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[MBTI General] Another Undecided Seeker

sirprufrock

New member
Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
2
MBTI Type
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First, a little background before I utter the apparently inescapable: "I can't decide what type I am, please help!"

I typically "test" as an intp, istp, or infp. I distrust any self assessments because of how impossible it is to extricate my desire to be something from my perception of how I actually am. I am either keenly aware of this fact, whereas many people seem to not be, or I am more self-conscious and have an obscuring level of metacognition going on, in that I am so motivated by self-consciousness that I am unable to perceive what is "natural". I'm guessing its a bit of both.

However, I have an unhealthy obsession with the notion of "type". The idea that I might be able, with enough effort, to reach a perception of me "authentic self" invigorates me to no end. Thus, I'm tense, dissatisfied, and bothered since my desires don't match up with what seems logical.

This is made worse by the fact that

1. the whole idea of types in people seems as if it might be plagued by the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

2. Distinctions between sensing/intuition and thinking/feeling seem false, especially with all the research done lately about how thinking is more irrational than we initially thought, and how the distinction might be more aesthetic than factual

Regardless of the above qualms with MBTI (or the enneagram for that matter), I still find myself absorbed by it. I'm here, after all. And I've registered solely to ask this question from people who seem to either value typology or understand it well.

A brief biography (I'll try to keep it brief)

As a child, was ostensibly precocious, though that might have just been my delusional parents and a delusional education system, with a little bit of luck in the testing department. I feel that I am much more stupid now, highly scatter brained, lacking in focus, confused, etc.

I wrote a lot in middleschool. Long, rambling, escapist historical fiction. But I still enjoyed it and was apparently skilled for my age. Was good at math up until about seventh grade, about when they demanded we started plugging in formulas without having a deep knowledge as to why the formulas worked. I could have tried to build an understanding on my own time, but I was lazy.

In highschool, I eschewed science because the details overwhelmed me and I thought they were boring or insignificant. Passed tests adequately by studying the night before. My science teachers tended to like me a lot and I tended to hate them. Maybe because I was from a fundamentalist Christian family and I felt insecure about my belief system. I fucking hated math because it made me feel slow. I remember spending a whole class period trying to figure out why a particular formula worked because the teacher admitted he just couldn't tell me. When I did figure it out, I felt a sense of accomplishment, but it seemed like so much work for something no one in the class valued...

My main accomplishments were in english. I cared a lot about literature and philosophy (in a very rudimentary way I guess: picture a high school freshman trying to read Descartes when it's way above him, taking an hour to get through ten fucking pages with adequate understanding). I got the departmental award for "thinking outside the box" or whatever. I felt so happy for having that part of me validated, but now it just feels like ignorance on the part of my educators. Like I tried really hard to come off as intelligent, and was rewarded for it, lacking a real engagement with the subject matter and being concerned primarily with my identity. A 4.0 and decent ACTs. Poor math score, baddish science score, good verbal score.

Imagine my surprise when, bolstered by all that false sense of accomplishment, I failed to excel at all in college. Things didn't come easy any more and I got super depressed. The depression has been ongoing for four years, and by now the ADD is showing up from so much aversion to experience. I hate everything I write (or try to), avoid all work and live mainly in regrets and self deprecation. I can't enjoy reading because of the aforementioned metacognition (Are you reading to slow?speed up! Shit! You can't because you're stupid. Look at you trying to act smart. Now you're speeding up and you can't understand a damn thing, fake. Just give up and play videogames all day.)

I recently went through a de-conversion and it hit me hard. I go to a Christian college so not only was it difficult to be objective, but once I 'fessed up to what I thought was true, I had no support systems. Only condescending encouragement being honest (no doubt with the hopes such honesty will bring me back to the path of SAAAL-vation) and the termination, by the other party, of an intimate four year relationship. Leftovers from the switch include an acute fear of death and a pervading sense of meaningless.

Now I'm on the cusp of a dark and foreboding future with no stable conception of myself, a useless liberal arts degree in literature, and family and friends who have motivations and perceptions entirely different from my own.

Christ, I said I'd keep it short, but that was a lie. If you're reading this, thank you. I would have stopped a long time ago if I was you, unless it shed light onto my own condition. That's sort of the self focused prison I'm in, but aren't we all, in a way?




As for typing, I admire thinking and logic, which makes me wonder if my testing for Ti is just a biased desire to convince myself that I live up to those standards. I'm most almost certainly an introvert (or a very, very bad extrovert, which might explain the depression. I do like performing if I feel competent, and being complimented,so who knows...).

I also am also horrible at keeping to a schedule or sticking to a goal, so I'm probably P. I have a paper due tomorrow, and I'm up at 3 A.M. obsessively trying to figure out my type... which fits with that also. Again, it's hard to tell if depression isn't affecting me, in that respect, as I hate not "knowing" what type I am or "knowing" if me and my ex will get back together (she intends to, once she sorts her own beliefs out, but won't decide for another month). I do like to have my "space" clean if I can manage it, but it often winde up extremely messy. Again, am I just a poorly functioning human being, or unable to accept me "type"?

As for my dominant perceiving function, I'm fairly sure it's intuitive. I tend to make jumps of thought, value the conceptual, etc. But at the same time, I have an affinity for concrete objects (possessions, totems) and presentation (clothes, shoes, etc). Also, I tend to be better at videogames requiring good hand eye coordination (fighting games over strategy) and I romanticize the profession of craftsman, although in reality I do not really take the time to build or fix things. When I try, I seem to be good at fixing things except for horrible detail mistakes where I'll break a whole piece of furniture for picking our the wrong screw from the pile. Similarly, I'm good at music when it comes to technical speed, but the actual listening involved in learning a song often eludes me (my Se sucks, at least in that regard).

As for types, my obsession with identity and my affinity for literature fit into INFP.
I've been told I'm a thinker. I tend to value truth over subjective response in making a decision, but... I don't know.

None of this makes sense or really fits into a model. And I want it to so bad.

Could my Si or Ne be taking over, not allowing for me to close off Fi or Ti judgements when I should be closing them off? Am trying to have two dominant functions at once? Maybe my Ti is more interested in truth, but my Fi dismisses mathematical truth and scientific truth as existentially boring?

I've read some posts, and there are some really knowledgable people on here. ESPECIALLY in the NT forums, which is the reason I'm posting here first before the NF forum. Any help would be appreciated. Help a brother understand!
 
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