[NT] NTs and Repressed Emotion (ie stress)

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I believe it was this forum that had a story of an INTJ being counseled about repressing emotion, to the point that the INTJ only knew of said emotion when it manifested physically?

NTs: Do you have this happen to you? Especially with stress?

As a 7w8, I like the high, but often don't recognize it as exhaustion/stress until there is a physical manifestation such as a breakout, depression, illness, or the like.

How do you deal/solve this?

I have had this quite a bit, aye. One of my primary problems is that, in all honesty, I feel emotions intensely and all that jazz - but expressing them coherently during the experience seems next to impossible sometimes. I'm trying to learn.

When it involves another person is when it gets tricky - anger that hasn't been dealt with, for instance - I think very carefully before I express it, so I don't end up frying their feelings in a wok with oil and a bit of Asian jalapenos.

For dealing with the stress and inner shite that hasn't been dealt with, I need to physically calm down first - take however long is needed to breathe, center myself, for the tension to seep out of my body. Ceecee made a good point regarding being seen as 'weak' - I had to get over that, in terms of realising that just because something involves emotions does not make it any less valid or natural. Another good thing she mentioned: don't put it off.

 

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I don't know about other INTPs but I'm not very good at repressing my emotions, I know immediately when I'm emotional. I rarely show it in public but as soon as I'm alone I don't hide it from myself, unless someone interrupts me in this state of mind, no one would know that I was emotional usually. If someone trys to talk to me and badgers me to tell them what is wrong I can get vicious. I like to deal with it alone.

 

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Yes, I do get that, where I'm so out of touch with my feelings and values that I often get completely burnt out by a backlog of people treating me wrongly, but at the time, there was just this niggling feeling that I wasn't happy with what they were doing/proposing, or just "something" I couldn't name or put my finger on, but because there was no logical or objective reason for me to object at the time, I've figured, I just have to override this feeling and get on with it. Stop being silly, sorta thing, there's no reason to not be happy about XYZ or whatever....

It isn't until I end up completely burnt out and super ratty and out of sorts, to the extent where my INFP friend starts asking out loud what the matter is, and usually, she has to tease it out and help me discover, through a pretty difficult process, that actually, I've allowed people to force me into situations where I've repeatedly put my own values and priorities on a backburner for the sake of being flexible, being reasonable, etc; that other people have taken advantage of my good nature and flexibility and used it as an excuse to take, take, take and not give at all. And all the time I was totally unaware, consciously, that this was going on... yet getting nigglier and rattier and losing my temper increasingly often...

If it weren't for my INFP, I don't think I'd have a clue how to describe what or how I feel about anything, ever!!