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[MBTI General] How do Fs deal with despair?

LowEnd

New member
Joined
Feb 10, 2008
Messages
24
MBTI Type
INTP
Being the emotional retard I am, I wouldn't mind knowing how an F would negotiate absolute 'wit's end'. My instinct under extreme emotional influence is to collapse in on myself and shut up for about a week. I'll think a lot amid deadpan confusion and frustration, trying to make sense of it. I know there are better ways of dealing, hence this thread.

So, you Fs are capable of understanding your feelings and acting accordingly.
Lets hear it.

Obviously subject to situation, but say what you can.
 

disregard

mrs
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
7,826
MBTI Type
INFP
Sort of a vague question.. do you mean, how do we deal with a situation in which there truly is no hope? Or how do we act when we are desperate (a state of extreme need accompanied by great anxiety)?
 

LowEnd

New member
Joined
Feb 10, 2008
Messages
24
MBTI Type
INTP
how do we act when we are desperate (a state of extreme need accompanied by great anxiety)?

Yeah, pretty much.

You need something/someone/anything, desperately but all possibilities have been exhausted, which leaves you in a desperate situation. The desperate situation has emotional repercussions. How do you deal with those?
 

disregard

mrs
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
7,826
MBTI Type
INFP
Yeah, pretty much.

You need something/someone/anything, desperately but all possibilities have been exhausted, which leaves you in a desperate situation. The desperate situation has emotional repercussions. How do you deal with those?

I turn to the comforting wisdom of the sages.. Osho, Deng Ming-Dao..

Also, and more importantly, I allow myself to go through the grieving process, and I do not hold back.
 

absoluteuncertainty

New member
Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Messages
26
MBTI Type
ENFP
acceptance!

Whenever I can't get something I need (and it happens! :O) and it's bothering me, I usually just keep myself busy with people/things/rocking out :headphne:

I've found there's little in life worth dwelling over, no job means in the best case you've an opportunity for career change and at worst well you can get a job at McDonald's until you find something better. No girl means at best you can look at people more openly and find someone that's even better for you! At worst, no girl means possibly some adjustment (maybe financially) but you can at least reevaluate where you are and where YOU want to be!

But hey, holing up for a week isn't the end of the world! Comparitively speaking, a week to surpass a traumatic event or turn of events is quick! I've known/know people that take far longer than that! :party2:
 

Jae Rae

Free-Rangin' Librarian
Joined
Nov 19, 2007
Messages
979
MBTI Type
INFJ
Being the emotional retard I am, I wouldn't mind knowing how an F would negotiate absolute 'wit's end'. My instinct under extreme emotional influence is to collapse in on myself and shut up for about a week. I'll think a lot amid deadpan confusion and frustration, trying to make sense of it. I know there are better ways of dealing, hence this thread.

So, you Fs are capable of understanding your feelings and acting accordingly.
Lets hear it.

Obviously subject to situation, but say what you can.

Your spelling of despair makes me despair. :hug:

To answer the question - yes, collapsing is a possibility. Thoughts swirling, I talk about it with husband and friends. I obsess. I read about moods, typology or personality to get a handle on why the person has acted in a way to make me despair or why I'm reacting the way I am.

Here's what helps - time away from the situation and thinking about it. A walk or bike ride, swim, shower, nap, movie (something funny often works wonders), diverting reading material (not about personality), shopping at the farmer's market, haircut. Diversion and treating myself well are the antidotes to despair, which is an attack on my tranquillity and self-esteem.

I'm not sure which situation we're discussing. If it's an actual loss (break-up, eg), grieving is normal and natural and you have to get through it. Try to be as kind to yourself as you can.
 

Siúil a Rúin

when the colors fade
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
14,037
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
496
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Being the emotional retard I am, I wouldn't mind knowing how an F would negotiate absolute 'wit's end'. My instinct under extreme emotional influence is to collapse in on myself and shut up for about a week. I'll think a lot amid deadpan confusion and frustration, trying to make sense of it. I know there are better ways of dealing, hence this thread.
Many similarities here for me except replace deadpan and focus on only thinking with over the top crying and anxiety wrestling with thinking clearly until i get really sleepy in a funny peaceful bliss of not having enough energy to continue feeling the pain. I do recluse until it is sorted out.

I see the emotional element similarly to getting physically sick and just allow it to happen until it drains itself of its strength. Then, the thinking and analysis part examines the more subjective aspects of what took place from a position of distance: What was my perception? What was the other person/people's perception? What is fair and reasonable? How can I frame this situation in a way that minimizes tunnel vision, anxiety, despair? What irrational ideas am i projecting onto this situation to increase my pain? What actions can I take to produce the best result for myself and the people I care about?

Those kinds of questions attempt to make it to the foreground from the start, but if I can sense that my mind is too flooded with chemicals and emotion to actually think constructively, then I try to allow the emotions to come without any judgment and just move through them in the present moment without thinking at all. Then as they dissipate, I can focus in on the analysis from the position of observer of the situation. I try to view myself and others involved as an observer and think of what i would say to comfort such a person in my situation.
 

LowEnd

New member
Joined
Feb 10, 2008
Messages
24
MBTI Type
INTP
Acceptance isn't good in my experience. For example, prolonged unemployment could cause such despair, and accepting that you're very bad at finding/obtaining employment isn't going to help.

I've heard the "Talk to someone" tip many times. In theory it should help. I understand the apparent benefits, but trying to explain the tangled layers of what goes through my head, just doesn't work. No different to attempting to untie a giant knot. Also, the way I converse is largely reliant on the other person. I let others dictate the direction of conversation. I'm a hell of a lot better at reacting than I am acting. So unless someone asks the right questions (ain't gonna happen), I'm not going to reach a relevant point unless I force the conversation in that direction (despair itself prohibits this).

Distractions can work, but being an INTP, I'm never far from prioritising my brain activity and putting everything else on autopilot. Not only that, I'm damn lazy.

Crying til I get sleepy?
Not since I was a very very small child. Ah, simpler times.

I'm not good at letting emotions out (surprised?). After all, I've spent so long keeping them down, I wouldn't know how to be particularly emotional. Like you said Toonia, Its only a chemical reaction and its getting in the way of normal functioning. I can either tuck it away, or welcome hell into my head (no thanks).

I realise I've just swatted away the suggestions I asked for, but I'm looking for a chink in the armor of my idiosyncrasies. I've spent a lot of time perfecting what is essentially a flawed method. Old habits die hard. Isn't there some kind of secret coping manual issued to Fs?
 

disregard

mrs
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
7,826
MBTI Type
INFP
Acceptance isn't good in my experience. For example, prolonged unemployment could cause such despair, and accepting that you're very bad at finding/obtaining employment isn't going to help.

This is not acceptance. This is the application of a negative judgment.
 

ajblaise

Minister of Propagandhi
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
7,914
MBTI Type
INTP
I would guess that they deal with despair by getting depressed for a while.
 

Hang

New member
Joined
Jul 1, 2008
Messages
75
MBTI Type
INFJ
When I get to that state, I immediatly start talking to myself, or my imaginary friend.
I have a habit of blaming myself for everything that has gone wrong, as if I feel I deserve to be punished.

What I do to make the situation better is that I start meditating and fill my thoughts with love. Love can never go wrong.
That doesn't work for more than half the time though.
 

cascadeco

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Oct 7, 2007
Messages
9,083
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9w1
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Isn't there some kind of secret coping manual issued to Fs?

Actually I'd like to get a hold of that coping manual myself. ;)

I have a feeling everyone 'deals' with this stuff in their own way, and I think all of us explore different options of coping with it, to try to find something that works.

I've learned, at least for myself, that trying to ignore it and push it away, and distract myself from it, merely prolongs it, or intensifies the negative energy.

But if I just wallow in my negative, anxiety-ridden, miserable state, and don't fight it off, and just let myself give voice to the true feelings - 'This sucks', 'Life sucks', 'I can't take this anymore,' 'Why the hell do I get like this?', 'I don't have the strength to live a life where this keeps happening every now and then, and the knowledge that it WILL happen every now and then, til I die, makes me despair'....etc...rather than rationalizing it and trying to 'fix' myself from not having any of the thoughts to begin with --- makes it blow over MUCH faster. What may have been a couple of months of milder anxiety and avoidance and distraction, gets filtered down to a more intense, awful couple of days, or maybe a week.

I am a ball of anxiety and spinning thoughts for those couple of days, and sleep poorly and it affects me physically -- but eventually I wear myself out, mentally/emotionally, the spinning thoughts stop of their own accord, and I reach a calm place where it's all behind me. And I move on.

Although the above probably comes across like a very bad experience -- and it IS -- I will say that over time I'm finding that although it totally sucks each and every time, I am also aware that it will pass (and that recognition can lessen the panic state), and in a weird way I think it's becoming easier because of that. Just accepting it as a way that I am, and something to work with and through -- not against. When I first experienced these intense feelings of anxiety and despair, I self-labelled it as something 'wrong' and something I wasn't doing right, in my life, because I thought if I was doing everything 'right', I wouldn't get the feelings at all. But the very act of labelling it as something bad that I had to push away and fight against really aggravated it and made the anxiety spin even further out of control -- because I thought my very self was 'Wrong'. Now that I've stopped labeling this emotional state as something that is bad and that I have to actively avoid at all costs --- it doesn't happen as often, and it just washes over me and I can move on a lot sooner than I could before. Again, I want to make it clear that the 'washing over me' thing sucks each and every time, and continues to frustrate me to no end when I do, once again, get like that, but.....I've just learned to accept it as part of who I am. Just the nature of myself and how I view the world and the things I contemplate and value.

If there was a specific trigger to what started the 'spiral of death' (it's what I call these little funks), I will sometimes send a note to trusted friends just to get some of the thoughts/feelings off of my chest, and sometimes that helps. But I don't 'expect' or really need them to respond back -- I just need to expel some of the angst from myself. Plus the very nature of this funk is an internal one -- and can only be worked through within myself -- so although external understanding/support can lighten the load, ultimately my emotional state/thoughts rest on myself alone -- so I tend to hole up and just wallow until, like I said, I completely wear myself out and can let go of all of it -- because by that wearing out point, I have realized the fleeting nature of the emotions, and my various emotional states themselves, and I can see the triviality of all of it in the big picture. And then I can rest and move on.

(so sorry for the long rambling post. I know I repeated myself in places, but I wanted to try to articulate what is a very introverted process/state for me)
 

Jae Rae

Free-Rangin' Librarian
Joined
Nov 19, 2007
Messages
979
MBTI Type
INFJ
Secret Coping Manual for Fs

Isn't there some kind of secret coping manual issued to Fs?


1) Cry about it

2) Vent/discuss it

3) Obsess about it

4) Wallow in it

5) Write and/or read about it

6) Distract from it


Other types' MMV.
 

heart

heart on fire
Joined
May 19, 2007
Messages
8,456
Ironic humor helps, a lot.

Immersion in grief within reason can help speed the healing process.

Music.

The solace of people closest to me.

My cat.
 

Kyrielle

New member
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,294
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INFJ
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4w5
Many similarities here for me except replace deadpan and focus on only thinking with over the top crying and anxiety wrestling with thinking clearly until i get really sleepy in a funny peaceful bliss of not having enough energy to continue feeling the pain. I do recluse until it is sorted out.

I see the emotional element similarly to getting physically sick and just allow it to happen until it drains itself of its strength. Then, the thinking and analysis part examines the more subjective aspects of what took place from a position of distance: What was my perception? What was the other person/people's perception? What is fair and reasonable? How can I frame this situation in a way that minimizes tunnel vision, anxiety, despair? What irrational ideas am i projecting onto this situation to increase my pain? What actions can I take to produce the best result for myself and the people I care about?

Those kinds of questions attempt to make it to the foreground from the start, but if I can sense that my mind is too flooded with chemicals and emotion to actually think constructively, then I try to allow the emotions to come without any judgment and just move through them in the present moment without thinking at all. Then as they dissipate, I can focus in on the analysis from the position of observer of the situation. I try to view myself and others involved as an observer and think of what i would say to comfort such a person in my situation.


:yes: What she said.
 

Sunshine

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Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
1,040
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ABCD
Enneagram
4
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
I know what works for me but I don't know if it will work for you.

I video blog. Basically a journal entry out loud and on camera. I have no clue why but it's really theraputic for me.

I have the same problem you have when I try to tell people my problems, it's really difficult to explain what goes on internally.

When I'm recording, I see myself on the screen and it's like I'm telling myself about my problems. I don't know why but feeling like there's two of me and that I'm telling me about my problems feels really really good.

Lol I probably sound really weird. Oh well. =P
 

scantilyclad

almost nekkid
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
2,106
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
tears, tears, oceans of tears.
 
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