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[INTP] Is this an INTP thing? Or am I just sick?

Mort Belfry

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Ever since I was a small child I fantasized about unjust things happening to me and I find myself still doing it today. I'll just start thinking about some terrible injustice happening to me and after a minute I'll break out of it realising where I've just been.

I'll be on a bus or something, and being fairly tall, when I stand towards the back of the bus my head touches the roof. Then I imagine what would happen if the bus went over a bump and pounded my head into the ceiling and seriously damage my spinal cord. And then I just go into trance imagining all the horrible possbilities.

First I go to hospital, spend weeks recuperating, get back out, go on another bus, refuse to go down the back for fear of what happened last time, and then getting in a big argument with all the other people for not moving down until finally I relent, move down and I snap my neck again.

And then I realise what I've been thinking about for the last couple of minutes and scold myself for being so ridiculously self-indulgent.

In all these situations I imagine, I actively think about the logical explanations I would give to people, who, in these masochistic fanatasies, are always completely irrational and lead me to further unjust harm.

I never decide to imagine these things, they just leap into my consciousness without my realising it. And the thing is, there's always part of me that enjoys it.

I mean you could analyse this to death and say that I fanatsize (Ne) about being in unsafe situations (Si) and think of logical explanations (Ti) to reason against emotional unrational antagonists (immature Fe Anima) but I just want to know if this happens to anybody else......

....and whether I should seek professional help for some kind of persecution anxiety.
 

scantilyclad

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I think about this kind of stuff all the time. My therapist actually said that it is somewhat due to anxiety. Before i go to sleep, sometimes i start thinking about if there was a fire and i couldn't get out and got burned to death. Or if i see something sharp i imagine myself accidentally getting impelled by it. I can't keep the thoughts from happening, it's weird.

i also have these thoughts of things happening to my son. Like i was thinking what if he rolled off the bed and hit the corner of the night stand and his head busted open. I constantly have thoughts like this which seems a little scary to me, but my therapist says it's just anxiety.
 

mippus

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I'm sorry to say that I don't think of it as typically INTP...
 

Mort Belfry

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Though I gave the example of breaking my neck at the top, usually these fanatasies aren't that much about physical danger. When I was very young, the thought of being blamed for something I didn't do compelled me. So much so that at times I wanted badly for it to happen.
 

Totenkindly

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Though I gave the example of breaking my neck at the top, usually these fanatasies aren't that much about physical danger. When I was very young, the thought of being blamed for something I didn't do compelled me. So much so that at times I wanted badly for it to happen.

That doesn't sound as much a personality thing as something that is obsessive -- as if you want to punish yourself, or have built-up resentment against the system and want to provoke a conflict so that you can release all of your feelings. Have you ever talked to anyone about it in a professional capacity?

Aside from the specifics of your imaginations, I think in general Ne-strong people (maybe Ni too? I don't know) are really good at being hit by some event / external occurrence and immediately fantasize in all different directions possible timelines.

I know I do it alot, almost without noticing -- it could be meeting a new person, or an opportunity being presented, and my mind in the space of a few seconds will bounce through the most probable timeline into the future of what could occur. Sometimes I would meet someone or see someone and I would immediately hurtle through an entire lifetime spent with them, to the ending.

And it happens with rather trivial stimulation too. A cardinal land nearby, for example, could send a number of different thought paths radiating outward at once, each of them a thread of its own.
 

scantilyclad

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I know I do it alot, almost without noticing -- it could be meeting a new person, or an opportunity being presented, and my mind in the space of a few seconds will bounce through the most probable timeline into the future of what could occur. Sometimes I would meet someone or see someone and I would immediately hurtle through an entire lifetime spent with them, to the ending.

i also do this.
 

substitute

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Actually my brother does that all the time. It can be really annoying! You go on a journey with him and you can't pass by a big truck without him having to expound upon the exact results of that truck veering off its side of the road and ploughing through your face. You can't cough or sneeze without him speculating on the probability of your entrails being forced out through your asshole, and dwelling on the sensations and stuff in great detail.

It's very morbid and though it doesn't disturb me, I do just find it a bit worrying that he dwells on this stuff so much, and also a bit boring that he keeps going on about it. But he's not an INTP.

Personally, I don't dwell on those things. I dwell more usually on possibilities and how I could achieve them. I like to mention some bogus ambition (i.e. something I don't really want or plan to do, but which is pretty ambitious or daring) to my ISTJ friend, and then battle against his "can't be done" attitude with ad lib plans that conclusively prove that I could, indeed, do that thing RIGHT NOW if I wanted to. And then say naahhh, I don't feel like it.
 

SillySapienne

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I'm not an NT, but I "suffer" from the same thing.

I have an illustrative imagination when it comes to pondering potential worst-case-scenarios.
 

Totenkindly

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Actually my brother does that all the time. It can be really annoying! You go on a journey with him and you can't pass by a big truck without him having to expound upon the exact results of that truck veering off its side of the road and ploughing through your face. You can't cough or sneeze without him speculating on the probability of your entrails being forced out through your asshole, and dwelling on the sensations and stuff in great detail.

Does he ever actually go FAR afield? All the things you mention are fairly close to the trigger stimulus. (Just curious.) That sort of thing -- looking at the realistic possibilities within a small given segment of time -- seems to be fairly common. Especially by SP boys who like grossing people out. ;)

I'm thinking more of the jumps that are WAY out of the practical and/or change shape so much in the leaps that you end up someplace completely different within the space of a few seconds.

(Example: If I sneeze and hold it and my innards come out by bum, that will gross people out... perhaps someone nearby will be so grossed out they will tell their child... their child might grow up to be a doctor trying to save the lives of those with their innards exposed like what happens in Iraq, the whole situation in Iraq is horrible, what about those poor people who have their limbs blown off and have to learn how to walk again, that reminds me of that lady who doesn't have any legs I saw on TV before, she really has a positive spirit and pushes herself around on a skateboard, the other night I was watching TV and I saw these Gen X/Y'ers doing a skateboard competition in the pipeline, that was amazing...)

In the space of a few seconds, no editing. That's psycho Ne for you. My thoughts went far past this, but it took too long for my fingers to keep up. Your brother seems more interested in grossing you out than exploring multiple possibilities.
 

substitute

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Does he ever actually go FAR afield? All the things you mention are fairly close to the trigger stimulus. (Just curious.) That sort of thing -- looking at the realistic possibilities within a small given segment of time -- seems to be fairly common. Especially by SP boys who like grossing people out. ;)

Oh no, he's NP alright, and he does go much further afield than that. I was just trying to be brief (for a change, haha!). It's also often clear that he's talking about something he's thought about before, quite a bit; the things he says tell me this is a sorta preoccupation he has and he's not trying to gross me out so much as maybe trying to decrease his anxiety by sharing it.

That chain of thought you gave as an example is very similar to how my mind can go too, but I don't tend to start off from a point of imagining something very morbid and gross. If I do get some kind of thought like that, then I tend to just recall the terribly painful and bad experiences I've had physically, which tell me that all the fear you might feel (or that he feels, certainly) when contemplating those things is just not there when it actually happens. And the pain is also easily detached from and surprisingly quickly over. So nothing's to be accomplished by dwelling on it before it even happens.

Also, I never really think about worst case scenarios because well, they never happen. Especially when I'm around, I can always avert things and fix most situations long before they reach crisis point. Maybe I have just so much confidence in my ability to handle situations that it doesn't occur to me that anything THAT bad will happen when I'm around lol
 

Mycroft

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Mort, I used to do something similar all the time. As I've learned more of myself and what I want (in part thanks to MBTI), I've begun to get my life headed in that direction and my anxiety level is dropping off by the day. The "worst case scenario" fantasies have followed suit.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Ever since I was a small child I fantasized about unjust things happening to me and I find myself still doing it today. I'll just start thinking about some terrible injustice happening to me and after a minute I'll break out of it realising where I've just been.

I'll be on a bus or something, and being fairly tall, when I stand towards the back of the bus my head touches the roof. Then I imagine what would happen if the bus went over a bump and pounded my head into the ceiling and seriously damage my spinal cord. And then I just go into trance imagining all the horrible possbilities.

First I go to hospital, spend weeks recuperating, get back out, go on another bus, refuse to go down the back for fear of what happened last time, and then getting in a big argument with all the other people for not moving down until finally I relent, move down and I snap my neck again.

And then I realise what I've been thinking about for the last couple of minutes and scold myself for being so ridiculously self-indulgent.

In all these situations I imagine, I actively think about the logical explanations I would give to people, who, in these masochistic fanatasies, are always completely irrational and lead me to further unjust harm.

I never decide to imagine these things, they just leap into my consciousness without my realising it. And the thing is, there's always part of me that enjoys it.

I mean you could analyse this to death and say that I fanatsize (Ne) about being in unsafe situations (Si) and think of logical explanations (Ti) to reason against emotional unrational antagonists (immature Fe Anima) but I just want to know if this happens to anybody else......

....and whether I should seek professional help for some kind of persecution anxiety.

Being encircled by thoughts of injustices befalling you is a very common thing among radical introverted types.

This is the case because we are so uncomfortable with the external world, that we deem whatever occurences may happen there as negative, almost by default.

Moreover, introversion is a subject, or self-oriented attitude. Thus, we see the world not as an end in itself, nor take it for granted, but assess the external world in terms of how it relates to us. Thus, from the perspective of such an introverted attitude, an injustice isnt relevant unless it relates to us. Therefore the introvert is concerned mostly with injustices that relate to him directly.

INTP is the most internally focused type. Generally, their judgment of introverted thinking is emotionally neutral, however because we are much uncomfortable with feeling, our value judgments are neutral. Hence, from the standpoint of analysis, ideas we process could be either just or unjust, yet often enveloped in negative feelings. Especially the case in unhealthy or off balance INTPs whose Feeling faculties are neglected.

A)You're concerned more with unjust external occurences than with just because you have a negative attitude towards the external world.
B) When the above situations become personal, the negativity increases by virtue of your negative Fe factor.
C)All of those events are accentuated in the regard that they relate to you due to the factor of introversion.
 

sandwich

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For years after the Columbine shootings I would imagine the same thing happening at my school. I would make mental plans as to where to duck, how to manipulate everyone into a secure and easily defendable area, then I'd inevitably be shot in the gut just as I throw a blunt object toward the shooter's head. I still make escape plans.

When I was a wee lass I would have fantasies as being an enigmatic and independent orphan, probably being chased by a cruel uncle or the circus I escaped. It was all very romantic.
 

Mort Belfry

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Being encircled by thoughts of injustices befalling you is a very common thing among radical introverted types.

This is the case because we are so uncomfortable with the external world, that we deem whatever occurences may happen there as negative, almost by default.


I think you're right, I am unaturally introverted, militantly so. The strange thing is when I have these thoughts I actually kind of enjoy them in a self absorbing way. I imagine the arguments I would have with irrational people, and I end up with quite refined, yet pointless, points.

It's like a miniature episode of Curb your Enthusiasm going through my head every day.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Why is this?


Intuition leads to a higher attunement with the mind than with the senses. This is a pull inwards.

Thinking is a bonus. (Notice how in the case of NT/NF types, the N cultivates either T or F). Thinking is a tough-minded attitude and therefore does better to preserve its own element than Feeling. (So the INTP is ahead of the INFP in this regard.)
 

heart

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Ever since I was a small child I fantasized about unjust things happening to me and I find myself still doing it today. I'll just start thinking about some terrible injustice happening to me and after a minute I'll break out of it realising where I've just been.

I do this, but with me it is something happening to someone I care about. Sometimes I wonder if it is trying to figure out how I would cope with something that seems unbearable.
 

Totenkindly

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For years after the Columbine shootings I would imagine the same thing happening at my school. I would make mental plans as to where to duck, how to manipulate everyone into a secure and easily defendable area, then I'd inevitably be shot in the gut just as I throw a blunt object toward the shooter's head. I still make escape plans....

Hmm, I had forgotten all about doing that... I don't do it nearly as much now. Back then, just making a phone call to someone I didn't know well (or at all) was enough for me to roleplay the scenario in my head countless times... then being frustrated when I could not perform up to the "optimal solution" I had figured out.

... The strange thing is when I have these thoughts I actually kind of enjoy them in a self absorbing way. I imagine the arguments I would have with irrational people, and I end up with quite refined, yet pointless, points.

Yes, because they were refined in situations that will probably never occur exactly that way, thus making the refinements useless (?).
 

arcticangel02

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I do this, but with me it is something happening to someone I care about. Sometimes I wonder if it is trying to figure out how I would cope with something that seems unbearable.

Actually, yeah. On occasion I might hear a report on the news about a car accident and my mind will wonder what would happen if it was somebody I knew, and then who would tell me, what would my reaction be, what would happen, etc.

Most of the time it's other people - mostly people quite close to me. Rarely it involves me (in a sort of 'What would happen if this plane crashed?' way).

I don't get any enjoyment out of it, but neither does it really worry/scare me... my mind just emotionlessly goes through the motions of how a situation like that might play out.

Um, yeah. *shrug*
 

ShyINTP

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I'll be on a bus or something, and being fairly tall, when I stand towards the back of the bus my head touches the roof. Then I imagine what would happen if the bus went over a bump and pounded my head into the ceiling and seriously damage my spinal cord. And then I just go into trance imagining all the horrible possbilities.
Interesting situation, and yes, I can identify with it, the assessment of the situation (wherever I am) happens on a subconscious level, but I am not enough of "P" to indulge into passive observation of the "horrible" consequences that could befall me, instead I subconsciously assume much safer position.. sort of like avoiding problems before they even become problems, I could say it has served me reasonably well so far ..
 
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