The Hardest Type to be in The Enneagram

[Mal12345]

Jimmy Page doesn't have any definite enneagram type listed on the internet, his is all over the board. It depends on what site you go to.

 

[Animal]

If you don't have a point to make that is relevant to enneagram, we're done.

 

[FemMecha]

350 million people suffer from depression worldwide, if those statistics even count the whole of it.

I can see a connection between being an E4 and facing depression. I'm an E4 who has had depression, and I don't see any shame in it. Maybe there's something wrong with people who never experience depression. Look around at the world and what do you feel if you have even a dim level of consciousness about what happens?

 

[á´…eparted]

"Being a 4 doesn't mean you will be depressed." I didn't say that.

Ever heard of levels of development?

If you don't like the enneagram because of "stereotypes," then create a thread about enneagram stereotypes and leave true critical thinkers alone.

I was writing enneagram articles before most of you were born. I could cite myself in an enneagram journal article if I wanted to.
Type 4 is linked to depression at level 7.
Type 7 is linked to depression at a lower stage - at level 9.
But the type most notorious for being depressed is the 4, and depression is just one of many reasons for it being the hardest type to be.

You are extremely unclear in your delivery, and it's a persistent pattern I and others have seen with your communication. You did not bother to clear up your wording. If you mean depressed in the context of sad, then that is fairly valid. However depressed as in clinical depression is something that, as I said in my previous post that you did not reply to, is a murkey point that can't be made.

Continue to press this honestly comes across as trolling given how haughty and persistent your being with it.

 

[Mal12345]

You are extremely unclear in your delivery, and it's a persistent pattern I and others have seen with your communication. You did not bother to clear up your wording. If you mean depressed in the context of sad, then that is fairly valid. However depressed as in clinical depression is something that, as I said in my previous post that you did not reply to, is a murkey point that can't be made.

Continue to press this honestly comes across as trolling given how haughty and persistent your being with it.

Ask the enneagram people what they mean by "depressed."

Also, find out what "your" means.

 

[Mal12345]

350 million people suffer from depression worldwide, if those statistics even count the whole of it.

I can see a connection between being an E4 and facing depression. I'm an E4 who has had depression, and I don't see any shame in it. Maybe there's something wrong with people who never experience depression. Look around at the world and what do you feel if you have even a dim level of consciousness about what happens?

"The world around you" consists mainly of news stories. These stories are only a narrative about reality spread by the news media. These stories aren't always negative either.

There is a 'chicken and egg' problem here, though. Do these stories make you depressed? Or does the depression make you focus only on the negatives and feed the depression?

 

[FemMecha]

"The world around you" consists mainly of news stories. These stories are only a narrative about reality spread by the news media. These stories aren't always negative either.

There is a 'chicken and egg' problem here, though. Do these stories make you depressed? Or does the depression make you focus only on the negatives and feed the depression?

I avoid watching the news, but do hear about it incidentally and yes, it is saddening. I'm thinking more about the individual people I know personally and how painful their lives are. I recently found out about something a friend experienced earlier this month that is so horrific that it has shaken my sense of reality, and I thought i was already calibrated to know about horrible things. To live is to suffer for many people.

 

[Rambling]

Either 4 5 or 9. I'd say. Withdrawn types have it bad.

Yep, totally agree. I'm 548 and thus double withdrawn on everything anyone is likely to be interested in, and when I do get fired up about something I tread on people and come across as angry, because of the 8 being the gut / passion side. Crap. Did I mention being sx as well?

 

[Seymour]

Yep, totally agree. I'm 548 and thus double withdrawn on everything anyone is likely to be interested in, and when I do get fired up about something I tread on people and come across as angry, because of the 8 being the gut / passion side. Crap. Did I mention being sx as well?

I'm 549, and I don't think it's THAT bad. Getting anything practical done is difficult, though, as is exerting oneself in the face of ongoing conflict.

As far as which etype has it worse, I think each is suffers in its own way. Having attended narrative tradition enneagram type panels (which I highly recommend), I often find the 1s, 3s, and 8s particularly heart wrenching. When one sees the pain that such tough-seeming people experience internally, it gives one a whole new perspective. The 8s in particular are marshmallows on the inside... seeing that is always very affecting.

 

[1487610420]

mine

 

[Mal12345]

I avoid watching the news, but do hear about it incidentally and yes, it is saddening. I'm thinking more about the individual people I know personally and how painful their lives are. I recently found out about something a friend experienced earlier this month that is so horrific that it has shaken my sense of reality, and I thought i was already calibrated to know about horrible things. To live is to suffer for many people.

Extremes of empathy would be another reason why the 4 is the hardest type to be.

 

[fetus]

Being a healthy 4 would be easier than being an unhealthy 9 (which I assume people think would be the "easiest" type). I don't think there's easy or hard. It's difficult for everyone in their own way. What's hard for me isn't hard for you, and vice versa. Also, everything's relative and can't really be compared easily. Human pain and struggle don't fit in nice boxes.

 

[Luv Deluxe]

Hmmm...everyone's got it bad for some reasons and better for others.

If I had to take a guess at a most inconvenient Enneagram, I think I'd pick 1 or 6. All that internal criticism and self-doubt?

When it comes to instincts, however, it's gotta be Sx all the way. In the U.S., I find that our culture sort of romanticizes Sx in theory, but condemns it practice. While most of my choices and actions would look really attractive or edgy in a book or on film, they're scolded in real life, invalidated at every other corner.

"Why did you do that?!"

Because I wanted to feel alive.

"Why aren't you doing this?"

I know I'm supposed to want that, I know. I know! But I don't. I feel like I can't breathe if I don't chase this other thing, this thing I love/need/want. I can't be anything other than what I am, and if someone would just listen to me -

"Jesus, grow up."

It's like a constant fever trying to make it through life while feeding this monster inside.

 

[FemMecha]

Extremes of empathy would be another reason why the 4 is the hardest type to be.

I wouldn't know how to evaluate the 'hardest' type to be. It could be reasonable to say that E4 is one of the harder types to be. The sensitivity issue is difficult, but it also has the advantage of being rather autonomous. The types that need certain reactions from other people have it hard because we can't control that aspect of our lives. Even the E3 who is great at navigating games, power structures, and image, has the disadvantage of needing recognition from others. E1 has a difficult time in needing perfection and idealism. I would tend to cluster the types on a continuum towards 'harder' and 'easier', but I wouldn't know what to put at the two endpoints.

 

[PeaceBaby]

I reviewed this thread and discovered my previous contribution:

Ah, Kermit.

Every type has it sucky in some way. I'd like to contribute more to the thread than this lovely Kermit the Frog song but as soon as I try, there's just too much to account for and I really don't think any type has it easier in every way. Maybe for example it's "easier" as a 9 to numb out of daily existence and coast along but the struggle to become a non-entity in the world is a very lengthy and painful process. Or maybe it's easier as a 1 to assert your "rightness" but to come to grips with your inner sensitivity and level of emotional suppression is very challenging.

There's a struggle and lots of inner pain to account for no matter what type you are, so to diminish that in favour of saying one type has it harder feels wrong to me.

So, enjoy Kermit's lovely song instead!

 

[Lord Lavender]

Each type I would say presents its own unique challenges but if I had to choose the hardest type to be I would personally say a tie between 6 (constant worrying and anxiety if unhealthy) and 3 (A feeling of failure if you do not achive what you want). My personal experience as a 5 has been mixed. On the one hand it has helped me do well in life as i am constantly learning but on the other hand it means that my people skills are not the best and that i can sometimes push people away as i can come across as quite distant.

 

[erg]

The Hardest Type to be in The Enneagram

Being a four, I can attest to it being the hardest type to be. Closely followed by 5.

Seeing through everything. Spotting fakeness and lies from a mile away and not being able to bear them. Wanting to make sense of world that doesn't make sense. Wanting to feel love desperately, but being unable to receive it. Feeling flawed and deeply damaged like a discarded object. Knowing what somebody is feeling by just looking at them, or at times just by being near them. At the same time, not understading emotionality. Wanting to make an impact on the world but feeling fate is stacked against you. Not being able to kill a cockroach that enter your house, because you know, it's a living being? Etc.

 

[Coriolis]

Being a four, I can attest to it being the hardest type to be. Closely followed by 5.

Seeing through everything. Spotting fakeness and lies from a mile away and not being able to bear them. Wanting to make sense of world that doesn't make sense. Wanting to feel love desperately, but being unable to receive it. Feeling flawed and deeply damaged like a discarded object. Knowing what somebody is feeling by just looking at them, or at times just by being near them. At the same time, not understading emotionality. Wanting to make an impact on the world but feeling fate is stacked against you. Not being able to kill a cockroach that enter your house, because you know, it's a living being? Etc.

I was going to say I agree with all this, but you lost me at the cockroach. Perhaps that's the difference between 4 and 5, or at least 5w6.

 

[Lady Lazarus]

The one you are.

 

[erg]

The one you are.

Not necessarily. I doubt an E9 would describe what they are being difficult (unless very unhealthy and in a dissociative state). Going with the flow and with others' wishes all the time is a very easy way of making life pass by.