[NF] Frustrated NT Seeking NF Advice

[redacted]

She honestly sounds too manic for anything to work.

 

[Udog]

There's already some good advice

Please take what I say as an attempt to be constructive. You clearly care for her deeply, and you seem like a good friend. I ain't be hatin'.

Here's the thing: Believing that you are obligated to help her is actually hurting your chances of getting through, as she is picking up on your resentment. Helping her needs to be a CHOICE that you make of your own free will. If you can't make it willingly, you are probably better off backing away for now.

In order to help her successfully though, you need to focus on HER needs and feelings. This needs to be about her, not you. Think about this: She basically has told you she hates herself enough to not care about her health or well-being. So with that mindset, how do you think she feels when you tell her that her behavior is causing YOU stress? Do you think that makes her feel any better? Do you think she is worried that much about your stress when she feels the way she does?

One thing you can do, if you don't desire to cut her out yet, is to simply ask questions. Seek to understand instead of passing judgement. If she asks you that she took drugs from strangers, ask her why. If she says to have fun, instead of passing judgement (That's dangerous and stupid!) seek to understand (How is it fun?). This may allow you to open a dialog and feel a bit more safe around you, which would be a good start.

 

[IrishStallion819]

Their is noone too manic for kindness...

 

[heart]

She honestly sounds too manic for anything to work.

Yes, this is what I get from it too. IF she recognized that she's a destructive force to herself and those around her and IF she wanted to change but was having a hard time with backsliding and such, then I would say this detrached love with boundaries might very well be a good thing, but since she doesn't see the need to change, it would just be the OP using their resources and energy into trying to change this other person who doesn't see the need to change. The vampiric situation for the OP would not change and it's woefully unfair to the OP.

How many of us are saints with unlimited personal resources?

 

[Anja]

As long as the focus is on her needs she will have no need to change.

No one is hopeless. Sometimes an ill person is the most defiant before they concede their need for help.

Concern for her needs is appropriate but they can't be addressed by anyone who remains emotionally attached to her game-playing.

Anyway, we seem to be working at this with more energy than the OP. Perhaps he's at work?

 

[heart]

No one is hopeless.

Totally aside from the issue being discussed in this thread, I wonder how anyone can make the statement above. If people won't change, they won't change. I have known people who continue to overstep and overstep and it's exahusting to try and maintain a relationship where one is basically having to hold a firm line every moment that contact is engaged.

There are organic mental illnesses that can impair thought processes so much the other person cannot maintain good enough perspective to see the need for change. It's sad, but it's also true. If the person is not deemed enough of a danger to themselves to be taken under professional care and they don't seek treatment, then they can be a lifelong drain on the people around them.

 

[redacted]

Their is noone too manic for kindness...

Kindness, sure. Relationship, no.

 

[Anja]

Totally aside from the issue being discussed in this thread, I wonder how anyone can make the statement above.
If they don't seek treatment, then they can be a lifelong drain on the people around them.

I don't know how many people can make this statement of those of us who are here. But I can with confidence. Because I've done my work in that area ever since I had children 36 years ago. And I've had good results with hard work.

I think I may be an exception to the majority as our society is a throw-away society and few have time for the amount of personal work it requires to learn how to hold boundaries well.

I like people to know that it is a viable option for them and that all hope with sick people in their lives is never lost as long as the person still is alive. And it doesn't mean suffering right along with them.

Some people never do seek help but with emotional detachment you'll still be connected enough to move that process forward. If I love someone I am willing to do the work necessary. Built that way.

 

[IrishStallion819]

There are organic mental illnesses that can impair thought processes so much the other person cannot maintain good enough perspective to see the need for change. It's sad, but it's also true. If the person is not deemed enough of a danger to themselves to be taken under professional care and they don't seek treatment, then they can be a lifelong drain on the people around them.

I call that "Pride".... When you say someone is "Mentally Ill", you basically say their is no hope for them and their in this "waiting" game. They Lie in wondering if they'll actually get better or not. But when you tell them that they are not sick...Then theirs hope.. I broke out of a 2.5 year depression, when I realized that this was because of "my doing" and what others have done to me".. Then, I started accepting help from others, making right with others I have wronged, eating right, stop listening to the docs etc.. Now, I'm feeling the best I have ever felt about myself and life.. Deeming someone as "mentally ill" is really givving them an "excuse" for them feeling the way they do and not to change.. Your really doing them more harm, then good.. She is at the point in her life because of what "She" has done to herself, by the choices she has made and being deceived by other people..

 

[Costrin]

*Reads OP, doesn't read rest of thread*

Have you thought of the possibility, that she allows herself to do these things, because she knows that people will stop her if she goes too far? Maybe if you stop stopping her, then she'll have a rude awakening and realize that she needs to be responsible for herself.

 

[Paisley]

This poor girl is looking for love in all the wrong places and running from hope.

A great discourse and what an unbelievable story Shaula, that's quite the show of selflessness and love, I'm very impressed. I'm reminded of Boone and Shannon on LOST.

I resonate with a lot of the problems everyone is bringing up, and I have to side with Evan on this one. Show kindness, love, care, support, and continue to be her emotional rock and her soft place to land only if she's receptive to you, but know that depending on her psychological state, your very involvement may have a negative affect and push her even further away and further into this downward spiral. You may be too close to the situation to help her. My advice is to seek the help of responsible people who can help YOU to cope Shaula, like your parents and her parents, teachers, counsellors, pastors, and other such responsible people that deal with these situations on a regular basis. You'll find that help isn't that far away. You can't go into this alone and be a martyr, as that too will only push her further away. Hope is the real issue here. She's abandoned hope and on a war path of self-destruction. If she's receptive to you, appeal to her heart and not to her head. She needs to feel that she's loved intrinsically for who she is. She needs to feel peace in you so if she is receptive to you, be gentle, be loving, be kind, be understanding, be supportive, and always stand your ground when she starts to attack you. Love her in her anger and rage, and know your own limits of what you can handle.

All of that is usually not within the INTJ (not saying that's you, Shaula), but INTJ's are more about putting a bridle on people and forcing them to listen, which is not going to work, and she may already see you as that person. Never lose heart or lose hope in her, and learn the limits of what you can do until she becomes receptive to you.

 

[Shaula]

Thank you all for the useful advice. It has given me a much clearer view on how to asses this problem.

I don't think I'm going to throw in the towel just yet. Because I honestly don't think she's reached the point of no return although it may seem like it at times. But I do need to change the way I am going about things as many of you have said. I can't force things to be fixed. And I have to face the truth that I can't help her unless she accepts it. Ha, common sense!

 

[alcea rosea]

I am very concerned for my close ENFP friend. For the past few years she's been becomming progressively more reckless and careless. For example, I was pissed last night because she had an affair with a married man who's only defense was, "Oh my wife knows about it." Then ended up sharing a bed with someone else who she's only seen twice in her life and about 30 years older. Also in that same night she popped some unknown pill that some random guy gave her. God, I wanted to smack her! I'm extrememly frustrated with her in that she chooses to put herself in harms way. Instead of saving up the money to see a doctor about her insomnia problems she used to wrap a cloth around her head until she passed out. I can understand when money is tight but that is just plain STUPID. I've tried suggesting many ways to help her problems but she rides off my advice before she even tries it. Sometimes if I suggest her something she will do the opposite just to spite me. (She calls it an impulse to do the opposite.)

Last summer I got a frightening call from her mother telling me that she had gone missing. At the time I was living over a thousand miles away but I dropped everything I was doing and drove cross country to go find her. Turns out she had been staying with some guy in dumpy motel who claimed to be a millionaire and had theoretically bought her a brand new car, a motorcycle, and was planning to take her on a trip to Europe. I ain't making this shit up!

I feel like I've had to put my life on hold for her.

Now I've expressed my worries to her on numerous occasions. She usually replies with, "Well I don't care enough about myself [to seek help]." "How do you expect me to do it when I'm broke. It's easier to do it this way." "You don't understand how I work. It's fine for me to do it [a harmful way] because it doesn't bother me." "You don't understand my situation. You don't know what it's like..." "I know what I'm doing. I've done this so many times." When I argue about the stress she is causing me she says, "Don't be so selfish." "I'm a big girl. I can look out for myself." "I'm not your responsibility."

I've known this person since elementry school and she is like a sister to me. She is actually a very smart girl but she does the stupidest things. I understand that she is an adult and needs to make her own decisions in life but I'll be damned if I find her laying dead in a gutter. There is a part of me that feels OBLIGATED to intervene.

Keep in mind that although I'm seeking advice, I'm also venting.

Just reading the orginial post made me think that maybe your friend has some mental issues like bipolar disorder?

I don't think reckless behavior is very typical for ENFP at least for a well balanced one.

 

[Shaula]

It's possible and I wouldn't be surprised either. About six months ago she had a psychological evaluation which returned results of concern but nothing conclusive.

 

[chris1207]

That made me really sad just reading that. If I were you, I'd just end it. I'm the kind of person that likes to give ppl constructive advice on how ppl should handle situations. I know a girl who was obese and now she's skinny and she just starves herself. Later on, my ISTJ dad explained ideal way to loose weight and how if you don't get enough calories your body goes into starvation mode and how if you have one big meal after all that time you just balloon up. I tried communicated all that I'd learned to her and she just flat out ignored my advice. I was telling her how she could go about living her life in a much healthier way and she just spat in my face. I don't talk to her anymore (she might've been an esfp btw.)

I think the reason that ppl like this do the things they do is that they get so fixated on achieving some goal that they completely dismiss any kind of logic that isn't there own. How could you understand everything that's going with them? For her, being with strange guys is her thing. She has no self-esteem and doesn't think that she's worth something better.

Just let her go! You got J, you can end it!

 

[Xellotath]

How enviable. She is fortunate to have a friend like you.

I don't presume to have the same issues as her or to know what she feels right now.
[Even if I am an ENFP, and a currently unhealthy one]

And if there's any advice I can offer, is to ignore anyone that upon reading a brief paragraph on a forum, shouts random diagnostics such like "Bipolar! Depression! Manic! Mentally ill!" as if they were in primary school and they might get a sticker for screaming the right answer. Also, I'd like to kindly request that you resist snatching a copy of the DSM from the internet and treat it as a checklist for disorders in an attempt to categorize her behavior.
[In academic psychology, one of the first things we are taught is to avoid pseudo-diagnosis at all costs, *precisely* because it's satisfying to do so.]

It could very well be, that ENFPs and the MBTI have absolutely nothing to do with your particular problem. [If the situation is that delicate, it would be prudent to wary of your assumptions.]

Then again, you must have thought of this in advance [Warning: I over-idealize INTJs ], so chances are the above paragraphs were ignored. I also think that all that advice about "Leaving her behind" will be unproductive, because had she become a clear threat to you, your personality tendencies would have probably dismissed her a long time ago. [Then again, I don't know you.]

So my guess is, the reason you're here is to collect personal anecdotes? [I doubt you were really expecting the people on the internet to objectively fix your problem.]

Mmmmokay..
Recklessness is not totally foreign in my particular case. Landed in the hospital a few times, but if there was a general theme to my willful self-harm, was freedom [Not in the adolescent break from your parents, but freedom for and from myself]. When I was in that state of mind, every friend that approached me with advice and "don't do that"s, looked like he / she was trying to bind me, to lock me back in a normal state where I felt completely helpless. And I rejected anyone who even dared to mention idiocities like "unconditional love" or "true friendship", because I'd only ended up suspecting them even more than the others. This was done, of course, never overtly.. always with smiles, jokes, "Oh, you're right'"s, and layer after layer of lies. I don't know about the other ENFP's but I can be extremely manipulative, sometimes nearly unconsciously. [Would be times, where I caught myself going "Wow, I just twisted that entire story without realizing it! Oh well! They seemed so happy and amused with the lie, anyway! ] When some of my friends began to give up, it felt like it confirmed my assumptions of them. It also felt horrible because I wanted everyone to laugh and smile and not ruin the "fun" atmosphere.

...And..the rest is kind of really private.
Sorry for giving you a story without a happy resolution or a gentle cue into prettier ideas like ..hope and recovery.

Best of luck you and your friend.

 

[mortabunt]

I'd kill her.

 

[Kalach]

One thing you can do, if you don't desire to cut her out yet, is to simply ask questions. Seek to understand instead of passing judgement. If she asks you that she took drugs from strangers, ask her why. If she says to have fun, instead of passing judgement (That's dangerous and stupid!) seek to understand (How is it fun?). This may allow you to open a dialog and feel a bit more safe around you, which would be a good start.

^^ I like this one.

Tough as it may be, as INTJ in this position, your best role is facilitating judgment, not actually making judgment itself. You know what should be done next, but she doesn't, and if she were going to attempt to know, she'd process the facts differently anyway. So you can chart the course by telling her what to do, which isn't working, or you can go with your intuitive grasp of what question is the right one to ask next (while backing off on the rush to judgment).

And realise that she will lie a lot. So if you are going to spend time talking without judgment, realise it's going to be taxing on you. Take it in steps. You'll know when you need a break by how many times you've said, "Oh fuck, just do X!" You pull pack at that point and say, "Ah fuck, how about a milkshake and lets stare at the stars for a bit." (Because of what Erin said, about providing a safe place for the ENFP to get away from others. You as INTJ ironically actually can do that by getting frustrated and tired and giving up on judgment.)

Good luck. ENFPs running down black holes are neither fun to watch nor likely to stop until they hit something really hard.



Also, there may come a time when you'll have to agree with her, that you need to keep away from her or she'll drag you down with her. Although she'll exaggerate and be more fucked up for it in her decision making, but there may come that time because in fact she may need more help than you alone can offer, and she'll make your help useless by not wanting to be helped.

 

[simulatedworld]

And NO, it's not your obligation to intervene except to be there for her when she askes for it.

Ugh yeah, why do Js feel the need to do this?

ESTJ sister once gave me a ride to Athens (where she lives) so I could visit some friends who were still hanging out at some club, and when I wanted to get out and wait for them at a nearby restaurant, she refused to let me out of the car until I could enumerate my exact plans for meeting up and coordinating the evening.

So in an attempt to placate her, I suggested that I just stay at her house until my friends were done with their clubbing and then call them for a ride from there...which she later used against me to complain that I couldn't make up my mind about my plans, when the only reason I'd made this suggestion in the first place was to try and cooperate with her overbearing mothering act.

This would have been fine, had I been, you know, fourteen years old, but it was less than a year ago.

I don't care if we're in the middle of war-torn Haiti, I'm a legal adult and I'm getting out of your car when I want to get out of your fucking car. There comes a point when good intentions just don't excuse this shit anymore.

 

[Gengar]

It appears as if nothing is going to work:

if you keep holding onto her - you get hurt. she feels rebellious. so forth

if you don't hold onto her - she feels lonely. you feel worried. so forth

if you cut her from your life - you lose your elementary friend. I wouldn't do this personally, but that's just me.



In my opinion, the best thing to do is to get back her trust. To do this, call her and say something along these lines:

"Hey <insert name>, I'm sorry for always questioning your values. I apologize for constantly trying to intervene in your life. Honestly, I didn't mean to act like a control freak towards you, and you are, of course, free to do whatever you please. <maybe throw in some humor at this point about UN charters and people's freedom etc.> I promise I won't intervene anymore. However, just know that if you need me, I'll be here. We've been friends for such a long time, and I hope that you can at least trust me to help you."

Sounds quite cheesy, but at least you're trying to reach out and understand her whilst giving her space. That I think, is what is most important in this situation. Hopefully, being an ENFP, she'll be able to reflect upon your words and trust you a bit more.