[INFJ] INFJ feeling alone?

[LotsOfHeart]

I can definitely relate to this thread. Whether it has to do with type or not is debateable, but it is certainly an issue pretty much all of us struggle with.

Another discovery I made a while back was that I long for the company of others, but although I hate to admit it, I don't really enjoy the company of many people I know. It makes for an interesting yet very confusing problem.

Then there are a couple people I long for the attention of, but maybe they're out of reach somehow. They're far away, or close by but out of contact. Even though I don't want to, I get sad thinking that they're out having fun and making friends while I'm sitting here, working, even if that is not necessarily the case. And I want to stop working and go out to meet new people, but when I need to spend too much time on maintaining good quality of life, I get stuck socially. I try to budget my time but it still happens. Then I get uneasy because my job requires a lot of time and effort but I don't make much money, so I get scared my new friends, esp. potential girlfriends, won't understand.

One way I like to deal with it, ironically, is by going on walks outside. This takes time too, but not as much as I can leave whenever I want/need to. Sometimes it's nice to have a "special place" you can go to for a while, and just sit and think. It could be a park, a bar, a certain neighborhood bench, even a peaceful bus stop where you can sit down. And sometimes just being in the company of people, even if they are strangers (as long as the environment is safe of course), can be helpful. And being out n the world does help. As a matter of fact, this is a great cure for many problems.

However, the best way to deal with it is by filling whatever the void is in your life. I almost always get depressed when something isn't quite right and I dwell on it. Whatever my social problem is, it needs to be addressed or it will never really improve. So why not start now? Because maybe we don't feel ready. And that's OK. I think I will branch out more when I feel ready.

This feeling will probably never completely vanish from your life. But it can be minimized greatly.

 

[the state i am in]

gratitude/guilt balance makes a big difference in feeling like giving, and giving is necessary for infj faith. unlike Fi, ours has a much much much shorter shelf-life and needs to be renewed in-interaction. getting the big purpose right is important, but more important is getting some temporal organization right, the story right, so you feel more grounded in your own experience. that's where Ti needs to come into the picture. you have to get that story right so you can make choices in the moment that aren't so singular but can instead accept a wider variety of positive outcomes. the story also provides a much better kind of compass to operate from by helping you build up the present context/define the situation (from previous, possible stories) so you're not so overreactive to the immediate Fe environment/interaction monitoring. Fi is better and more grounded at this usually, but e4 types especially can kind of flatline when they can't accept fast enough. when you can't accept yourself, especially, or when your standards are too crazy, the accept/let go ratio gets all out of whack and can't keep up (also worse for 4w5 and 5w4) and probably sx types who are more demanding and entitled in general. see a lot of pressure balance fluctuations where self-acceptance and other-acceptance just oscillate way too wildly until the harmonizing system burns out and leaves a person with nothing but anxiety. psychotherapy is also really good, i like david richo, because for F types it's really important to get the emotional assumptions you make right. emotions are based on primary emotional registrations and then secondary appraisals, which means your culturally infused emotional reasoning can help you harmonize or it can lead you wildly astray. getting rid of bad emotional premises/assumptions and replacing them with ones that work is really important in helping the conclusions and interpretations you draw from your emotional experience, the foundation of your BELIEFS, right.

 

[Ashkan]

I am like this too, you are not the only one.

 

[Cellmold]

Loneliness is a standard human state.

Everything else is just trying to stifle the inadequacy of understanding between people. But essentially you either deal with loneliness or it deals with you.