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[sx] How did we become Sx-first?

Sx-firsts, what are the dominant instincts of your parent(s)?

  • Sx-first (both parents)

    Votes: 1 2.3%
  • So-first (both parents)

    Votes: 2 4.5%
  • Sp-first (both parents)

    Votes: 15 34.1%
  • Sx-first + So-first

    Votes: 4 9.1%
  • Sx-first + Sp-first

    Votes: 6 13.6%
  • So-first + Sp-first

    Votes: 16 36.4%

  • Total voters
    44

Southern Kross

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Thanks for that, it's not the one though. (The one you linked is the same thread I linked in my earlier post. :laugh: I appreciate your looking for it though.)

It's possible the conversation wasn't with you (and that I'm conflating the one we linked with the other thread), but there was a more in-depth convo about it somewhere. I'm pretty sure it was you, and you'd included an example of what happened when your family went out to dinner one night, and I mentioned my mother as an example-- but there's a good chance it was a tangent in a thread that wasn't even originally about variant instincts. :shrug:
Guess I should have clicked your link then. How stupid was that? :D

I remember that vaguely - it was a while ago. It was basically how my Sp/Sx mum argues or complains indiscreetly in restaurant and how uncomfortable and neurotic that makes my dad and I (who are both So/Sp), as we desperately try to hush her. Is that the one you're thinking of?
 

cascadeco

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It's an interesting theory. I haven't read all of the posts, but I do know that I think I resented on some level my immediate family's, as well as extended families, lack of a social anything - they weren't really part of 'the community', weren't involved in anything (my dad was, to a degree, in terms of volunteering; however, my family was not Social and I saw, learned, and experienced very little of anything to do with social awareness and interactions; at least, in comparison to many other families. My family was fairly isolated.

I think that I became attuned to social nuances, though I have always viewed my own social abilities and 'place' as kind of stunted due to not feeling I was able to learn anything from my family on that front. I know ins and outs of social nuances, and can navigate them gracefully, but am not necessarily a part of any of them. Or maybe I am I just have this skewed perception of not being so; thus as @Z Buck mentioned, our primary is more of our most stunted one / one we're hyper-aware of / focused on, to the point of it probably being counterproductive, especially if not kept in check / if not aware of it.

My mom is probably sp/sx, and my dad is either an sp/so or an so/sp. The key to my family though is extreme introversion / self-sufficiency. ^@Southern Kross, my mom caused my father and I (and brother, who is quite certainly sp/so) anxiety whenever she vented similarly in public places. In fact, to the point that I strongly believe my own focus on these sorts of things is a conscious effort at a young age to NOT be like my mom. lolz. I have succeeded in some respects and failed in others. ;)
 

Z Buck McFate

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I remember that vaguely - it was a while ago. It was basically how my Sp/Sx mum argues or complains indiscreetly in restaurant and how uncomfortable and neurotic that makes my dad and I (who are both So/Sp), as we desperately try to hush her. Is that the one you're thinking of?

That sounds about right- all I remember for sure is that it had to do with this topic (possibly being a certain instinct variant dominant because of childhood/family) and you'd (I think it was you) used an example of going out to dinner.

**

And to answer the op (which I never really did), I really have no clue what my parents are. I *think* my mom is so dom, but I'm not entirely sure. She seems to thrive on knowing absolutely everything about everyone who crosses her path- and then about everyone related to that person, and everyone else those relatives might possibly know- that suggests so dominant to me. If she is, (as [MENTION=10082]Starry[/MENTION] said) it would make sense to me that I never developed those skills because I never felt that need- that need was always already taken care of before I even began to feel a deficit in that direction. I'm not certain that's why I'm least so variant, but it's a plausible theory to be sure.
 
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Southern Kross

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OK, I found it for real this time, [MENTION=7842]Z Buck McFate[/MENTION].

This is the post about my family - the other stuff follows afterwards.

EDIT: Here's the link to Z buck's actual relevant comment within the thread. I posted it below as well.

Z Buck McFate said:
Your story about the focus being on the surrounding people (and how it contrasted to my experience) triggered interest because it brought to mind something I’d read before about how our dominant instinct drive is actually dominant as a compensation for the lack of that need being met initially. Having a mother that focused on filling the social needs enabled me to take that one for granted, and so it makes sense that I’d feel an unconscious preoccupation with filling the need that wasn’t being filled around me. I just don’t feel any anxiety about the kinds of things that give so variant people anxiety because I didn’t grow up with any sense of scarcity in that regard- yet individuals didn’t matter, and that presented its own scarcity that I became sensitive to. Although it’s not quite so clean cut as that, because it doesn’t especially explain how siblings would have different instinct variants, it’s interesting to consider because it probably does deserve *some* merit. Maybe it seems like “unnecessary (and maybe even self-indulgent) grandstanding about your opinions/feelings/rights” because so variant doms could take that for granted (and so the notion of a scarcity of it wouldn’t be threatening or cause anxiety….yet feelings of not being part of the bigger group do?).

It’s funny, sometimes I do feel the weight of the consequences of being least so variant- because my mother is no longer a factor of daily life, those needs (networking and such) are not being met and so it’s a serious inconvenience at times to be least so variant…..a serious inconvenience. But I have an inordinately difficult time in-the-moment focusing on making so variant needs a priority. It’s incredibly taxing to me. I only feel the negative consequences of not attending to it in retrospect.
 

Z Buck McFate

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:moonwalk: ^Woman's got the skills! That was a pretty helpful convo, thanks for finding it.
 

Southern Kross

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My mom is probably sp/sx, and my dad is either an sp/so or an so/sp. The key to my family though is extreme introversion / self-sufficiency. ^@Southern Kross, my mom caused my father and I (and brother, who is quite certainly sp/so) anxiety whenever she vented similarly in public places. In fact, to the point that I strongly believe my own focus on these sorts of things is a conscious effort at a young age to NOT be like my mom. lolz. I have succeeded in some respects and failed in others. ;)
Oh, I'm so with you there. I put a significant amount of effort into avoiding ending up with my mother's flaws. It's not that her flaws are more numerous or worse than others' - it's just that they represent everything I don't want to be.
 

Entropic

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I don't know my dad's instinct but I think my stepmom is sp/(sx). Grandma is possibly so/sp. I don't think any of them have had any bearing on my instincts. The only event in my life that points towards the development and thus neurosis surrounding sx is the death of my mother.

As for the other two, I am not sure if I would say I felt that my sp needs were met either, as my stepmom's sp neurosis made it so that the family's sp needs were treated very neurotically which developed into extreme material hoarding and possession, but only for her. The rest of us suffered a fair bit as it would go so far as to ration food during family dinner, even though our family wasn't poor enough to actually struggle with feeding us properly. It also made her into an extreme pennypincher and refusal to share her possessions with the family, which meant that she could buy cheap as fuck clothing for us, while lavishly spending on high quality for herself and tell us that we can buy our own shit when we make our own money like her. In other words, she was extremely hypocritical in this way. I often felt a lot of anger towards the obvious unfair treatment that she exposed the rest of us to, because how the fuck am I supposed to buy my own shit when I'm a kid without a job, lol. It doesn't mean I want to feel deprived just because she happened to be deprived as a child and she can't leave that mentality behind and treats the world as if we are still deprived and she has to hoard and hoard and hoard or she won't survive. She would even do silly things like tell us to shower maximum 10 minutes and not wait for the water to run hot (took maybe 10 seconds like wtf?) because it wastes too much water and money to heat the water. Dare you shower 15 minutes, what a waste! As sp last personally, what matters more to me is to make sure that whatever experience you have is as meaningful as possible and that our lives aren't so full of just doing things because it gives us the shit. Having lots of money in the bank isn't what is going to fulfill us, because possessions are so empty in themselves. So yeah, you can buy whatever you want but it doesn't mean it will make you happy because what will you do once you get that object you wanted? Buy a new one? How does that contribute to a meaningful and fulfilled life? Our meaning is found in our relationships with people and the world we interact with, not in the stuff we own. The stuff we own don't define us, personally. The girlfriend is an sx/sp and she cares a bit for material possession in this way, and it's probably one of our biggest sources of disagreement lol. She wants a high-paying job so she can buy whatever she wants (also doesn't help that her society and family values that) and I don't understand the purpose of that. I'm happy with the money I have as long as I got food on the table and I can spend it on pleasurable things from time to time. That's all it means to me. Money itself means jack.

I was also fairly socially ostracized as a child which could have led to the development of a social neurosis to a degree, but I am not sure. The only real defining moment in my life where I can say it totally made me such is the death of my mom. Everything else that happened to me simply pales in comparison.
 

small.wonder

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It's an interesting theory. I haven't read all of the posts, but I do know that I think I resented on some level my immediate family's, as well as extended families, lack of a social anything - they weren't really part of 'the community', weren't involved in anything...

Woah, yes. ^ So funny, I think I was so fixated with my first instinct, I forgot about my auxiliary, but it rings true in the same fashion! I can so rate to this, specifically b/c my parents are are both So-last! It also explains why my brother is So/Sx (when I'm the inverse).:happy2: So fascinating!

In fact, to the point that I strongly believe my own focus on these sorts of things is a conscious effort at a young age to NOT be like my mom. lolz. I have succeeded in some respects and failed in others. ;)

Also very much resonate with the bolded, but I do think that's kind of a 4 thing (the way we respond to our parents). Honestly I did it with both of mine, rejecting both of their personalities deliberately (because they just felt wrong).
 

cascadeco

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Woah, yes. ^ So funny, I think I was so fixated with my first instinct, I forgot about my auxiliary, but it rings true in the same fashion! I can so rate to this, specifically b/c my parents are are both So-last! It also explains why my brother is So/Sx (when I'm the inverse).:happy2: So fascinating!

Ah, interesting and cool. I think there may be trends with your theory, for sure, maybe in a bell curve sort of way, though I think a lot of other factors will play into things. Like, for me, I feel like though I also lacked a lot of sx presence in my family (I think the bulk of my family is sx-last, with exception of my mother), and feel I lacked a lot of the intimacy elements growing up, I still think I'm probably sx-last. I'm thinking while nurture certainly plays a part in all of this, there's also probably an engrained element to our instincts? I mean, I feel I lacked sx-ness in my surroundings, but I ended up sx-last. I guess for me, I didn't feel a large lacking/absence of it -- its lack at the time didn't impact me profoundly? -- thus I didn't fixate on it? Vs with you, you lacked it, but it's something you sorely lacked/noticed.


Also very much resonate with the bolded, but I do think that's kind of a 4 thing (the way we respond to our parents). Honestly I did it with both of mine, rejecting both of their personalities deliberately (because they just felt wrong).

Yes, I think I did it to a degree with my father as well, as a teenager at least. Perhaps it is more of a 4 thing, I really don't know. The rejection element started to fade in my 20's, though, same with my mother. To be honest, and this may point more towards my father being an so-dom like me, I found his social nicety elements really annoying growing up -- and you know they often say we're annoyed with what we see in ourselves. Whereas my reaction to my moms' tendencies weren't of annoyance, it was more embarrassment, and like I said, my wanting to be way more socially aware than she was/is.
 

Chad of the OttomanEmpire

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God, I have no idea how it happened.

I have heard that self pres is formed by early difficult circumstances, social is formed by having many caretakers, and sexual is formed by having ONE very closely-connecting parent. This would certainly be true in my case. Still, my sister is social, and basically didn't have any caretakers (they ignored her rather horribly, particularly my mother).

I'm inclined to think it's inborn, but I'm fatalistic that way.

I put that my mom is sp/sx and my dad is soc/sx, but the instincts may be flipped in either case. Damned if I know.
 

small.wonder

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Just decided to revisit this, to check out how the poll ended up. 12/15 voters reported having parents that were not SX first.

Pretty fascinating, and I do think it hints at the origins of instinctual variant-- especially when taking into account the fact that our most prioritized instinct, is also our most wounded or neglected. If our parents prioritized it, then we would develop not needing to.
 

chickpea

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i think that my mom is so/sx, and my dad was sp/sx

I have heard that self pres is formed by early difficult circumstances, social is formed by having many caretakers, and sexual is formed by having ONE very closely-connecting parent. This would certainly be true in my case.

that's definitely true for me, i spent most of my childhood as an only child with a single mother. while being told the whole time how much i was like my mostly absent parent.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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that's definitely true for me, i spent most of my childhood as an only child with a single mother. while being told the whole time how much i was like my mostly absent parent.

Hmm, I'm much more like my mom than my dad, also. My dad used to have other interests when I was younger, but at a certain point, the only thing he cared about was sports, which didn't interest me at all. It was difficult for me to form a connection with him because he seemed interested in so little, mental health problems not withstanding. My dad got burned out, I think, trying to outdo his older brother, and that had something to do with what happened to him. That probably has something to do with why I'm so unambitious apart from academic/intellectual matters.
 

HongDou

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God, I have no idea how it happened.

I have heard that self pres is formed by early difficult circumstances, social is formed by having many caretakers, and sexual is formed by having ONE very closely-connecting parent. This would certainly be true in my case.

Do you happen to have the source on this? Pretty true for me with so/sx too (having many caretakers like my mom, grandma, and family friends but also being closely-connected with my mom).
 

Duffy

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mom - sp/so
dad - sp/sx

Self pres. sits comfortably for me in the middle (sx/sp/so).
 

Hawthorne

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Pretty sure I'm sx primary and pretty sure my parents are sp primaries as well. I suspect a lot of my teen angst was the result of their restrictions and them never really bothering to get to know me outside of their expectations. That and some other things may have lead to a lot of disillusionment around the concept of love and this creepy fixation with seeing deeply and being seen.

Or maybe this snowball is just a figment of my imagination. :shrug:
 

Chad of the OttomanEmpire

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Do you happen to have the source on this? Pretty true for me with so/sx too (having many caretakers like my mom, grandma, and family friends but also being closely-connected with my mom).

Sorry for replying like...6 weeks late, but I think Riso and Hudson say this somewhere on their website. I have no idea how to find that, though.
 

Luv Deluxe

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I think I meant to reply to this thread much earlier, but found myself distracted by...God knows what, anymore. Everything.

It's a really fascinating topic. I think [MENTION=17697]small.wonder[/MENTION] is onto something with this theory, but I'm also inclined to think a good portion of instinct can be inborn. It's very possible that I've always been sx-dom; visible demonstrations of such appeared as early as age four or five. A guess at my type back then probably would have held up today, as accurate as ever.

However, I wouldn't argue that my upbringing may have magnified it. Hard to know for sure. Nature and nurture working in tandem, maybe, as with many aspects of personality.

Both of my parents are strong sp-doms, likely so-aux. I felt bonded to my father, but not to my mother. My dad and I have always been pretty close. He's generally more accepting of my eccentricities, communicates in a similar fashion, etc. Most importantly, he has the generalized anxiety that I have (he's a 5w6), and talking with him about it often kept me from feeling like I was going crazy. On the other hand, my mother (2w1) almost exacerbated the feeling that I was out of my mind; she was more likely to scold me for having inappropriate emotions or come off as though she was disapproving because she didn't understand...and had no desire to understand. A "what is wrong with you?" was infinitely more probable than an "are you okay?" and I got used to it.

The catch was that, while growing up, my father traveled a lot for business purposes and was still in a troubled phase of self-medicating his own anxiety to the point of substance dependency. So he was often distant, quite literally, and I was left alone with my mom, who seemed almost afraid of my intensity. We fought all the time. I love both of my parents very much, and their health and happiness has improved along with my own over the years, but the fact is that I had to learn how to self-soothe at a pretty early age. My emotions were always running hot, too, so it was like being really thirsty in the middle of a desert.

I read that Sevens sometimes develop their mental coping habits by fixating on objects of entertainment to distract themselves from real or perceived emotional loss and their fear of continued metaphorical hunger - there's a name for that kind of attachment, I can't remember. But that was totally me as a kid. Just runnin' around with my pile of toys and notebooks, not asking for attention from anyone or anything so long as I could keep myself busy.

On the subject of interpersonal dependency, however, I would not consider myself a codependent person by any stretch of the imagination. That's why some of the descriptions of sx-dom as "one-on-one" really irritate me; some people tend to get the idea that it means an instinctual, desperate search for a soul mate. It feels almost laughably romantic when framed that way, and I tend to disagree with those definitions. I don't find that I need relationships, safety nets, or social frameworks to fuse to; it's not about that.

It's more than obsession, too. It's like having a constant need/want/drive humming away in the back of my head. On a very base, motivational level, I'm mostly concerned with where my next emotional high is coming from. I'm a junkie for intensity.

For what it's worth, I'm also an only child and where I grew up, I had zero neighbor kids with whom to interact. I was very socially isolated - but interestingly enough, I still turned out so-last.

My people skills are solid, but networking with others, actively seeking them out for the sake of staying in the know, mentally mapping the hierarchies of who's who...it just doesn't excite me, and thus it receives the back-burner. It feels exceptionally unimportant in the big scheme of things. Boring.
 

Kullervo

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I admit I'd never considered this, but now that you mention it, my parents are so/sp (mum) and sp/sx (dad). My brother is so/sx. Maybe this is an aspect of type that is more predictably heritable. From what I understand around 60% of "personality" (pretty vague, but let's take it for the sake of argument) is genetically determined.

As for the question of "who I am more like" - it is hard to answer because my personality is very different to that of both my parents, I have half-joked that underneath it all they are more similar to each other than they are to me. For example I share a lot of interests with my dad, but we have very different ethics (him: "keep persisting until you eventually get there" vs me: "if you don't get what you want one way, try a different approach"). We also have different tastes in and ideals about women/relationships, which has led to him and my brother making fun of me. I know we perceive the world in a different way but it still hurts knowing that he makes very little effort to listen, when I try to explain what would help us get on better. I don't even try to compare myself to my mum, or reach out to her, because we just...have nothing in common really. I can't talk to her about anything interesting, and she has shown herself to be totally incapable of relating to my feelings, desires and worldview.

A lot of the isolation I feel has definitely come from my parents' inability to understand me. For all the privileges I've had growing up, I am alone and feel depressed often. Authenticity is so important to me. I need somebody in my life who I can connect with strongly, and my obsessions are less about sex in and of itself but finding that girl and sharing everything with her, holding onto her forever. However the unmasucline nature of these wants has led to ridicule from my family.
 

small.wonder

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On the subject of interpersonal dependency, however, I would not consider myself a codependent person by any stretch of the imagination. That's why some of the descriptions of sx-dom as "one-on-one" really irritate me; some people tend to get the idea that it means an instinctual, desperate search for a soul mate. It feels almost laughably romantic when framed that way, and I tend to disagree with those definitions. I don't find that I need relationships, safety nets, or social frameworks to fuse to; it's not about that.

It's more than obsession, too. It's like having a constant need/want/drive humming away in the back of my head. On a very base, motivational level, I'm mostly concerned with where my next emotional high is coming from. I'm a junkie for intensity.

For what it's worth, I'm also an only child and where I grew up, I had zero neighbor kids with whom to interact. I was very socially isolated - but interestingly enough, I still turned out so-last.

My people skills are solid, but networking with others, actively seeking them out for the sake of staying in the know, mentally mapping the hierarchies of who's who...it just doesn't excite me, and thus it receives the back-burner. It feels exceptionally unimportant in the big scheme of things. Boring.

Hey! Thanks for chiming in! :) I wonder if you've checked out the 7 specific instinctual descriptions before (Naranjo)? I did a write up of them here, if you'd like to check them out-- first image is general, second is 7-specific. I hear you about the co-dependancy card for Sx, but I do think craving one-on-one interaction/relationships is core to Sx, in addition to the intensity thing (which is part of the draw to intimacy). I do think there can be a ping pong effect sometimes for Sx-first though, when we get burned from someone thinking we want too much intimacy-- and that's to feel bad that we need it. I say that b/c I express similar sentiments about co-dependancy, but because I once was (and never want to be again).

I personally believe instincts to be more nurture than nature, in that everyone does have all three instincts. I believe we were born with them equally, as needs to survive, but only in contact with other humans do we begin to prioritize (or be taught some are less important than others, whether by example or experience).

From there, I believe core type might play a role in whether we go against, or with our parental model (or what they value). Across the board, so far, Sx-first people seem to go against the grain (as reflected 20/26 in this poll, and described above).

-----
I thought I'd update some of my thoughts about this stuff while I'm at it.

I think it's a pretty simple theory that I have going here about instincts and parent types, which I don't want anyone to misunderstand or over-complicate. I think some have responded negatively to my calling it "damage" but that's the side I view it on. The theory is essentially this, whichever way you look at it:

Your parents provide most for you in regards to their first instinct (this is only natural, as it's how they would care for themselves as well). Because our parents totally covered that first instinct, then, either:
  • we find no need to pursue it ourselves because we've never been want for that need. Prioritizing one though, automatically devalues/deprives us of the other two instincts/needs so we crave them.---->So far, seems true of Sx-firsts (20/26 voted here to say they have non-Sx-first parents), and perhaps less compliant types. That said, some people in the So-first thread said they went against the grain too.

    OR
  • it automatically makes us the same.---->So far, seems true of more compliant types. Specifically, I've noted for years that most 1's that I know IRL or have encountered here, believe they and their parents are the same on some or all levels. In some cases I think this is true (they wanted to be "right", so became like their parents), and in other cases I think it's a falsehood (they want to believe they and their parents are the same, so both parties are "correct".) A good 1w2 Sx/So friend of mine initially believed strongly that her Father was a 1, but after a long weekend reading through Enneagram and discussing it together, she realized he is really a 6w5. Interesting to say the least.

More musing and study to be done as usual, but thought I'd share. :yes:
 
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