[INTP] Anxiety and the INTP

[jenocyde]

Ahh, yeah - forgot about your drinking. Glad that was the last time!

Anyway, a lot of INP men seem to have this particular type of issue. Some people just have anxiety issues, nothing to get all anxious about.

 

[Robert165]

Okay. I really don't cope with stress well, and I know this is archetypically a thing that INTPs struggle with. Everyone has troubles, I know, irrespective of type. I am, however, looking at the unusually tangy INTP flavor of anxiety, that starts with inferior Fe weirdness where you pick up emotions and don't know what to do with them, then gets caught up a Ti-Si loop that eats up all the mental cycles so there's no buffer left to work with to make that lateral jump you need to tear out of that loop.

There's nothing like a confrontation to make me shut off. Whenever there's a challenge, or an expectation put on me, I freeze. If I've got someone breathing down my neck, demanding an answer or a solution, I freeze harder. The only thing I can think is that I don't know what to do, I don't know what to say, and that maybe, if possible, I'd like to vanish.

I've all my little theoretical tricks to help me cope, and they're fine when I'm on my own and have all the time in the world; when I'm in the moment, they all fall down. The problem is that my mind just stops working. I can't think of a damned thing. I can't remember any of my little tricks, and being up in the moment I don't have the time or space to work things out. So, it's just blank. I can barely even find words to put together. What little does come out tends to be frantic, flailing, sub-articulate requests for space so that I can pull myself together. I don't hear myself, and I have a hard enough time just speaking that choosing words carefully is beyond me. Yet that lack of ability to form a coherent sentence can often make things worse.

I guess I've always had this problem; it's become more pronounced over the last ten years or so. And it's... becoming problematic.

So. Yeah. Any INTPs out there hit on how to dim down the freak-out?

If you have trouble remembering your tricks you've got to get a new mindset. that being if you freeze in public, so what? really, so what? if you're "in the moment" otherwise, just caught up in whatever it is, the same advice applies. So what? Does it really matter? Are you going to starve? Make a trip to the hospital? Is it going to wipe out the money in your bank account?

(keep using your tools and coping mechanisms of course, I am in no way discounting those)

Basicaly, if we are maladjusted, in whatever way, it is good to use tricks and tools. But the next higher level is to realize none of it matters. Learn that stress and worry itself is the problem, andnot really the trigger. Rememebr that the trigger and the consequnces are both incredibly minimal. ACCEPT that stress and worry are you lot in life. Then, once you accept this, you won't have to fight it. Once you accept it, it will start to lose its power. Just make your number one rule that stess and worry will arise but that thats ok, and that everything is going to be ok, stress or no stress. This is the type of thinking that will really turn a life around. It did for me.


A coupld videos that may help:

[YOUTUBE="Xz-KDXWsepI"]Relaxation[/YOUTUBE]

YouTube - Relaxation Therapy


[YOUTUBE="ZJgPtXQBr9Q"]Let Go of Struggel[/YOUTUBE]

YouTube - Meditation to Let Go of Struggle

 

[tcda]

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I think there is a lot to be said for recognizing and embracing your emotions. Just yesterday, my INTP got ruffled at some offhand thing I said and it was obviously written all over his face. He withdrew and his pupils got very large. He answered questions with one word only and seemed almost stunned at everything I said - like he couldn't grasp what I was trying to say.

Haha I do that exact thing!!!

Except the bit about the puils, mine are permanently dilated. apparently it's a hispanic thing :s

 

[LostInNerSpace]

See what you made me do, again?

 

[Spamtar]

Why is his need to retreat more important than my need to not be ignored?

This is why there will always will eventually be a conflict in a relationship between the INTP and the extrovert, or for that matter, even the INTP and the feeler (in intimate relationships).

 

[jenocyde]

This is why there will always will eventually be a conflict in a relationship between the INTP and the extrovert, or for that matter, even the INTP and the feeler (in intimate relationships).

You're wrong. There is no conflict between us.

If you carry around that self-defeating attitude, that is probably what will be the cause of conflict.

Every relationship requires compromise - introverts and extroverts alike. When my INTP is having a bad moment, he asks me to stfu and I simply stfu. When I need to vent and talk, I tell him straight out that I need him. Easy peasy. It works because we actually care about each other enough to set aside our neuroses when the other person needs something.

Other than that, I'm not talking about when he is deliberately withdrawing, I am talking about when he suffers from anxiety and doesn't realize that he is withdrawing and he gets more and more anxious. At those moments, he's completely unaware of himself and literally shuts down. I've learned to recognize the signs when he seems disconnected with himself and I think this is also what the OP is referring to.

 

[Spamtar]

^ I am glad to hear you its working so well for you.

When my INTP is having a bad moment, he asks me to stfu and I simply stfu.

Now stfu!:steam:

 

[jenocyde]

^ I am glad to hear you its working so well for you.

Now stfu!:steam:

You have to earn that right.

 

[astroninja]

Spamtar, can you go into more detail there? How does this slip work? Is it just seizing on the anxiety and flipping it around and pushing through somehow?

You do realize how INTPish you sound when you say "Can you explain in more detail how this slip works?" Wanting to understand everything but sometimes missing the point

I'm an INTP myself and I have to say this: Just let it happen. Release yourself from the stimuli that prohibit you and perhaps the anxiety will ease itself up. When the shit hits the fan, it hits the fan. Back up, relax, and re-approach the situation.

 

[Spamtar]

He may have been talking about my shadow function slip where temporarily converting into ENTJ is a transition which feels (especially in the past) like anxiety. Where I took a special interest to address in my life to address.

The other forms of anxiety Im not much better if worse than everyone else. It seems outside of my self so I just tend to grin and bear it. Im sure there are others who have better techniques in this area.