Thanks for sharing this. Btw, I fully relate to your quest to know yourself, as this is my personal journey with some of your same issues.
I really appreciate this insight. And since you were provocative with your insights I will be a bit more candid than I have been so far. Recently a lot of things have happened in my life that have led to literally every aspect of my world being unstable. My marriage is doing better but has been very rocky; my job is incredibly unstable due to financial issues, which means that my personal finances have been outrageously unstable; and all of my closest friends moved away this past summer so I really have no one that I even remotely trust in my life right now that I can talk to about what's going on. So nothing feels certain and because of that I've been really struggling with keeping depression at bay.
Ouch, that is rough. I myself woke up in April realizing my 20 year marriage was mostly dead and that I had no clue who I was anymore. Having no one to confide is very rough. I started therapy for the first time in my life 5 months ago and it has been really good.
All that to say that I think your insights are very wise, and I've been starting to wonder myself if it's because of how unhealthy I am right now that I've been having such a hard time figuring out my type and "who I really am."
Yeah, I hear you. I taken the MBTI 20+ years ago and got ISTP and never looked into again or cared about it until a friend suggested I use it to help me find myself. I first tested INFP, then INFJ, and now ENFJ. Part of the varied results comes from not knowing ourselves. Ego hides things from ourselves to help us avoid potential pain, so we struggle to answer these tests correctly due to our own subconscious traits being hidden.
Reading various descriptions can help, as can the insight of others. I was positive I was an introvert until someone commented on my blog that she saw me as a ENFJ. A month of wrestling with it and I felt enough to want to change it, though I still feel pretty XNFJ......
I just posted this in the NF forum, but I took three different mbti tests this morning and got INFJ for all of them. None of them used cognitive functions as far as I know, but I still thought that was interesting.
Try to figure our your functions. I know I am a heavy N and F guy. I test higher on the tests on Fi than Fe, but I am a very obvious Fe user. I use Ni. Considering multiple possibilities is easy for me, but leaves me uneasy. I also use Ti and Se. So I could narrow it to 4 based upon top 4 functions - ISTP, ESTP, ENFJ, or INFJ. Some theorists argue that we should consider those sharing the top 4 functions as a group, because mature versions should merge together.
I saw SFJ in your very first post, with Si and Fe as your primary functions. If you agree, then self study and descriptions might help better clarify than more tests.
If you have never gone to
personalitypage.com, I really like their type descriptions (in 4 areas-general, relations, growth, and careers).
You can also consider how you get when stressed. I found that very helpful to see the difference between ENJ and INFJ, as I resemble the EFJ under stress (excessive negative thinking mostly inwardly directed) than the INJ under stress (getting lost in sensory things).
But ultimately, you vision will be cloudy as long as you are unhealthy. Good luck!
For years now I've been bouncing from type to type, and it seems that the more I learn about cognitive functions the harder it is for me to determine what type I am. I need some objective perspectives! Help a girl out?
