by the instinct for self-preservation often have a grounded or practical quality; they frequently develop a high degree of self-sufficiency, discipline and maturity. Many self-pres subtypes devote themselves to programs for self-improvement and, of all the subtypes are probably the most “focused.”

SEXUAL

"The sexual instinct focuses on attraction and excitement, or, what, apart from the self, seems to promise to expand and intensify life."

SOCIAL

"The social instinct focuses on the group, hierarchy, status, the big picture; it essentially focuses on connecting to that which is larger than the self. Individuals whose social instinct is dominant need to feel a sense of “belonging.”

Based on this I am sx/so. But I brood plenty and I have an absurd need for self-expression. I want to improve myself, but I am also one of the most unfocused, undisciplined people in existence. When I'm excited about something, I'm incredibly focused. But if I'm not, forget it. I'd say my eternal battle is with discipline and focus.

All of this navel-gazing was merely to post those descriptions of the variants because they seem pretty right-on and the most helpful of any I've read.
 

Neutralpov

New member
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Messages
310
if i don't get a serious connection going, after a few days, i start brooding hard. i need to write to curb the overflow. but that doesn't work, you still need prompts, you still need connection with something, purpose, something someone would read, something valuable to others. just this need to be validated, recognized, merged with someone, sharing values, sharing worldviews, sharing stories, sharing truths and falsities.

I have this same feeling and I am so/sx/sp. I just don't need intimacy or super deep but a personal connection. Being around conversations that center on material things for hours will make me crave a connection or zone out hardcore.
A brief connection satisfies and the deep sx type of connection is forced to me unless you are superbff. Feels painful and uncomfortable with them sometimes also. I think this might be an NF thing about intimacy though. We long for it. A glimpse of soulmate or soul-connecting.
 
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