[MBTI General] You can defend others, but not yourself?

[nanook]

i can't defend myself when i feel threatened or "fucked with" and i think that's mostly because i am afraid of my anger.

if i defend someone else, then i am not hatefully angry. i focus on the compassion and just because i defend my friends doesn't mean i have to be like one of those who are extremely judgemental about all the enemies of their friends. i can be angry against them though. its more about being decisive and motivated to defend and less about destruction of the enemy. i can be objective about their qualities/perspective and let them live.

but i am somewhat ragefull against my own enemies. i am somewhat like the god of destruction. and i don't feel like i am doing a good thing, while i am being wrathful like shiva.

and if there is any compassion in my desire to defend myself (like compassion with myself) then i can not believe in it in that moment. i don't seem to be able to believe in the truthfulness of a 'good' attitude (compassion) of mine, when a 'bad' attitude (wrath) is obviously true at any point in time. apparently my sense of identity get sucked into (reduced to) that single point in the presence of being threatened and being wrathful.

albeit i am not the one who can't identify with only one of them in general.

i can be dare to become angry (meaning i won't loos my broader identity and sense of goodness) and i can be wrathful and destructive if i defend something good.

if i defend someone else its not like i am defending the truthfulness and goodness of my own compassion for the other. so it's not even a question whether i believe in those qualities in the moment, albeit i do. the point is, the other one (or possibly the good thing that must be defended) is not wrathful, he's that innocent victim, lol, so he is 'good', so i am defending this goodness in him and in a way i sacrifice my goodness for his innocence, by turning evil. so according to this silly binary logic of "good against evil is still not so good but somewhat justified but evil against evil is never justified" defending someone justifies anger.

btw, my brain knows better, this is not about my "opinion" - it just happens to be the logic of my retarded borderline emotions. looks like extroverted logic to me.

 

[ladypinkington]

Oh man- this jumped out at me like a neon sign.

I am terrible at defending myself.

I hate that I am always a deer in headlights. I am always in shock whenever someone tears me down or criticizes me.

I hate that I obsess endlessly and can't let go after a confrontation because I haven't had any closure.

I hate how I don't fight for respect and engender respect- because that is what you do when you don't let people run over you. I teach people not to respect me and I fear I validate their criticism by not defending myself.

Lately I have been realizing that I am really defensive with people. I am taking on a preemptive F you attitude.

Mostly with people at my old church. I have a lot of baggage there and a ton comes from loose ends of not defending myself.

I can feel it pouring over more in general with people though and I really hate that and need to really get myself in gear and face this issue.

I can defend other people I love no problem- someone says the least little wrong or negative and I jump on it and defend. Shoot I am so against negativity and criticism towards other people I even find myself being devil's advocate for the devil himself,lol.

But when it comes to me- nothing- nothing but hatred of myself as well as the person who put me down.

I think one of the reasons I hate dealing with people so much is that I don't have trust in myself to be able to deal with them in conflict and as a result I don't trust people or social situations.

I always feel outnumbered and outweighed. I have always been an outcast and have always had problems with the people at the top of a system as they always tend to hate me. The thing is when you are at the bottom- you don't have support and you are all alone. People will use their popularity to destroy you is what I have experienced and I have been destroyed several times over by it as I have never been one to be popular. I have been shown that it matters what people think or that there is power in what people think- people can harm you and feel they have a right to do it. I feel like I am walking on eggshells in any social situation.

You don't have credibility if you are on the bottom and people choose based on relationship more then what is really going on. I hate that I don't even fight for credibility or fairness and don't fight back- that I am not worth it even to myself. I hate how stupid onlooking people are and how people don't even stop to think or question- it takes too much effort to listen to two sides and it takes too much character to be fair and it takes too much intelligence to see that there is mostly a miss communication and there is value to both sides.

Now I feel like I am still all alone and outnumbered automatically. Even if there is no one else around, if I know they have a larger support system- I feel defeated already.

I need to get myself off the defensive mode- I realize that is how I am now dealing with rejection- I am going into a defensive place that will become an offensive place and I really need to get out of it. I really need to forgive and get over this anger and find some sort of closure.

I think really until I find myself in a confrontation with someone and then stand for myself- I won't get over it. Most of it has to do with feeling competent to myself and I feel once I show myself I am able to stand up for myself- then I think I will really start to get over it. Perhaps my defensiveness is hoping that it will create a conflict so that I can do that- I feel like I want some conflict and heated lashing out so that I can let this crap out and have my sink or swim taking a stand defining moment.

 

[Lacey]

I'm finding it hard to remember a time where I've even needed to defend myself. There's probably something wrong with that.

 

[nightning]

Similar to what sky said... but I wouldn't call it simply a case of outside black & white vs internal shades of gray. Part of the reason I rarely defend myself is because the first thing that hits me is "I'm at fault". An irrational mentality that I'm responsible for the group so it doesn't matter if other people mess up. I still think in some ways I messed up because I didn't spot it early enough or didn't try hard enough to prevent it.

When it comes to people who say I didn't do stuff when I clearly did though... I get mad. Really mad.

 

[pyramid]

I get defensive of my learning style, but don't know how to defend it. I either fruitlessly over-explain myself or just can't find a way to translate it for the other person. I will defend others until I fall over from exhaustion.

 

[BlueFlame]

ree reasons:

1) I'm usually in shock. I rarely have conflicts outside of super close relationships, so when someone confronts me, I'm usually too busy trying to figure out what the hell is going on to be able to explain my side.

2) I don't feel like it's worth the effort. If someone is just throwing a temper tantrum or trying to create drama, it's swastr of time and energy to even address it, much less give it any validity by actually defending myself.

3)If things intensify without resolution, I honestly scare myself. Once that *rage switch* is flipped, I have no clue how to turn it off and I'm stuck in Destroy mode until the job is done or someone diffuses the situation. I'm completely fearless at that point...even if the person could squash me like a bug. That's something I REALLY don't like about myself, and even though it's rare, I don't like risking it by getting into potentially volatile situations.

Plus my intuition doesn't work so well when it comes to my own actions. I usually have no clue what's driving me until it's much too late!