[MBTI General] INFJs - Why we hold back

[Athenian200]

Thanks for that, tovlo, Wandering. That walls thing and selective few into the inner circle was something that came across in the INFJs handwritings too actually, now that I think of it. Of all the samples I'd seen, the INFJs were the most guarded, for want of a better word. Would I be right to say that it is a self-protection / evaluating if others are worth giving to, and constantly reassessing that, before giving?

I'd like to understand what creates/motivates holding on to those walls, simply. I can understand an amount of guardedness for protection as being wise, but is this the only reason?

It's more about whether I want to risk being vulnerable to them, than a judgment on the person's worth. I see so many people who end up in bad situations that they can't get out of because they let themselves become invested so much in the outcome that they couldn't extricate themselves when it was clearly not beneficial to them to remain. They've basically sacrificed part of who they are to their situation or to another person. There's a part of me that refuses to let that happen, that values my "self" too much to permit it.

I can share without being forced to accept other people's judgment, but their judgment will definitely have some impact on how I see things. It could make me more defensive, less defensive, hopeless, hopeful, etc. They don't change who I am at core, but they can change my attitude towards myself and the world, perhaps even show me a new way of seeing myself. It's hard to explain.

Does that make sense?

 

[cascadeco]

Does that make sense?

Makes sense to me! Your second paragraph especially resonates with me; it's along the same lines of what I was trying to say.

 

[tovlo]

Thanks for that, tovlo, Wandering. That walls thing and selective few into the inner circle was something that came across in the INFJs handwritings too actually, now that I think of it. Of all the samples I'd seen, the INFJs were the most guarded, for want of a better word. Would I be right to say that it is a self-protection / evaluating if others are worth giving to, and constantly reassessing that, before giving?

I'd like to understand what creates/motivates holding on to those walls, simply. I can understand an amount of guardedness for protection as being wise, but is this the only reason?

For me personally, I would say the self-protection part is correct, but not necessarily the evaluating if others are worth giving to. My giving of care isn't really conditional on a standard of worthiness in another. I feel compassion and caring for people and most are encompassed in that net. Though depending on the situation I may have to care from more of a distance to protect the health of my sense of self.

I do assess my interaction with others to see if there is a dynamic that threatens me. Usually I will be threatened by people with forceful and unbending opinions it seems they believe everyone should hold, as well as people I fear would judge me harshly if I don't meet expectations for my behavior. I do evaluate, but not really their worthiness, rather my worthiness to interact with them and remain healthy.

Even when I sense that an interaction might be dangerous for me, I usually don't refuse engagement completely. Rather I limit the closeness of my engagement and keep my emotional investment tightly guarded. I think people probably still sense I care for them, but also likely sense a deep reserve in my interaction as well.

Even people I trust with my frailties, I suspect might occasionally note walls briefly erected where none were before, when I've become hurt or threatened in my interaction with them. Usually these walls are hastily constructed and just as hastily torn down with the slightest reassurance I'm safe. However, if I'm erecting walls too frequently with a person who previously had my trust, they might find that the walls become a little sturdier each time they have to be erected and come down a bit harder each time as well.

 

[tovlo]

Does that make sense?

I took too long too post. Yes, it makes sense to me. As does what the other's posted.

 

[wedekit]

It is entirely self protection in my case. The black box analogy is exactly how I would describe it. A lot of my protection started early because my ESFJ mother always pointed me in the direction that she thought was best for me. All these expectations she had for me were just played out externally while I had my own convictions inside that I would keep secret. I'm irrationally afraid that if I ever share anything that is in my black box, someone would reject it and that would be very painful. It must be confusing for me to keep referring to my black box, but it is my most vulnerable spot and so I can't just share what's in it with anyone.

So, that's why I bolded that particular sentence in the quote. I externally project what is expected of me, but inside it can be very different. I prefer to keep a piece of me to myself because I don't want others to contaminate it. The hardest thing to do is to tell someone how much I care about them, because chances are it started out in my black box. Excuse the cliche, but it seems if you give someone an inch, they take a mile. After that, people want to discuss it openly when I would like to keep words out of it. I can't take criticism or jokes when it comes to my black box.

My mom drives crazy with this. I don't get along very well with my little brother, but it doesn't mean I don't love him. My mom tries to drag it out of me all the time (and especially in front of guests). "Do you love your little brother?" I refuse to answer and she says I am hateful... but honestly, it's MY business. She takes my refusal to answer as a no. If I tell her then she'll make a big deal about it and bring it up all the time and insist I openly talk about it, because she has then formed a new expectation.

I had a friend that I was always close to since kindergarten and right before we graduated she told me, "Travis, I have known you since I was 6 years old, and now I am 18 and I don't feel like I ever really knew you...".

I have to go to class right now but I want to discuss this a little further in a new post. Thanks for the replies!

 

[will5250]

Again, for me, it's not a matter of time or anything like that: it's a matter of NEED. If you need my warmth, you're going to get massive amounts of it right away, freely given, no problem. But don't ask for anything else, except small talk. Casual friendship exhausts me, quite simply. Come and see me if you need me, by all means, or let's have some happy funny small talk if we happen to meet, but please don't ask me to start scheduling stuff with you, or to call you every other day, or anything like that. I just can't do that.

Thank you for explaining that.

 

[Wandering]

As far as dispassionate sympathy...kind of. At first I thought no, because my actual internal experience feels anything but dispassionate. It feels intensely passionate. However, my expression might appear dispassionate for two reasons.

Good point! I'm the same: intensely passionate inside, but it doesn't really show that much on the outside (well, I guess... I mean, I can't see myself from the outside, so... ) So I guess it could look like "dispassionate sympathy" to an outside observer.

Of all the samples I'd seen, the INFJs were the most guarded, for want of a better word. Would I be right to say that it is a self-protection / evaluating if others are worth giving to, and constantly reassessing that, before giving?

I can only echo what the others have said: in my case, it's not about "evaluating if others are worth giving to", it's almost entirely about self-protection. I mean, ideally, I'd give love and compassion even to psychopaths, because as far as I'm concerned everyone "is worth giving to". But I don't go around giving to just anyone because *I* couldn't take it. It's not them, it's me.

I'd like to understand what creates/motivates holding on to those walls, simply. I can understand an amount of guardedness for protection as being wise, but is this the only reason?

Pretty much, yes. To continue with the black box analogy, here is more or less how I see myself:
* At the center, there is this undestructible black box.
* Around it, there's this huge layer of puffy matter. It's made up of my own home-grown stuff, but also of stuff imported from the outside: expectations, appreciation, and so on. (That's what Cascade explains so well in her post, for example.) Press upon it from the outside, and you can easily mold it, punch holes in it, cut through it, whatever.
* On the outside, there is the crust, the walls put up to protect the puffy insides.

Without the walls, anyone, and I mean *anyone* could pass by me and punch me, cut me, hurt me, deeper and deeper and deeper. The only thing that would eventually stop them would be when they reached my black box core. But that's a LOOOOONG way down!! The damage done on the way would be of monumental proportions!! I'd be a total wreck.

So there's no other solution but to build and maintain those walls, and let in only the people I can trust to not poke and punch too much around.

I'm irrationally afraid that if I ever share anything that is in my black box, someone would reject it and that would be very painful.

I don't find it to be an irrational fear, personally. This black box contains the "essence" of my personality so to speak, and for someone to reject it would mean rejecting ME, which would be awfully painful. So it's far easier for me to just not share that blackbox: this way nobody can TRULY reject me.

It must be confusing for me to keep referring to my black box, but it is my most vulnerable spot and so I can't just share what's in it with anyone.

Same for me.

I had a friend that I was always close to since kindergarten and right before we graduated she told me, "Travis, I have known you since I was 6 years old, and now I am 18 and I don't feel like I ever really knew you...".

Nobody ever told me anything like that, but I think it's because they never realised just how much they didn't know me

 

[will5250]

This discussion reminds me of a page on the web site "INFJ or INFP a Closer Look". I don't have time now to go rediscover which page you need to select from the drop window, but it was a comparison of the differences between INFJ and INFP under stress. The tendency of INFP is to freeze, do nothing until things start making sense again, or until he figures out what the new rules are, or whatever is required. The INFP just stops functioning so to speak but remains in the situation, until he is ready to resume again. The tendency of the INFJ is to withdraw to a safe distance until. This discussion demonstrates to me that very tendency. Its interesting.

 

[EsoteriEccentri]

This discussion reminds me of a page on the web site "INFJ or INFP a Closer Look". I don't have time now to go rediscover which page you need to select from the drop window, but it was a comparison of the differences between INFJ and INFP under stress. The tendency of INFP is to freeze, do nothing until things start making sense again, or until he figures out what the new rules are, or whatever is required. The INFP just stops functioning so to speak but remains in the situation, until he is ready to resume again. The tendency of the INFJ is to withdraw to a safe distance until. This discussion demonstrates to me that very tendency. Its interesting.

This topic has really confused me because:
A) I do the withdrawing to a safer distance half the time, the other half of the time I DO just freeze.
B) Many of the things people have talked about on here also sound very much like me. In fact, most of them do.
C) The test things always say I'm INFP
D) I really can't imagine myself as anything else.

 

[Athenian200]

My mom drives crazy with this. I don't get along very well with my little brother, but it doesn't mean I don't love him. My mom tries to drag it out of me all the time (and especially in front of guests). "Do you love your little brother?" I refuse to answer and she says I am hateful... but honestly, it's MY business. She takes my refusal to answer as a no. If I tell her then she'll make a big deal about it and bring it up all the time and insist I openly talk about it, because she has then formed a new expectation.

What I might do in a situation like that is reply in a shocked voice, "Why, what kind of freak would I be if I didn't?!" Technically, your answer would hint that you do (which is what she wants to hear), but doesn't actually say you do or don't.

I've always thought that was a good way around things like that...

 

[redacted]

It is entirely self protection in my case. The black box analogy is exactly how I would describe it. A lot of my protection started early because my ESFJ mother always pointed me in the direction that she thought was best for me. All these expectations she had for me were just played out externally while I had my own convictions inside that I would keep secret. I'm irrationally afraid that if I ever share anything that is in my black box, someone would reject it and that would be very painful. It must be confusing for me to keep referring to my black box, but it is my most vulnerable spot and so I can't just share what's in it with anyone.

So, that's why I bolded that particular sentence in the quote. I externally project what is expected of me, but inside it can be very different. I prefer to keep a piece of me to myself because I don't want others to contaminate it. The hardest thing to do is to tell someone how much I care about them, because chances are it started out in my black box. Excuse the cliche, but it seems if you give someone an inch, they take a mile. After that, people want to discuss it openly when I would like to keep words out of it. I can't take criticism or jokes when it comes to my black box.

My mom drives crazy with this. I don't get along very well with my little brother, but it doesn't mean I don't love him. My mom tries to drag it out of me all the time (and especially in front of guests). "Do you love your little brother?" I refuse to answer and she says I am hateful... but honestly, it's MY business. She takes my refusal to answer as a no. If I tell her then she'll make a big deal about it and bring it up all the time and insist I openly talk about it, because she has then formed a new expectation.

I had a friend that I was always close to since kindergarten and right before we graduated she told me, "Travis, I have known you since I was 6 years old, and now I am 18 and I don't feel like I ever really knew you...".

I have to go to class right now but I want to discuss this a little further in a new post. Thanks for the replies!

wow.

same same same with me. except my mom is an ISFJ. and my brother and i are very close, mainly because we both have the same view of our mother.

 

[unsung truth]

I can't really relate to the part about mistaken friendships and only wanting to counsel people. I like to talk to people and want to be friends, but I often find myself blocked by a superficial layer when I want to talk about something deeper like personal beliefs. I've been working on slowly getting closer to my friends and to people who I never really talked to before, but its tough because sometimes they re-engage that superficial layer and I become discouraged as if they don't care about me. That's when I go into that protective mindset (lower expectations for the relationship, change my approach, etc.)

I relate to the part about passion as well. I can get really passionate about things internally, but I don't really express it. When I do express it, it's usually through writing, or drawing, sometimes conversation if I'm close to the person, and I'm learning to play guitar/maybe sing, so I'm planning on using that as another form of expression.

 

[nightning]

All of us interpret the passage very differently...

I identify with the following

Their primary relationship is to their inner world, and they are receptive to others only up to a point. - If you respect my world... I'll respect yours... you try to take mine apart... expect that I'll gift you with the same.
Their intuition takes them into psychological areas that other types are likely to keep at bay. - I take that as to mean sometimes I think of weird psychological patterns people display that rarely runs across people's minds.

The truth is that Ni inclines them to keep a part of themselves in reserve--to locate their true identity outside of the expectations and definitions of others. - I don't really see this. To me Ni is what keeps my mind running... It's not used to "locate" my identity... It's part of my identity. Actually who I am is has been said before, a combination of who I think I am and what other people see me as.

What's a(are) defining trait(s) of an INFJ?

I've collected a "basket" of you, but I'm still having trouble figuring out the commonalities from the posts? You're sort of like a loophole among the spectrum to me; if I can't identify a type, I take it to be INFJ, but that's not the best method. Perhaps the difficulty in analysis is also because I do not know any IRL.

Keyword: LOOPHOLE. I think if you try to pin us down on any one specific thing, half of us might say... "mostly right, BUT... " I guess most INFJ focus on being unique individuals. Oh there's one trait "uniqueness"

- there's a certain dispassionate sympathy? Yes, or no? The warmth of an INFJ is not overt / immediate; rather like a shy flame that licks you and waits?

No... I don't do sympathy... I do empathy. What is it that you need? I'll try to give you my perception of what I think you need. The shy flame analogy... hmmm works when I'm waiting for a respond. I unless I get the reading that it's a "good to go" I wouldn't move. If you want it, you don't see the waiting stage. That's assuming I'm comfortable with things.

The truth is that Ni inclines them to keep a part of themselves in reserve

- how is this different from the reserve of an INTP, ISFJ or an INFP - I can spot the difference with the INTJ?

INFJ might be reserve due to difficulty expressing their ideas and finding people who might appreciate it to share.
INTP... I see their reservedness as dispassion. They give little thought to anything else besides their ideas. They see little need to inform you of most things about themselves?
ISFJ, the reservedness is in some ways similar to INFJ... need for social acceptance and getting along with people might make them less incline to share.
INFP reserved for self protection. It's to protect Fi... Stuff hurts... a lot. Enough said.

 

[white]

Very insightful posts, thanks everyone, much appreciated for the time you all took to give the responses too. Common theme I see:

It seems to be a deep need to keep a white centre, where you could be still, calm, and untouched, in a way... but at the same time, there's a need to empathize with others, but also a kind of fear that the empathy would stain you?

In contrast, the ENFJ would go out seeking to be stained, and find their meaning and reason for being in the colours, no?

Yours would be to have a white centre with the colours swirling around, outside then?

Makes sense?

 

[Athenian200]

Very insightful posts, thanks everyone, much appreciated for the time you all took to give the responses too. Common theme I see:

It seems to be a deep need to keep a white centre, where you could be still, calm, and untouched, in a way... but at the same time, there's a need to empathize with others, but also a kind of fear that the empathy would stain you?

In contrast, the ENFJ would go out seeking to be stained, and find their meaning and reason for being in the colours, no?

Yours would be to have a white centre with the colours swirling around, outside then?

Makes sense?

I agree with that in many ways. It's almost like I don't want to invest myself too much, like I need (though I may not always want) to keep part of myself aside so that I'm never given over too far to something that I can't pull myself back out.

 

[Wandering]

This topic has really confused me because:
A) I do the withdrawing to a safer distance half the time, the other half of the time I DO just freeze.

I freeze on the outside and withdraw on the inside

B) Many of the things people have talked about on here also sound very much like me. In fact, most of them do.

If you're an INFP, then this would probably be due to your Ne, which has the sometimes confusing ability to always find similarities between any two given things :rolli:

Moreover, Fi+Ne is bound to give results that look very much like those coming from Ni+Fe. There *is* a reason, after all, why so many INFJs mistype as INFPs, and some INFs can't figure out which type is closest to them.

C) The test things always say I'm INFP

Me too, for what it's worth.

D) I really can't imagine myself as anything else.

Then what's the problem?

ALL types use ALL functions. So no matter what function any type is describing, you *will* find something in it that will feel similar to something in yourself. What matters is not so much *whether* you can see a similarity, but rather *how much* you relate to it. And even more: do you relate MORE to what INFJs have described in this thread, or to what INFPs describe in other places?

Of course, there is always the possibility that you ARE an INFJ after all...

 

[Night]

It's almost like I don't want to invest myself too much, like I need (though I may not always want) to keep part of myself aside so that I'm never given over too far to something that I can't pull myself back out.

Your behavioral response sounds like you've enacted defensive posturing so as to protect yourself from adverse -external- stimuli.

If this is indeed the case, do you find that your MBTI is perhaps organic to the impact of your immediate experience to adverse emotion?

Was it something specific that led you to implement this 'pain-avoidance' plan?

 

[Wandering]

If you respect my world... I'll respect yours... you try to take mine apart... expect that I'll gift you with the same.

Oooh yeah! NFJs can be as vicious as they can be supportive, which says a lot...

I don't do sympathy... I do empathy.

Oh! That's funny, because I say the *exact* opposite: I don't do empathy, I do sympathy. Empathy is what INFPs do, in my view: feel what the other feels, even when the other doesn't tell them how he feels. Sympathy is what I do: I can feel what someone tells me they feel, or what I imagine they feel, but I can't directly *know* what someone feels. But maybe I don't use empathy and sympathy in the right way?

It seems to be a deep need to keep a white centre,

Black ! I said "black", as in black box! Where are you coming from with your white center ??

where you could be still, calm, and untouched, in a way

Kinda, yes.

... but at the same time, there's a need to empathize with others, but also a kind of fear that the empathy would stain you?

Stain ? That makes other people sound dirty

In contrast, the ENFJ would go out seeking to be stained, and find their meaning and reason for being in the colours, no?

Yours would be to have a white centre with the colours swirling around, outside then?

Makes sense?

I... guess... kinda...

 

[Night]

Oh! That's funny, because I say the *exact* opposite: I don't do empathy, I do sympathy. Empathy is what INFPs do, in my view: feel what the other feels, even when the other doesn't tell them how he feels. Sympathy is what I do: I can feel what someone tells me they feel, or what I imagine they feel, but I can't directly *know* what someone feels. But maybe I don't use empathy and sympathy in the right way?

To what extent do you find that your "sympathy" connects into outward movement?

That is to say, when does your sympathetic needle evolve into a physically-directed act of compassion?

Or, do you instead prefer to remain peripheral to the issue itself? Does altercation extend you beyond comfort?

I ask, as the INFJs I know are profound in their directive to help others - even when the behavior comes at dire personal expense. I find ENFJs to be much more assertive in their accessibility; yet, not quite as keen in their perception as their xNFJ cousins.

 

[Shinzon]

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