Bardsandwarriors
Xena's boyfriend
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2012
- Messages
- 100
- MBTI Type
- ENFP
- Enneagram
- 4w3
- Instinctual Variant
- sp/so
Musing over whether NFs are "too sensitive" (a thread in NF Idyll).
I have been called "too sensitive", I've been told that I over-react, and I've been told I think too much. But I don't think much at all; I feel. I feel my way around the ether of existence, and I hone in on how I feel about things, and try to pin down the causes of those feelings; I feel what other people feel; and I try to figure it all out.
Do I over-react? I don't "think" so! But most people seem tamer, and more ordinary, compared with the colours and textures and rivers that flow in my inner world. Perhaps most people simply have less to deal with, or they are more robust, or more accepting, when things go wrong.
I do feel things strongly (Fi), but I'm not the drama queen type; I sometimes get excitable, or talkative, or lost in my feelings (what other people see as "thoughts"), or carried away with some idea like an obsession, or bored and rusted out, or occasionally depressed when a series of things go wrong. Those feelings rise up in my body and it is very difficult to hold them back. They flow like rivers, building over a day or two, and if I try to stem the flow it builds and spills over. Very occasionally the rivers flood and I am overwhelmed by some emotion; but not often. When I was young I lived in a constantly overwhelmed state, trying to navigate from one to another, or all merging together in a rough sea of emotion, a mixture of mine and other peoples', and wished sometimes that I could steer my feelings more deliberately.
Many of my attempts at understanding emotions are simply my way of controlling my own, by understanding and rationalising them, by finding their sources, and seeing how they connect. So although they still flow, they are made clearer, as feelings that run within me, that I can see and consider, without being controlled by them.
So it is dead easy to recognise those feelings immediately when I see them in other people. They flow into my consciousness without any effort. The empathic neurons in my head seem to live and sense things quite happily all day and night, whether I like it or not. In a group, I can feel what the sum of the group feels, and I know where each part of it is coming from. If one person is getting irritated or bored, or tired, or anything, I know about it. In a crowd, I know the mood and sometimes have an uncanny sense of things that are about to happen.
I stay pretty well centred these days in a group, but it's a skill which has come later in life. When I was younger, I was all things to all people, and often (to my horror now) bending the truth any way it would go, according to how the person I was talking to felt. I didn't lie, but wanted to make them feel better, and found it very hard - requiring a lot of conscious effort - to talk in a straight line, without bending it to suit them. I spent a few years in my late 20s rigorously stopping myself and correcting myself, until I stopped bending my truth; and I saw a new clarity in my own thoughts, and I was liked more for it. But I still enjoy being on my own, because then I can tune into how *I* feel, without the constant incoming signals; and I can "zen out", feeling nothing for a while.
By rationalising my and other peoples' emotions, gradually over a few decades, I've become somewhat distant from people. I keep that distance, like a personal space, and I can't bear it when people get unpleasant towards me; or if there is something nasty happening nearby. When they show positive emotions, it's fine because I feel them and benefit from them. But in an unpleasant situation, my heart beats and all the anger and hate that they have runs through me; and I have to physically get myself out of there, to recover.
So, yes I am "too sensitive". But I don't have control over that. It is how I am made, sorry people! Maybe all NF's are made this way. I can only find ways of using it, tempering it, and understanding it. But that gives me plenty of other abilties, which are coming later in life.
I have been called "too sensitive", I've been told that I over-react, and I've been told I think too much. But I don't think much at all; I feel. I feel my way around the ether of existence, and I hone in on how I feel about things, and try to pin down the causes of those feelings; I feel what other people feel; and I try to figure it all out.
Do I over-react? I don't "think" so! But most people seem tamer, and more ordinary, compared with the colours and textures and rivers that flow in my inner world. Perhaps most people simply have less to deal with, or they are more robust, or more accepting, when things go wrong.
I do feel things strongly (Fi), but I'm not the drama queen type; I sometimes get excitable, or talkative, or lost in my feelings (what other people see as "thoughts"), or carried away with some idea like an obsession, or bored and rusted out, or occasionally depressed when a series of things go wrong. Those feelings rise up in my body and it is very difficult to hold them back. They flow like rivers, building over a day or two, and if I try to stem the flow it builds and spills over. Very occasionally the rivers flood and I am overwhelmed by some emotion; but not often. When I was young I lived in a constantly overwhelmed state, trying to navigate from one to another, or all merging together in a rough sea of emotion, a mixture of mine and other peoples', and wished sometimes that I could steer my feelings more deliberately.
Many of my attempts at understanding emotions are simply my way of controlling my own, by understanding and rationalising them, by finding their sources, and seeing how they connect. So although they still flow, they are made clearer, as feelings that run within me, that I can see and consider, without being controlled by them.
So it is dead easy to recognise those feelings immediately when I see them in other people. They flow into my consciousness without any effort. The empathic neurons in my head seem to live and sense things quite happily all day and night, whether I like it or not. In a group, I can feel what the sum of the group feels, and I know where each part of it is coming from. If one person is getting irritated or bored, or tired, or anything, I know about it. In a crowd, I know the mood and sometimes have an uncanny sense of things that are about to happen.
I stay pretty well centred these days in a group, but it's a skill which has come later in life. When I was younger, I was all things to all people, and often (to my horror now) bending the truth any way it would go, according to how the person I was talking to felt. I didn't lie, but wanted to make them feel better, and found it very hard - requiring a lot of conscious effort - to talk in a straight line, without bending it to suit them. I spent a few years in my late 20s rigorously stopping myself and correcting myself, until I stopped bending my truth; and I saw a new clarity in my own thoughts, and I was liked more for it. But I still enjoy being on my own, because then I can tune into how *I* feel, without the constant incoming signals; and I can "zen out", feeling nothing for a while.
By rationalising my and other peoples' emotions, gradually over a few decades, I've become somewhat distant from people. I keep that distance, like a personal space, and I can't bear it when people get unpleasant towards me; or if there is something nasty happening nearby. When they show positive emotions, it's fine because I feel them and benefit from them. But in an unpleasant situation, my heart beats and all the anger and hate that they have runs through me; and I have to physically get myself out of there, to recover.
So, yes I am "too sensitive". But I don't have control over that. It is how I am made, sorry people! Maybe all NF's are made this way. I can only find ways of using it, tempering it, and understanding it. But that gives me plenty of other abilties, which are coming later in life.
