Being What I Am

[heart]

This was a reply I made on the board. Okay, feel free to blast me for it here if you want:

I have no problem admitting that I am not always as purely rational as an NT might be. So what? There are drawbacks to both sides of the T-F dichotomy. An NF is better at imagining possibilities without regard for reality and an NT to determine if those dreams could become reality. The NF wants to bring out the human element, the NT wants to stick to what's true.

Really each side needs the other.

I no longer try to deny what I am. I want more than anything to understand what I am and to be the best at what I am that I can be. Part of that is admitting that feeling is a stronger attribute for me than logic. Like Dirty Harry says "A man has got to know his limitations." There is a lot of strength to come from knowing one's self well.

Part of the reason I think that a feeler might not want to admit these things is because so many thinkers don't fully appreciate what feeling brings to the human experience. My father was like that and my own image of myself was colored for many years by his prejudice and I wanted to change and become a thinker. But that was not possible and all I did was knock myself off my own personal balance and best nature.

Because feelers don't feel that their strengths will be appreciated, they may want to try and claim to be more logical than they might be. But I think that's a bit dangerous in a way. To try and suppress feeling in place of logic in a feeler means being cut off from what is most sure and best in them.

A Feeler being too sure of logic when it is not warranted, might cause over-confidence that could lead to a major blunder. Just as for a T being too overconfident of being sure of the human element and interpersonal relations could lead to a major blunder.

It is better for one to know themselves and face themselves in this life. We can only work from a basis of truth.

The opposition of F and T brings out the beauty in each. I am with Jung in his belief that opposition should always be delinated and no attempt to try and deny that it exists, because it is at the edges of life that reality is created. We can only be what we are, no more, no less.

I am primarily a Feeler and I am not going to make excuses for it. I am not going to try and claim that I am ultra logical. I am not.

 

[SillySapienne]

Know thyself, a motto that all should live by!!!

I am definitely a feeler who feels as though I constantly have to defend myself against "thinkers", even when I may in fact be more implicitly rational/logical than they.

It bugs the crap out of me.

My father was a hardcore T, and he made my life a living hell!!

 

[SillySapienne]

May I edit my post? I left out an "a" in front of "living hell".

Fixed, my bad.

 

[heart]

on your situation with your father.

My father was the good parent in my life but he certainly had no respect for Fi. To him Fe was charming and he liked bubbly Fe women who fawned on him, but he had next to no appreciation for Fi, even though he used it many a time to talk out his feelings!

But Fe or Fi Dad saw as definately inferior in life. I wanted to be like him, to please him, to have his respect because my mother was so scary toxic and over emotional, it made me want to run from my feeling side, but one cannot run from what they are. All I did was supress my better side and limit myself to being mediocure in life.

It took me years to see this.

Now I see what I am more clearly and I am not going to play the game of trying to justify myself as being something I am not just because some people don't value it or understand its value.

 

[SillySapienne]

Veritas



You be you girl!!!!

 

[Geoff]

Interesting clash. INTJ Father and INFP daughter.

Te outside hits Ne outside. INTJ finds the INFP daughter spacey and indecisive.

and Ni inside judges Fi inside. Ni will wonder what is the point of feelings bubbling away and clouding the logic that brings me such ideas for understanding the mechanics of universe.

Pack that into both being introvert, some teenage hormones, and you have a great recipe for some simmering resentment.

Please understand me, or some other decent primer to MBTI ought to be compulsory reading for parents. Their children aren't broken, they just think or feel(!) differently.

 

[heart]

Well, in my case, I adored and idolized my Dad as the perfect human being. I didn't like his problem drinking and I did resent that, but other than that, I felt he had the admirable virtues that we should all aspire to in life, lol.

My abusive ESFJ mother scared the hell out of me.

My father was almost always kind and calm and so intelligent. It more of a quiet disapproval. He would just refuse to talk about the things I wanted to talk about, just change the subject gently but firmly. It took my husband pointing it out to me, for me to actually see the subtle ways my Dad manipulated me.

It would be hard not to admire him in anycase and with such a mother..ugh.

I always catered to him and submitted to his views. I did not clash with him, I tried to be what he wanted me to be and what he would respect. That was what the destructive part. If I had opposed him, then that would have been different most likely.

It is the things we willingly do to ourselves that hurt us the most I think.

 

[Geoff]

Oh, right, yes. Trying to live to an ideal for which we are not designed. The inappropriate role model has a lot to answer for.

A very unhealthy ESFJ would indeed be a scary concept... I'm sorry to hear that.

 

[heart]

My Dad was raised by a unhealthy and very domianeering example of a ENFJ type, I think that really gave him an aborance of feeling and really to be honest sort of a negative image of women.

I don't think it ever occured to him that he was emotionally hurting his daughters. He hurt all three in our individual ways emotionally without ever meaning to. I have a ISTJ half sister and ISFP half sister.

My half brother was most like an INTP and Dad also didn't understand or respect him, saw him as indecisive and flighty.

 

[heart]

This is an example of what I am getting at. Early on I for some reason, got tagged by Dad as being "intelligent" and he would tell my mother and others that I was probably going to be a scientist!

He would be so proud and pleased when he said this it made me want to please him.

Well, I don't have a scientist's mind! That's the only problem with that. When I discovered this about myself, I felt I had let myself down. But of course the real way I let myself down was to try to be something else to please someone else. It took so long to see this, so many wasted years trying to be what I am not.

My ISTJ sister got tagged with "dutiful" and "strong" so she never got to feel free to show her softer, feminine side with him.

The ISFP got a really raw deal. She was seen only as rebellious, wild and emotional.

 

[Geoff]

I've heard that before, that's for sure. An INFP friend of mine, despite being a successful accountant who gives a lot of her time to charities, often hears her mother remark "She could have been a doctor, but she gave up science!" Fact was, she was made for something else, like you.

As a strange sort of INXP, I do a techie job, but also a staff role that uses a lot of Fi and maybe Fe. I love working with the youngsters on their career development and all.. but like to keep the techie stuff alive in terms of problem solving. It's about trying, I suppose, to find stuff that we are made to do.

 

[heart]

My brother was INTP and he did tech work.

My husband is INFJ and he works as aircraft mechanic and it really takes a lot out of him, he needs so much time alone to just let his mind follow what course it wants to it drains him. He sees so many things he thinks he could improve the systems they use but no one wants to hear it or change. He works with many ISTx.

He likes the aviation aspect though.

His father though my husband would be a doctor.

I personally think my husband would have been happy being a teacher or counselor to teens. He wants to give helpful advice and guide people.

 

[alcea rosea]

I really like that post of yours. It somehow reminds me of what I have gone through admitting myself I'm not a thinker and I will not be one.

I have always thought I would be better of being a thinker. But I am what I am and I have accepted it.

 

[Abhaya]

I can relate to this post a great deal. I think this is something I am currently sorting out.