The following concerns people with the Myers-Briggs INFJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging) personality profile, and who are considered “the rarest personality type in the world.” Hopefully this could be useful to other INFJs, as I explore an idea concerning the actual formation of the rare INFJ personality. For anybody reading this who isn’t already familiar with my website (in2worlds.net) be warned….this isn’t going to be the mainstream world’s dissection of an INFJ. There’s a high level of “woo-woo”/conspiracy/fringe/metaphysics mixed in, since that’s what my website is about. I also write from personal experience, utilizing relevant personal anecdotes for illustration. Thus, the very personal and casual tone and humor, versus detached academic.
Enjoy…..
When it comes to the Myers-Briggs personality profile I’m apparently an INFJ, which as it turns out is considered ”the rarest personality type in the world,” shared by only 1-2% of all other people. O.o Once I saw that I retook the test, making sure all my answers were as accurate as they could possibly be, JUST to make sure. Same results.
When I say that I’m an INFJ, I mean hard INFJ. So when I first started watching YouTube vids to learn about the INFJ personality type, 99% of everything being presented described my strange paradoxical personality to a T, so much so that I got emotional/sniffly. Which I’ve read/heard tends to be a typical response that many INFJs have when first reading/listening to the personality description, because it’s often the first time in their life that they’re encountering a source that actually understands them. Since we’re a walking contradiction on all fronts, with a personality that’s at odds with its own self, then you can imagine how we come across to others. Magnify that by a whole lifetime of being strange, weird, odd, different, the alien outsider, etc., and yeah…it can be a little sniffly to finally find sources that understand, and so accurately nail all of our very specific traits.
Over Here…..But then Suddenly Way Over There…..the INFJ Contradictions
Contradictions define the INFJ, and the first and foremost biggest contradiction is being the “introverted extrovert,” who is drawn to people, enjoys socializing with people and actually finds it necessary for survival, same as an extrovert……buuuuut……..in moderate doses, because we paradoxically get exhausted by people, and ultimately need to retreat from them in the same way introverts do. But yet we REALLY want to help people, continuing on that extroverted people theme, and solve the world’s problems, being “the advocate,” “the counselor” and such, as we’ve been labeled. But…..do it all from far away, if possible…..at a nice safe distance…….which is back to being an introvert. This is why, according to some INFJ profiles, the online/internet thing works REALLY well, thank you.
Can’t speak for others, but for me this has caused an issue of not seeming to fit in anywhere. Most people are neatly slotted into either being an introvert or an extrovert….with the corresponding stereotypical personality traits of either. But I’m both at the same time. I’m too creative, mentally energized, extroverted/social, quick/impatient, and all around woo-woo oriented for those dry, slow/plodding and often wet blanket introverted personality types over there who are often emotionally lacking; all the while, way too logical, rational, grounded, calm/measured and no-nonsense for the head-in-the-clouds, childish, if not downright emotionally stunted, artist-y/liberal types over here. On the one hand it can cause the feeling of being lost in the middle, but on a positive note it means being able to find common ground with pretty much any personality.
Then there’s the way we rely on intuition/feelings and the “woo” just as much as heavy thinking, left brain hard logic and deductive reasoning. One minute we can sound new age-y and spiritual, the next, coldly logical and matter-of-fact. Which is why I actually feel that “INF T J” would be a better description of the personality, though where the Feeling/Thinking ratio in the hypothetical configuration would probably be about 60/40. The almost equal parts hard logical thinking with a hefty dose of feeling can create a problematic “loop” I’ve found, because the emotions tend to win out (which is why we’re ultimately an F, not a T). It’s why Tom, who’s INTJ and totally T/Thinking based, can be lifesaver, helping to pull me out of those “thinking and feeling loops.” I can go back and forth for an hour about whether to pursue certain things in life, seeing all sides of something, up and down, inside out, arguing to myself like a defense lawyer every possibility from every angle (totally INFJ all the way as I’ve come to learn in my research….) alternating between the hard logic and the intuitive feeling, which usually leads to concluding that everything is ultimately futile. So he helps to pull me out of that and just focus in on the logical, intellectual reasons why I should do whatever it is I’m debating to myself, and to not give up.
Then there’s also our love of really nice material things and having a life that’s as high end as we can pull off, which includes being REALLY mindful of our looks/appearance to the point of total vanity. But all the while being knee deep in spirituality, metaphysics, conspiracy, psychic phenomenon and the “woo.” I saw a YouTube vid addressing this very issue – ”Why do INTJs and INFJs care so much about their appearances?” was the topical discussion being put forth. And in a nutshell it had to do with the “S”/Sensing component being suppressed in both personalities, turning into “N”/Intuitive. But the Sensing is still in there, needing to be expressed. The idea of “suppression” in general is important, and ties into my entire theory about INFJs, coming up in a short bit.
From what I gathered about this aspect of INTJs and INFJs, both configurations understand that the way that we appear to the world is a reflection of our entire being in general. “WHO WE ARE AS A PERSON.” Versus other configurations who don’t believe that, and don’t care. So if you think I’m gonna leave the apartment to run a meaningless errand without some makeup and a cool outfit with some cool piece of jewelry going on….??! You’re out of your freaking mind. !! So I can be dressed to the nines for work or whatever, often times in what are 50s and 60s vintage style inspired dresses, along with the heels and the higher end, expensive and sometimes artistic looking handbags, meanwhile, looking around thinking, “umm….i don’t think any of this is really real…..i think we really are in the matrix…..” Then proceed to argue the thousand and one reasons why this really seems to be the case. O.o But then seeing all the reasons that disprove it. Then just go in circles. The entire thing is about as INFJ as you can get. But bottom line, the outer appearance often doesn’t match what’s going on inside.
But this is also why, in my case, I have been misjudged and flat out underestimated to the highest degree my entire life. The world tends to make the mistake of immediately judging people based on exterior appearances alone, before even getting to know somebody, having a conversation and finding out who they are on even the most basic level. Being a petite little female who comes across as quiet/soft spoken, and dressing nicely has led a LOT of people to “write me off” in an instant with, as I would later come to hear for myself, some SERIOUSLY inaccurate misperceptions about who I am and my intellectual capabilities. The big one being that I’m somebody who can be outright bullied/spoken to like a piece of dirt on the bottom of a shoe. More than one female has later lamented to somebody else (which then got back to me) “I shouldn’t have said that/done that…..!!!!” (same exact verbatim words) wishing they could go back and undo their bullying antics towards me that wound up provoking an absolute shit storm that they not only didn’t see coming, but also truly believed wasn’t possible, based on appearances alone.
Knowing what I myself am capable of and the way I’ve shocked a few bully predators over the years, popping my top and turning the tables means I’m keenly aware to never underestimate ANYBODY out in the world. (It’s always involved allowing the predatorial bullies to “bulldoze” first, and usually for an extented period of time, which caused them to become increasingly emboldened and complacent, meanwhile as my anger continued to mount…and mount….and mount……… It’s never once been a case of me just popping my top first for no reason, being psycho.) Never judge a person based on outer appearances, that’s all I can say, because you truly do not know what people have gone through in life, the things that have been done to them….and what they’re now capable of as a result. Just because somebody seems to be allowing you to push them around doesn’t mean they won’t eventually snap. “Trying to be nice…..trying to be nice…..trying to be nice……[insert nuclear bomb level of rage suddenly exploding]….oh well, so much for trying to be nice……” O.o The explosive rage issue is another thing I’ve come across in my INFJ research, and it obviously has to do with the way our personality configuration suppresses anger and tries to control our reactions.
Then there’s the ability to see the entire Bigger Picture, 360 degree, wide view perspective on anything, but all the while being very much capable of drilling down on a topic as far as it will go and dissecting it straight into the ground, into its nitty gritty components. Most people tend to favor one way or the other, either the wide view, keeping it easy and simple, or getting lost in tedious details, but not both at the same time, all the time. INFJs are not shallow surface scratchers. So if you want a meaningful conversation with heart that covers every possible angle of a subject in depth with total logic and reason then go find yourself an INFJ. If you want to piss me off just nonchalantly laugh and say “Don’t think so much!” or spout the belief to me that “we all need to just relaaaaaxxxxx and stop THINKING….” REALLY?? DON’T THINK SO MUCH?!?!? YEAH, FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is the response somebody will get with that. THE WORLD IS IN THE STATE IT’S IN BECAUSE OF IDIOTS WHO DON’T FUCKING THINK!!!! O.o (which is also a weird contradiction right there…the, um, overly emotive reaction insisting that we need more thinking. ;D )
More contradictions of the INFJ include the way we’re able to see everybody’s particular perspective/viewpoint on anything and putting ourselves in everybody’s shoes (so much so that it often becomes something outright telepathic/mind merge as I’ve described it) as well as being able to see the intellectual/logical reasons for why so much of what we’re surrounded by in this world is totally fucking stupid/pointless and an obvious sidetrack diversion for the purposes of “divide and conquer.” Which then often results in a sense of futility, for me anyway, unable/unwilling to pick a team and just detaching/withdrawing, remaining on the outside of the circus looking in.
The telepathic mind merge thing though is kind of fun and useful, to better understand where other people are coming from who have very different viewpoints than I may have. I reach out mentally in a relaxed state while pondering on what I feel is their peculiar or vastly different perspective, and then can start to see it the way they’re seeing it. Even though I most likely will continue to not agree with their perspective (typically because I can see where the holes are in their logic, or what crucial pieces of the information puzzle they’re missing, or the way in which they’re personally biased in some way due to either being culturally indoctrinated or fed mis/disinformation) but, at least I can now better understand why they feel that way and believe what they believe. But that desire to better understand and connect into others’ views and hear or learn their opinions and perspectives ties back into the people loving aspect of INFJs, which ultimately seems to drive everything about the INFJ behavior.
And while not a contradictory trait, but still vitally important to mention at this point as it ties into the previous personality trait, is the way in which INFJs are notorious for being warm, friendly and empathetic. To the point where people can find themselves feeling so comfortable and trusting around us that they start opening up and telling us their entire life story, and all their weird, and sometimes sordid confessions. (Like, from out in left field bomb dropping confessions, as I’ve experienced repeatedly. “um…..cool story bro….thanks for sharing…..” O.o I’ve likened it to being the priest sitting behind the barrier, while people just start spontaneously confessing everything. Extramarital affairs, same sex hookups “just that one time!” when they were drunk!! “seriously! I’m not gay!!” [heard that one more than once ;D ;D ] minor crimes, you name it.) Yet, while we’re also able to immediately switch into that contradictory cold, hard, logical, no-nonsense aspect when needed in order to get done what needs to get done, no matter how unsavory, and regardless of our feelings.
The reason for the life story bean spilling and bomb dropping confessions is because INFJs don’t have a dominating, aggressive personality overall. Despite being able to suddenly switch into that cold, sharp, no-nonsense logical mode if needed we’re usually operating in a seemingly quiet, passive and receptive state. In person we’re very calm and measured, somebody who other people can see is really looking at them and seeing them ….and most importantly….. listening. That’s a bit rare in our ever increasing selfish and egotistical world where many people are clambering over everybody else to dominate and be seen and heard. Everybody wants to aggressively talk, but nobody wants to listen, or has time to listen. So a person starved for attention and wanting to be genuinely heard encounters an INFJ………..and the floodgates often start opening when they see the calm, friendly face really looking at them and actually listening and paying attention and projecting an air of caring. It might be the first time in a long time they’re experiencing that.
But this is why that sudden sharp “switch” that INFJs do can be surprising to people witnessing it or being on the receiving end of it, as I’ve experienced. Getting mistakenly pegged as somebody’s new BFF who’s interested in hearing their every thought and sordid confession, because I initially come off as quiet, open/receptive, soft spoken and pliable, only to realize I’m not actually the warm and fuzzy marshmallow/innocent bunny they thought I was.
And getting back to the contradictions, INFJs also usually understand everybody else way better than they understand their own selves. Very true as well in my own case, where for years I found it almost impossible to even articulate what was going on in my life in terms of the abuse and the “woo” to even my own self, let alone to anybody else. But I was always the person others came to for help and advise or merely just to safely vent to, because I could see and understand them really well, and was genuinely interested and cared. (something I was recognized for all the way back in 9th grade in Connecticut, when my high school developed a program to seek out which kids were viewed by the other kids as “somebody they could go to,” and my name apparently came up enough times on the slips of paper we had to fill out that I was asked to join their little program to encourage those skills. I don’t remember actually learning or getting anything meaningful out of my two years spent in this extracurricular activity, nothing that I would have “put to use” in some way; the only cool thing that came out of it was the free trip to Riverside Amusement Park [now Six Flags New England] in Agawam, Mass that the group got to have at the end of 10th grade. A positive way to end my time in the northeast before we moved to SoCal two months later in the summer of ’91.)
But to this day when I make work friends with anybody I’m seen as one of the people they know they can go to vent to about anything that’s bothering them, and know that I will always keep their confidence. Nothing they divulge will ever come back to haunt them, even if we no longer remain friends. (Something that females who engage in “divulging gossip” don’t realize is that it’s never a reflection on the person they’re “exposing”/backstabbing when they go around telling others what somebody may have said. It’s always a reflection on them, the person doing the divulging/backstabbing. It reveals the gossiping female in question as shady, untrustworthy and immature. It also reveals them for the empathy-less sociopaths they actually are, being that they don’t take into effect the hurt and pain the gossipy revelations might cause the other person who learns about it. So anybody who engages in divulging the confidences of others? All you’re doing is revealing to the world what you really are. Not the person whose confidences you’re divulging. So many females who engage in divulging gossip under the guise of the “concerned citizen” routine have that glint in the eye going on, really getting off on the whole “stirring the pot” b.s. That’s why I call them sociopaths. It’s fun for them. They love creating that drama that they can sit back and soak up. But I’ve been in this situation at one point, as pretty much every female out there eventually finds themselves, when I had a total Coworker from Hell who used to gossip to me all the time about every negative thing she felt or thought about all the other people we worked with at our job. (Which, on a side note, ties back into the effect that INFJs inadvertently have on others, making people feel so comfortable around them that they start uncontrollably spilling their every thought and feeling and even secrets and confessions.) I’m not an idiot though ;) which means I knew right away……sooner or later she’ll be talking shit about me to others, if she hasn’t already been doing so.
So when the inevitable time came that I started hearing the shit she was saying about me I just kept my mouth shut. Sure, I could have “got her back!” by divulging all of the nastiness she confided to me over a four year period about nearly every last person around us in some sorely misguided attempt to “expose” her, and thus, get my revenge…..but I didn’t. Because for starters that’s beyond childish. But just as importantly, it’s not about her. It’s about me – I’m better than that. But it’s also about the people whose feelings would be hurt by some of the very….pointed/nasty things she said. If only more people would realize this wisdom.)
At various jobs over the years so many people have always been surprised that I notice as much as I do about everybody, down to weird little details and personality quirks, despite my lack of frequent interactions with other employees (since I typically have held front desk/receptionist jobs, which keeps me relatively isolated from the rest of the office I happen to be working at). So a coworker can try to “anonymously” describe somebody in a situation, often with small and seemingly trivial details that shouldn’t be able to be identified, but I already know exactly who they’re talking about and blow the charade by naming names. ;D Then get to watch their eyes get wide, wondering, “How’d you figure that out??” Me sitting at the front desk all day everyday, not interacting with most everybody for most of my work time shouldn’t have made it possible to know the person in question well enough to be able to recognize who was being mentioned.
It’s because even though I may only be interacting with somebody for three minutes in the kitchen while we’re getting coffee, or one minute in the hall, or two minutes while we’re talking about some work related task at their desk, or 45 seconds at the sink in the restroom, I’m honing in on everything, immediately. Clothes, hair, makeup, personal style, regional accent, the way they speak in general/construct sentences, tone of voice, walking/movement gait, body language, personal tics, facial expressions, type of eye contact, what they’re doing, eating, drinking, what they talk about…what they don’t talk about, or consciously or unconsciously skip over in conversations…..how they interact with others, their “emotional weather,” how they decorate – or don’t decorate – their work space, just everything and anything you could possibly determine and infer about a person by direct observation and reading between the lines. (and sometimes getting telepathic hits, either outright seeing or just “knowing” in my mind something going on with them, which later gets confirmed.) And then just remembering all of it.
I can’t control 99% of it, so it’s not like I’m consciously standing there just staring at people like a weirdo trying to “TAKE IT ALL IN.” I just somehow…..do, somehow just seeing and hearing all of the above listed things instantly. Even if I’m not directly looking at them or speaking with them, and am just standing off to the side listening to them speak to others, absorbing the “background conversation.” On a funny note it means I’ve also been pretty good at imitating/parroting people. So I typically can’t just relay what somebody may have said…..I have to do a full on impersonation, whether male or female, doesn’t matter, nobody’s safe :D speaking the way they do, with body language mannerisms and all, bringing them to life. It always cracks people up.
INFJs are definitely about “taking in the world around them,” in all ways, versus being the dominating aggressive leader that’s directing the flow of everything and everybody around them, and this seems to contribute to being WAY better at written communication than on-the-spot verbal. Yet another spot-on trait I’ve come across in my INFJ research, and something I’m going to be getting back into later on. Verbal equates to projecting outwards, “being heard.” But we’re often the ones listening, and taking in. This proficiency for the written vs. verbal means “Writer” is often a common vocation or past time for the INFJ. A big “yup” in my own case. I’m fine with verbally communicating the deeper and more intellectual subjects to people I’m extremely familiar/comfortable with, but anybody else….I tend to have difficulty organizing my thoughts and being articulate.
Several years ago I took part in a roundtable discussion about the “woo” with multiple other high level “woo” researchers, including Tom, and experienced a full on panic/anxiety attack after we all came back from taking a short break, and which rendered me completely unable to speak. I can’t even explain what was going on, only that I was just suddenly hyper self-aware and overwhelmed, and everything just….froze. Vision started “tunneling,” to where I couldn’t see clearly, I couldn’t breathe correctly, and couldn’t make any words come out. I fought with everything I had to finally start speaking again and recover. (If that sounds exaggerated, trust me, it’s not. I truly had to push back with everything I had to start making something come out…..anything….) It had to be edited out of the final video (which is on YouTube). Put me on a keyboard though and watch out. O.o We’ll return to the speaking thing though in a bit.
On a side note, the other vocation often recommended for INFJs is counseling. So you combine that with the whole writing thing, and wanting to help people from afar, like online, versus in-person, and well….there you go. Another uncanny spot-on match, making me a walking INFJ cliché, truly. I didn’t seek out “online counseling,” but due to my website I’ve received countless emails over the years from people seeking advise and input. The inadvertent counseling thing started back in high school, as mentioned earlier, then continued in life in the late 90s to early 2000s when I was posting on various message boards around the ‘net. I soon started getting PMs from all sorts of people, male and female, younger and older, just wanting to reach out, vent about things, get advise and feedback about things going on in their lives, because something about me was jumping out at them on the forum making them feel like I was somebody they could/should go to.
And even though I’ve tried to tell people on my home page that it’s not my intent to counsel people…..that’s often what I’ve ended up doing anyway. But only with the people who weren’t coming at me in an obnoxious, unstable way. If I can sense sincerity and genuine goodness – which is obvious to me in the first few sentences of any email – then I’ve definitely been open to providing that advise and feedback on their various life situations, which has sometimes led to people becoming an intermittent email acquaintance, checking back in with me here and there over the years. And yeah, I admit, it’s always been gratifying on a soul level when people have followed up later on down the line to let me know that my emails greatly helped them out in some way and helped get their life back on track, or when somebody passes that along to Tom, who runs his own website, saying that they reached out to me years ago and I was really helpful to them.
And on a final note, another important and interesting INFJ contradiction involves the love of organized chaos, where things need to be relatively organized and tidy, but yet still spontaneous and fluid. The entire way I’ve lived my life for years reflected this concept and was one of the most screwball things about me, mystifying so many other people. I was the only one I knew living as crazy as I was, taking things to that level. But I need new experiences and adventures, and to not be tied down as much as I can possibly get away with (which is why temping was so appealing for me for so long, just bouncing from gig to gig to gig, like a rolling stone, rejecting permanent job opportunities). This has often meant running amok, seeming to act impulsively with no plan, moving here and there all around the country, jumping from this to that, temp gig after temp gig, and finding myself in some seriously CRAZY, unusual, and sometimes downright dangerous situations……….but all the while being tidy and organized while doing it. So there’s actually some method to the madness, and it’s not as nutso as it may initially seem. Even while flitting around and moving here and there, seeming to be crazy, I was always working multiple jobs while doing so, to ensure I was taken care of, being responsible amongst the chaos.
The ultimate example would be jumping in my car in Portland, Oregon in February of 2002 (after living there for three months) with my cat Kitty in my lap and only $2,800 to my name and the loose plan to “move to Florida.” A place I’d never been, and where I didn’t know anybody or have a job or residence lined up. I’m just gonna…..roll into town and start a new life, and it’ll all just work out. weeeeeeeeeeee! ;D I’d narrowed things down to either Tampa, or Fort Lauderdale. I did the research on both cities at a library in north Portland, concerning each side’s populations, culture and economies. I already knew I was leaning more towards Fort Lauderdale though, since the Gulf side of Florida seemed a little sleepy for my liking. Whereas the Atlantic side is way more happening, while also providing direct access to the Keys. (which technically begin right off of mainland Miami….continuing south for another 100+ miles.) And so I printed out a multi page list of all the motels and hotels in Fort Lauderdale that I’d found using the library’s internet, and which I kept in my glove compartment during the entire 4,000 mile trip. But, I was still seriously considering Tampa, because that sounded cool too.
And as I headed east on I-10, approaching the junction of the 75, seeing that sign directing me south to Tampa I did Eeny Meeny Miney Mo…..which one is it going to be……and it wound up being Fort Lauderdale at the last possible second as the exit was right there. So I let the 75 pass me by, and stayed on the 10 for the rest of the Panhandle to Jacksonville, connecting to the 95 south, and onto my destiny in Fort Lauderdale. Pulled out the list of motels and hotels to call once I hit the West Palm Beach area, attempting to get a room at the last possible second during the heart of Season, when it should be an impossibility. Scored pretty much the only room left it seemed, seriously, at a motel that no longer exists on the A1A. Secured my reservation for a week over the phone. The next day, sitting at a table at the motel’s pool, I was immediately combing the Sun Sentinel classifieds for an apartment, as well as pounding the pavement for a job, in the traditional and practical way that most people would do, no messing around. But also while following “woo-woo” intuition, synchronicities and omens/signs just as much, which led me to crucial strangers, who provided useful tips that in turn led me to be able to land both my desired job as well as an apartment. So I was already officially pocketing money (waitressing), with a key to my new studio apartment, within exactly one week from the day I rolled into town.
The whole mode of operation and attitude is about as INFJ as you can possibly get. My move was “planned” and organized, in the sense that I knew where I was going, had narrowed things down to at least two cities and did my research on those cities, and had a list of motels/hotels printed out and ready to go……..but the rest? That was up in the air, and NEEDED to be up in the air, while also relying on some fringe-y/”woo”/extrasensory means for guidance that a lot of the world refuses to believe in. For me it’s about navigating through life with broad strokes – planning out the stuff that bare minimum needs to be planned out, being responsible, yes, but all the while keeping it wide open, leaving room for surprises and allowing some freedom. But I also need organization and responsibility amongst the seeming total irresponsibility. “Controlled but feral adventures,” you could say. Very confusing. !! But that’s the crux of the INFJ – a personality that’s in constant contradiction, even conflict, with its own self.
The INFJ Creation Theory
It wasn’t enough for me to learn that I was INFJ, and to see the endless accurate personality assessments about me online. I needed to figure out WHY I’m an INFJ. Because when I hear “rarest” what I’m really hearing is “not natural.” i.e…….“artificially induced.” If it was normal for people to be like us then so many would be. But hardly anybody is. Why is that? It’s something I’ve yet to see anybody really discussing, so I pondered on it for a bit and came up with a theory.
Some people may be “lucky” enough to be naturally born as an INFJ, but since the defining aspect of INFJs is a contradictory nature that’s always at odds with its own self it says to me that most, if not all INFJs, are rewired to become this way. Many INFJ’s probably started out one way as children, with a specific and naturally inherent personality and intelligence configuration already in place, but then something happened along the way to rewire, suppress, etc. major aspects of who they were by the time they were teens/adults. So…..WTF happened???
My theory is that in the majority of cases it may very well have to do with serious and ongoing negative/abusive events transpiring in their lives. Because to rewire a personality to such an extent that the end result comprises only 1-2% of the population means that whatever it is, it had to be pretty big. And ongoing negative/abusive events would definitely qualify. As mentioned earlier I’ve seen a YouTube vid describing INFJs as having suppressed Extroversion and suppressed Sensing, and it was the word “suppressed” that stood out for me, as it validates the my rewiring theory. It’s just a matter of what causes that suppression/rewiring.
I’ve always noted that I started out in life drastically different than how I was by the time I was a teen – namely, extroverted and super talkative. But obviously due to all the negative things that were always coming at me I was completely rewired over time. (So much so that by the time I was 16, 17 years old, now living in SoCal, you could barely get two words out of me. I’d go almost entire days without hardly speaking. If it wasn’t for one friend in particular named Shirley, who was originally from Israel and insisted on sticking close by me, always trying to pull me out of my shell, then I don’t know what would have happened. I eventually let her in on what was going on at home, with my “mom” and the abuse, so she understood. She singlehandedly turned it around for me, but that’s another story.)
And I think the same may hold true for other INFJs. It’s why I’d so love to know whether other INFJs have gone through ongoing life traumas/abuse/bullying that would have rewired them as children. Especially considering the whole “INFJ Door Slam” business, which I’ll get back to in a second. Because if anything proves that many people who wind up as INFJs were people who were most likely subjected to years of ill treatment then the “Door Slam” would be it. ( NOTE: I have now heard from several INFJs who’ve read this article, male and female, and…………Hard yes to the ongoing, years-long childhood abuse thing. Sometimes to an extreme case, to where I truly don’t even know how they managed to come through it and be as coherent, intelligent and empathetic as they come across in our communications. One of the females made a note about higher spirit. I truly believe that’s a major component/reason for why some people come through on the other side as good people, and others completely succumb, becoming psychopaths, narcissists and bullies/abusers themselves. We’ll be touching on the role of higher spirit later on. But it’s been fun to see other INFJs and experience the way in which they’re both extreme logic/reason/intelligence and emotions and empathy, all rolled into one.)
One night when pondering on what I might have originally been before all the rewiring my first guess/theory was ESFP, Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving, though not knowing anything about what the entire configuration as a whole would entail. It was just guessing trait by trait. Tom jumped online to look it up, and when I saw what the first website said as I looked over his shoulder I just started laughing outloud, blown away. The summary characteristics attributed to an ESFP? The Performer. At the end of this article I make mention of being somebody who was originally intended to be on a timeline involving dance/theater/performance/acting/creative arts, but was rerouted/hijacked on the soul level onto an intellectual path, for an entirely different end game. (altered timeline.) So I totally nailed it with my guess. So many of the traits of the ESFP are still in me. That person still exists, deep down, and pops up all the time.
But it’s not just about being rewired, because if that was the case then again, much of the population would wind up as an INFJ due to the way in which ongoing abuse and/or extreme bullying happens to so many people. Many people are experiencing negative and traumatic life events, and thus, getting rewired all the time, however…….most don’t wind up specifically as an INFJ. So that brings us back to the other key component of the equation mentioned earlier – that a specific combination of personality and intelligence traits would need to have already been in place before the years of negativity and ill treatment kicked in.
Everything I’m about to discuss going forward holds true in my case, so I know that for me personally, this whole “rewiring” idea absolutely is the explanation. So for at least one INFJ in the world this is why/how they became an INFJ. It’s just a matter of whether it holds true for others as well.
1) Being extroverted, chatty “people lovers,” with an open/friendly personality that desires connection and lacks social inhibition. It’s the kid that goes up to any other kid, whether boy or girl, or this race or that, and no matter their age and is just instantly their friend, talking to them like they’ve known them forever. All kids = FUN TIMES!!! (indeed, that was me as a child. I had grade school teachers complaining to my parents that I “talked too much” and was too much of a “social butterfly.” It was BAD THING!! >:( grrrr! >:( BAD!!! that I was friendly and happy and got on well with all the other kids. One minute I was four and five, and it was acceptable to be playing with the other kids and chatting and having fun, where I had a large group of kid friends from up and down our street and spent hours and hours a day outside, playing, running around completely free and unencumbered, and the next minute I was suddenly in this new thing called “School” where instantly overnight I needed to switch gears, shut off childhood. SHUT UP AND SIT MOTIONLESS IN THAT SEAT AND OBEY!!!!! And where the sour adults around me were VERY ANGRY!!! that my little four, five and six year old self didn’t understand this!!!! >:( GRRRRRR!!!!! My lord the absolute shitstorm I used to get from my parents when they’d see my report cards every quarter at five, six, seven years old reporting that I “talked too much.” (seriously….full on fucking report cards with A-F grades at five and six years old? Shouldn’t even be allowed. But then again everything about the mainstream public school system is BS from the top down, with endless books and articles concerning what a broken system it is, absolutely detrimental to both learning in general and child psychological development.) Just….wow. Terrifying screaming and berating that went on and on. It ties into the whole “no talking” thing though, which we’ll get back to in a bit.
2) Inherently sensitive/emotional and genuinely nice, not the sorts of kids who naturally bully others, and where they have no idea what to even do when faced with that sort of behavior being directed at them;
3) (and this is optional) Possibly having a “woo-woo” component happening in their reality dating back to childhood, be it abductions/MILABs, psychic abilities and/or paranormal happenings, etc., and which is showing them another layer of this reality that many other people never get to see or experience. Or as one humorous website noted with regards to the INFJ’s…..
“Beneath the calm, collected exterior of the INFJ lies the horrible reality of someone who has seen The Truth. The INFJ knows what other people are too naive or too brainwashed to admit: the Conspiracy is real.”
Indeed it is. O.o Love it. :D In my book “Chasing Phantoms” I get into all the various indicators I had as a child of abductions/MILABs, and the strange events of my dad’s life as well, since that sort of thing doesn’t just start with the child. It’s pretty much always multi-generational, an entire family line that’s “on the radar” and being interfered with. There was also the way in which I ate up every book I could possibly find starting at nine years old concerning all things “woo”/ghosts/aliens/abductions/paranormal/psychic powers, etc. and hidden history, and the way these subjects were strongly encouraged by my parents, including my dad in particular sharing his lifetime of strange and paranormal experiences. As noted in my book, how many other kids had a dad matter-of-factly telling them as a child at the dinner table that the unbelievable technological leap that humans experienced in less than 100 years time was facilitated by “something else.” (He spelled it out though. “ALIENS.” :D And yeah….I agree with him, though these beings may not be from outer space. But humans did not get here on our own, that’s for sure.)
And: 4) Having higher than average intelligence, of which includes common sense, heightened curiosity and better memory and pattern recognition skills, the ability to be shown one thing and then use that to “read between the lines” of other things they haven’t even been shown yet, and in essence, teach themselves and fill in the blanks. i.e…..thinking for themselves, something that a lot of people don’t actually demonstrate. All of which results in them being sharper and more on the ball than other kids their age, to the point of maybe even outperforming their classmates and testing years ahead of where they should be in all basic skills. That was definitely me as well, able to learn fast, teach myself and testing at a high school level in many subjects by fourth grade, and put in the gifted program.
#1, 2 and 4 are crucial, and I’m thinking those three, minimum, need to be present together prior to whatever ongoing negative events start happening that kicks off the rewiring process. Somebody with the first two, but with only an average to below average intelligence being subjected to all that negative rewiring won’t cut it, and will probably result in your average dodo criminal/ne’er do well/self-medicating addict trying to cope, etc., by the time they’re an adult. And somebody with the off the charts intelligence, but lack of people loving sensitive empathy also won’t cut it when faced with the negative/traumatic events, and may result in a cunning sociopath/psychopath. You need the foundation of extroversion/people loving, emotional sensitivity (and ideally, intuition/psychic abilities; that “woo” factor) AND heightened intelligence/awareness that are all equally off the charts in order to weather the traumatic events storm, and come out the other side as an INFJ.
If no ongoing abuse and trauma happens to the child born with these traits then their personality will most likely find itself developing into another configuration, something that at the bare minimum probably involves E/extroverted. But if ongoing abusive situations become a regular part of their developmental years, continually beating them down and suppressing their inherent personality traits, then things may very well get rewired, and the natural born extroverted, talkative, empathetic people lover becomes withdrawn, retreating into themselves. Yet the inherent core remains interested in people and empathetic, and still inexplicably drawn towards people, despite being burned by them repeatedly, causing that fundamental “Introverted Extrovert” contradiction. So it’s not so black and white/straightforward like it is with other configurations, who are either fully onboard with people, or fully out, hiding away, to the point of often times acting socially awkward. We’re keeping ourselves sidelined many times, which may come off as shy, introverted or even awkward….until we suddenly join in and flip the switch to “on,” acting as normal as can be, maybe even momentarily being the center of attention and making people laugh. Then hiding away again, leaving some people in confusion. In my case one of the big appeals of “front desk” sorts of jobs has been the fact that it puts me in an office with lots of other people, enabling those moments of social interaction…but where for the most part I’m isolated away by myself. It’s absolutely perfect.
The second part of the Myers-Briggs configuration involves whether a person is either S/Sensing, or N/Intuitive. As mentioned in that one YT vid referenced earlier, the S is being suppressed in an INFJ, which I agree with. And it’s another likely indicator that some rewiring took place. So possibly a person starts out as a outward-based Sensor, but was forced to go within, same as with the Introversion component, due to whatever….troubling life circumstances, becoming somebody who now primarily relies on Intuition instead. It’s also possible that an INFJ started out with an inherent high level of “woo” already in place (#3 on my list of traits) which could involve seeing auras, perceiving the spirit realm, being psychic in general in whatever form, including tuning into people telepathically or as an empath, etc., so it’s a natural part of their being; or possibly a pre-existing low level of intuition became ramped up to a whole other unnatural level due to the things they found themselves going through in life.
In my own situation I had two circumstances converging by the time I was nine: 1) a very unhappy home life with two very miserable parents who hated each other, their own selves, and greatly resented me and my younger brother Joe as well, and where my “mother” was now becoming exceptionally hateful and verbally abusive towards me in particular, making me her persecuted Scapegoat Target (while simultaneously ignoring Joe as much as possible); And then 2) extreme bullying outside the home that started during this same time period as well, involving a group of older kids in the neighborhood, mostly boys interestingly enough, who decided to target me…then never stopped, realizing what an easy target I actually was. (That’s why my “childhood bullying” experience is not like the norm. The norm for girls is to have a group of just girls going after them. Not until I was an adult did I realize that the kids who went after me over the years were 90% comprised of boys. And usually almost always multiple years older. So yeah, if you can imagine, some little 9, 10 year old girl with boys aged 12-15 going after her. O.o I’d be actually crying in the mornings because of what was awaiting me by these boys at the bus stop and on the bus five days a week, but my mom couldn’t give a shit. Shove me out the door, emotionless, into the viper pit….for years. Her morning TV programs were waiting and I was interfering with that. Even in adulthood, I’ve experienced multiple attempts at actual full on physical attacks……and it was always guys.)
With regards to #1, my mom, in her particular case she was full on Borderline Personality Disorder, and one of the most severe cases I’ve come across now that I’ve done the research into the sliding scale degrees that this disorder can manifest as. She was on the far extreme end of the spectrum. Completely lacking a core/sense of self identity, lack of self regulation, prone to meltdowns and rampaging (that sometimes went on for hours, where my brother Joe and I would be “held hostage” until 12, 1 in the morning sometimes on school nights, forced to sit and listen to her rant/rave/cuss us out and insult us; Joe would mentally “zone out” when this was happening, face blank, eyes glazed, just check himself out, bye…) personality flip flopping all over the place, financially irresponsible (like taking the child support checks to go on shopping trips for herself to the mall, then coming up short when it came to paying the bills…then force me to hand over my own earned money to her to cover), no guilt, shame or remorse, no ethics or sense of right and wrong, immature/emotionally stunted and behaving as a psychotic two year old trapped in the body of an adult, and viciously abusive, to the point of being dangerous. The lack of impulse control and always acting like a two year old meant that when she decided to rampage and melt down there were times she physically went after me in a way that could very well have killed me. With Joe, by the time he was 12, post divorce when we were in SoCal she just decided……she didn’t need to buy him clothes anymore, or worry about feeding him. Or give him birthdays. Taking the whole “ignoring him” thing to the next level. So that’s where he learned to start stealing (and never stopped….full on criminal by the time he was an adult) to get his food and other stuff, in between me helping out with his food, clothes, school needs, fun stuff, etc.
So I didn’t just cut her out of my life at 19….I ran for the hills, keeping my then-landline phones always unlisted, making sure my dad and brother never gave her my phone number (back when both were still in my life) since the few times she managed to get it she would indeed call, including leaving some tearful nutty voicemail on my machine; later on making sure no job I was ever at was going to put my photo up on their website, once the internet was a full fledged thing, since that would give her a means to contact me, and just making sure she couldn’t find me in general. She had proven on several occasions that this vigilance was warranted. For example, when she learned about one of my jobs at age 19 at a local hotel in SoCal. It was totally nuts, but she found me because I happened to be driving a hotel guest in the shuttle….and wound directly next to her on Moulton Parkway in Irvine. A completely improbable alignment. Once she saw me behind the wheel she went totally berserk, waving/gesturing wildly while proceeding to repeatedly swerve her Chevy station wagon in front of the shuttle…I guess thinking I was going to pull over or something, so deluded was she with her perception of her own importance and control over me, along with zero impulse control and basic common sense in general. Multiple times she did that though….swerve her car to the right in front of me, then back to her lane…..swerve to the right in front of me, then back to her lane. The elderly woman hotel guest I was driving was like, “Oh my god! What is that car doing?!!?” I just played dumb and continued remaining calm, making sure we didn’t impact each other.
But from there she got the number of the hotel off the side of the shuttle and not only called in on the switchboard the next day, but then showed up in person a few days after that, unannounced. (I was there when the call came in, which my boss Phyllis helpfully took over, getting rid of her, so I wouldn’t have to deal with her. But when she showed up in person it was luckily my day off; heard about it from a concerned Phyllis after the fact. While I wouldn’t describe what she did as “making a scene,” it also wasn’t normal behavior either from what I gather, which Phyllis could totally tell. Talk with her for five minutes and anybody with a functioning brain could see something was WAY wrong/off/empty/nutty about her. My “mom” tried to find out when I’d be working next, but Phyllis had my back and wouldn’t tell her.)
Down the line she started in with periodically sending batshit crazy emails to me over the years as soon as she would manage to find my latest email address, to which I’d have to block her….until she got a hold of the next email address, and the cycle repeated; later threatening to my dad on several occasions (who was now her ex husband of over 12 years) that she was going to hire full on private detectives to find me, acting as if I was some little teenage runaway that needed to be found and rounded up….even though I was now in my late 20s, had been told repeatedly for years how much she hated me/didn’t want me/how much better life would be without me in it, then was kicked out. Yet now I suddenly needed to be “found” by private detectives……….okey dokey………. It’s the classic BPD trait of “Push Pull Up and Down I love you!/I hate you! Go away!/Come back! Idolization and then extreme devaluation; finding my presence online in 2007, for both my website and Tom’s then-messageboard that I was posting at, which linked her over to Tom’s site where she was able to obtain his email address….and sending a really long, on and on rambling psycho email to him, trying to trash me and put a wrench in the works of our relationship. Since she was now alone, after her second husband died leaving her a widow, the attitude seemed to be “If I’m going to be alone and unhappy then I want you to be too.” (I also believe the need/threats to “FIND ME!” stemmed from her intense need for power/control, a trait she displayed with me throughout my childhood/teens years in various abusive ways. Now that I was a full fledged adult, out on my own for years, she’d lost all control over me and couldn’t deal with it. For years as a vulnerable minor I’d always been her punching bag to beat up on and control, to get her own power back. “FINDING ME” and knowing my whereabouts, and then being able to probably reach out in some way, would mean SOME way in which she could still get SOME bit of power back and exercise SOME bit of illusory “control” over the situation.)
Whereas a normal mother wants their kids to be happy, healthy and successful, her thing with me had always been to view me as a competition and threat. Found out when I was about 30 or so from my dad that when my paternal grandmother asked my mom whether she wanted a boy or a girl when she was pregnant with me she gave a very blunt answer…..she wanted a boy, “because a girl will take attention away from me.” O.o When I heard that I just nodded, kind of wishing I’d known it years ago actually, because it really would have helped me to better understand some things. (Though it’s understandable why he never told me…..one of those rare times my dad demonstrated an actual human approach to something.) To admit that outloud to anybody, let alone her own mother-in-law, and do so shamelessly with a straight face shows how far gone/maladjusted/damaged/poorly developed she was, and how she should never have been allowed to reproduce. Any “mom” who says that? “yeah….this isn’t gonna end well…….” O.o
But this extreme jealousy and viewing me as a threat that was in her way really ramped up once I became a teen and came of age. Now it was x10,000. Just doing everything possible to tear me down and make sure I never surpassed her in any way, let alone be happy and achieve anything nice. Another major reason I had to run from her – she couldn’t stop operating in the “I’m gonna get you” mode. Even after I was out of the house on my own, during the six month time period from July-December 1993 when she was still in my life before I permanently gave her the boot, there was always some sort of idea/plan cooking in her mind for how to “get” me, hurt me, take things from me and ultimately try to control me/get an upper hand in any situation. Always looking for that weak spot, always looking for a way in, even though I was now on my own and a legal adult. Part of that involved my brother Joe – Oh, you two are close and want to go do things together and spend time together? Let me take that away from you and block it. Then sitting back and feeling happy and satisfied that she found yet another way to “get” me and take something away that meant something to me, another way to have get back some power and control. Another aspect included always “whisperwhisperwhisper” in her second husband’s ear negative and untrue things about me, to get him to not like me. (On top of outright commanding me towards the very end that I was no longer allowed to speak to/engage with him in any capacity. So….let’s all go to the mall, but, DON’T YOU DARE SPEAK TO HIM! DON’T YOU DARE EVEN LOOK AT HIM!!! It was truly mental. Anything to make sure he wasn’t paying any sort of attention to me, let alone think something positive about me, God forbid. I get more into the backstory of both of their deranged personalities and backstory in my write up called ‘The Vortex.’)
It was during those six months that I realized…..nothing was ever going to change. In fact, things were actually getting steadily worse, and worse, and worse….as evidenced by the “no longer allowed to even look at or speak to her husband.” I realized having no mother at all was better than having her. I would actually be safer and better off going it alone in life, because there was nothing “mother” about her. She behaved as if her kids weren’t her own. Zero bond or loving connection with either one, like she was living with total strangers. I was the one to beat up on, verbally and physically, and Joe was the one she just….completely ignored. I could be 40 years old and she’d still be verbally/psychologically abusing me, or even worse, physically endangering me, as well as forever trying to “get” me/hurt me/sabotage me, and now with this new thing where she was going to freak out if I so much as looked at/spoke with anybody associated with her. Meanwhile, providing absolutely nothing positive or constructive to my life. And I’m not going to tolerate that. Hence….The Door Slam Boot, at only nineteen. And then there she was, thirteen years after cutting her out of my life…..still trying, with that one email to Tom, trying to break us up. Refusing to give it up…..even from 3,000 miles away.
Tom opened the email, saw the first paragraph of Batshit Crazy, then scrolled down and saw just how long it went on for and was like, Hell no….and clicked off of it, deleting it. But he’d seen enough from just that first paragraph to get the gist of what she was going on about, which is how I know. She couldn’t give a shit about Joe, but her laserbeam focus of mentally ill/psycho obsession with me went on for years. Me moving back to the east coast in 2002 gave me a sense of relief for this reason. While not being the reason I moved it still provided a “whew!” bonus, helping to guarantee that at the bare minimum, there was no chance I’d be physically running into her again. (The shuttle van incident aside, I did actually run into her in person once, and only once, in August of ’98 in Rancho Santa Margarita, after five years of no contact. Total fluke, and another pretty much impossible alignment. It required a series of events to take place beforehand to cause things to line up so that, despite living in different cities, and in a sea of millions of people in the middle of SoCal, we just happened to cross paths at the same moment in spacetime. Her behavior was utterly batshit, just like I’d been hearing about from my dad and brother. [Or as Joe so accurately put it once when he 17, “It’s like talking to somebody who’s been on drugs for 50 years.”] ) Just not even a real person. So bizarre.
And that thankfully was the last time I ever saw her in life. Total creepy demon.
So I was already inherently sensitive as a kid….but now that there was so much stress inducing hate and negativity coming at me seven days a week in some form by the age of nine it caused a need to be as hyper attuned to other people’s behavior and emotional weather as possible. Then you factor in being tossed out of the house prematurely before graduation once we were living in south Orange County, CA after the divorce, surrounded by millions of other people, with no money and no car, and eventually working up to three jobs at a time, and that Intuition component became ramped up to a WHOLE other level as a literal means for survival, especially if you have no safety net. Surrounded by so many people, male and female, of all ages and cultural backgrounds, all intelligence levels and class backgrounds, and with such a wide variety of personalities – from extreme positive, to extreme negative, troubled and outright dangerous – means anybody could affect me personally, my livelihood, or my life in general, so there’s a need to be on top of any developing situations. I can’t speak for others, but for me this translated into precognition, which can also include telepathy. It’s extremely useful, as it gives you a leg up if somebody thinks they’re going to try to hurt you/screw you over….and thus, interfere with your livelihood and survival. You already know….and are able to take pre-emptive action to maneuver yourself out of being screwed over, landing on your feet.
Tying into the N/Intuitive component is the F/Feeling component. It’s in my belief that all INFJs were kids that were born inherently sensitive to some degree. But due to whatever troubling life events they may have been subjected to means the Feelings component also gets ramped up to a whole other level, which also overlaps with the heightened N/Intuitive, resulting in them being hyper attuned to people, emotions and feelings in general, until eventually eclipsing the reliance on T/Thinking.
But as noted by pretty much any halfway accurate synopsis of the INFJ, a major trait of the INFJ remains that higher than normal ability for some serious cold, hard logic and thinking. This ties into what I believe would have been a higher level of intelligence that was already in place when they were born. You can’t just undo inherent high intelligence, unless you experience a brain injury or disease. It’s there for life. So in the INFJ’s case, just because traumatic life events may have happened to rewire them into becoming more sensitive and dialing up the emphasis on F/Feelings, doesn’t mean their natural born intelligence goes away. It’s going to be very prevalent, so much so that it becomes a bit of a tug-of-war between the two, creating yet another notorious INFJ contradiction.
This whole thing is why in my own case I can’t side with either “Democrat” (strictly feelings/emotions to the point of needy, entitled, childish irrationality and hypocrisy, and as we’re seeing nowadays, disintegrating into completely tyrannical “crybully” insanity) or “Republican” (cold hard intellect often at the expense of empathy, “bomb and invade first! Even if it turns out to be the wrong target! Ask questions later! And fuck the environment!”)……meanwhile as the majority of society seems to have no issue slotting themselves neatly into only one of these two choices. :/ Most of the world in general seems to operate in extreme black/white binary false two choice thinking, to the detriment of everything. The minority INFJ as the 1-2% comprises a segment of the population that usually sees through all that binary bullshit, unable to pick a team as a result, seeing the flaws in both. We’re the balanced third choice in the middle, hopefully merging the best of both sides.
When it comes to the final aspect of the Myers-Briggs profile, J/Judging, vs. P/Perceiving, “Judging” doesn’t literally mean “being morally judgmental,” the way a lot of people think of the word. (Though funny enough….in my experience people with the J component are often times pretty opinionated and critical. :D They don’t mess around when it comes to the way they look at the world.) Rather: “….when it comes to dealing with the outer world, people who tend to focus on making decisions have a preference for Judging because they tend to like things decided. People who tend to focus on taking in information prefer Perceiving because they stay open to a final decision in order to get more information….” (myersbriggs.org)
In short – A “J” person needs answers and clearcut decisions, and functions best when they have them, so is therefore always looking around in any situation and putting everything together in their minds in a “critically assessing” way, you could say, so they can solve problems and get on with it already.
Keeping in mind my own situation where I’ve definitively concluded that I was rewired into an INFJ configuration, I never had the opportunity to see whether I was inherently a P that was turned into a J, because the personality rewiring started so young, at five years old. At the bare minimum though I can say with absolute certainty that even if I was born with “J,” it was ramped up to ridiculously unnatural levels that were not originally there, courtesy of my (tyrannical) dad, lending validity to my “rewiring” theory. I was definitely not a natural perfectionist – which is an absolutely notorious trait of the INFJ – and which ties into the “J” component. The INFJ profiles will often mention how INFJs NEED to be perfect all the times, to the point where many INFJs actually become unwilling to embark on something in life if they know they won’t be able to be perfect at it. For many INFJs, it’s just better to not take any action at all then to take action and make mistakes/fail/be mediocre.
Absolute perfectionism was something my “Drill Sergeant/Authoritarian/Tyrannical Dad started instilling within me by the age of five. LOTTA LOTTA super harsh, critical, condemning/berating for all things “school” related, but anything in general. Always getting yelled at and harshly glared at with disdain by both parents for the absolute dumbest shit that doesn’t matter, yet which was treated like the literal “END OF THE WORLD.” And more importantly, being expected to navigate through life with the behavior and critical faculties of a 40 year old, and not a five, six, seven year old, to the point where this absolutely defines my childhood.
When I think back on my parents in my childhood it’s mostly all just negative with them – not so surprising to hear by this point I’m sure – just a high level of hate/resentment always seeming to be directed at me and Joe, acting like we were always “doing something wrong” and where nothing I in particular did was ever good enough. I could bring home a test with a 100% score like I did in one instance in 7th grade, only to get the usual purposely blasé, but sour and snide comment from my dad about why I didn’t get extra credit. 100% wasn’t good enough. Should have had 105% he told me. But if I had then that wouldn’t have been good enough either. Should have had 110%. No success was ever good enough. Everything should have been more, higher, or better. When I fell from an A+ to an A- in a particular class in 8th grade it was the on and on and on and on and on berating about how much percentage point drop that was, and basically letting me know that I was a total piece of shit for it, again with his usual sour, disdainful look. I don’t have memories of him smiling, can’t conjure images of what that would really even look like in my mind. Only that nasty, sour face he always had. Literally one of the most miserable people I’ve ever known. Hated his own self, his wife, his kids, and life in general. There’s a reason my maternal grandma nicknamed him “the ogre.” And she didn’t mean it in a funny, cutesy way. She was disturbed by his constant miserableness. Well, imagine living with that 365 days a year….for years on end. :/
So yeah, I was conditioned through hours and hours of repetitive programming (and yelling and berating….) for years to be absolutely perfect with anything I did, and again, to navigate through life like a fully formed adult, in terms of behavior, responses, decision making and all around performance. This “Anything other than 100+% perfection and adult behavior at all times” component of my personality was not something that was naturally there, I know for a fact (an incident at five to six years old where I dejectedly mentioned to my dad that I was going to give on something because it was too hard……then proceeded to be harshly reprimanded that YOU NEVER GIVE UP SOMETHING!!!!! YOU NEVER GO BELLY UP!!!!!!! blah blah blah, on and on. As my child self stared up at him wide eyed, very affected that I was upsetting my dad who I saw at the time as this sort of God. Annnnnddddddd……never gave up on anything again after that. “Failure is not an option” became the new name of the game in life.) And it’s now the major defining component of me as an adult, thanks to years and years of that programming/training.
Even though I know this aspect of my personality is artificial, and where/how it was created, I do still abide by it, as it’s served me well in life in terms of success at work. “Mistakes are not acceptable. Mistakes may lead to job loss/homelessness/starvation/death, and you have no safety net.”
It’s to where I’ve had some higher rung female colleagues (never male, and that’s for a reason that I’m sure readers can figure out) wishing I would actually be………less on the ball. Literally “encouraging” me to basically be more apathetic and sloppy. Stop caring so much, stop trying so hard, use my PTO time to call out more often (like they do) and stop making an effort to be there on time (because they never were/are), stop making sure my desk is always so clean and neat (because theirs never was/is), stop not forgetting to do certain job tasks (the way they always did when they had my position) stop wearing such nice clothes (because that’s not how they dress), etc., are a few of the “suggestions” I’ve heard from various females over the years, swear to God. It’s nuts. And usually said with annoyed tones and frowny looks, so, they weren’t intended as “helpful” suggestions for my benefit. It was said to hopefully stop making them look so bad.
But me changing myself to appease those types? Never gonna happen. My philosophy is, they need to amp their game up to match me. Not force me to lower myself down to their mediocre level. People who present and perform well don’t get fired, and are the ones getting raises and promotions, and rise very quickly to the top at their staffing agencies, the ones who get offered all the high end, high paying primo gigs while other temps get skipped over. Meanwhile not a single male supervisor or a male that I had to do admin work for (engineers, field supervisors, property managers, etc.) whether gay or straight, didn’t matter, has ever had a problem with that level of work perfection, attendance, behavior and looks. It’s always been compliments and enthusiastic personal recommendations from them. Females though? Yeah, whole other situation. :/
But that strive for constant perfection and not being able to not care is just more INFJ cliché. Can’t shut it off. (Especially once you start seeing and reaping the money making job rewards for it.)
So for the INFJ, maybe naturally “P” kids who find themselves in an abusive/mistreated/”life is dangerous and you’re on your own” situation got rewired to “J” as a mechanism for survival; or, already naturally existing “J” kids had the “J” unnaturally ramped up to a whole other level due to the same reasons, or from conditioning like the kind I experienced. For the mistreated kid, then later teen and young adult who’s possibly being rewired into an INFJ, they need to be able to be smart and on top of things, critically assessing people and making hard and fast decisions based on real evidence about the best way to proceed; sometimes very coldly, no time for emotions, no time for sentimentality, because you’re on your own with no help and you only get one shot. No safety net. Taking time to “gather all the information,” needing more time to “process things” and holding off on final decisions, like a “P”/Perceiver does?? Are you fucking kidding me?? There’s no time, and it’s just not possible. So you better move fast and make the right decision, snap! snap! and see shit for how it actually is, and not how you want it to be, because either somebody else will beat you to the punch, you’re going to lose out on something, and/or your survival depends on it.
This is that component of the INFJ that can snap into cold hard logical mode, as mentioned at the beginning of this piece. And that contradicts the inherent empathetic, sensitive feelings aspect. It also explains everything about the infamous “INFJ Door Slam,” mentioned earlier, and which I’ve had to do to all my immediate toxic, and/or abusive “family” members. (Whom I term “biological relations” at this point, as they never were a true family.) It’s yet another thing most people of other personality configurations aren’t willing or able to do apparently, nor understand. But it’s where INFJs finds themselves having to completely cut out any abusive/toxic people from their lives after being hurt/burned/abused/taken advantage by them one too many times for too many years.
A key component of the Door Slam equation involves how INFJs are supposedly notorious for attracting in narcissists, bullies, psychopaths and abusers. Since INFJs come across as caring, empathetic and sensitive it makes sense that they would attract in the predators and manipulators of the world who sense an easy victim to feed on/sucker, as well as the bullies and psychopaths who sense an easy target to push around. So this probably becomes an ongoing pattern throughout many INFJ’s lives, moreso than what other configurations may experience, and thus explains why they have to eventually resort to taking such drastic measures to better protect/shield themselves.
For other configurations however who aren’t attracting in the nasties on an ongoing basis they never arrive at that point, continuing to have the (often naïve) attitude of “giving people endless chances,” “give them the benefit of the doubt,” “feel sorry for him/her/them,” “They mean well/they don’t mean it,” “They can be fixed/they can change”….etc…..etc. However an INFJ has likely learned about people through repeated bad experiences (and often times are better able to recognize what they’re looking at the second they meet a troublemaker). The day often comes where there’s that “straw that breaks the camel’s back” tipping point moment, and boom, we’re done, we fucking snap and shut off inside to somebody who’s been an ongoing manipulator/predator taking advantage, or somebody who’s been emotionally neglectful or abusive. (Or physically abusive, or viciously verbally abusive, or whatever other abhorrent behaviors, fill in the blank.) A person can only take so much, and at a certain point the basic instinct for self preservation kicks in….especially when it keeps happening over and over. After that they get the permanent boot. Door closed, locked and bolted, and no hope for any sort of reconciliation. Many sources will say that as long as an INFJ is still talking to you then there’s hope for things to get back on track. It’s when they stop talking to you that it’s permanently over. Very true. We’ve reached our threshold, and we’re done.
Can’t speak for others, but in my own case I can also say that after attracting in so many nasties since childhood it’s resulted in a heightened ability to “read people.” But this has led to having a very low threshold of tolerance you could say when it’s come to any nasties that were outside my immediate “biological relations.” For people who have been close to me and/or somebody I cared about (like boyfriends), the fuse was long before I ever got to my threshold; they received multiple chances despite serious boundary crossing and/or bad behavior, allowed to remain in my sphere for a period of time despite already hitting their expiration date. For troublemaker strangers though the fuse is pretty short and decisive. But whether badly behaving stranger or badly behaving person who’s been close to me, the end result is ultimately the same for both – door slam, in a way that other configurations don’t understand and never arrive at for themselves. I can read people to the point of being able to immediately see/sense a “non redeemable,” for lack of a better way of putting it, versus somebody with the crusty exterior, but genuinely good interior. The non-redeemables get locked out, to the point where it’s often befuddled a lot of people around me (usually at work) because they couldn’t see what I saw, and were not understanding my extreme black/white reaction. Months later, a year later though…..and the befuddled coworkers were always singing a very different tune about the troublemaker that I spotted a mile away. I saw it when they didn’t/wouldn’t/couldn’t, and was already on it, taking action to protect myself.
Relating to the soft, nice-y nice way in which INFJs often come across to the world, another notorious trait is the way in which we apparently always go around apologizing for everything and anything. When I first heard that while watching an INFJ YouTube vid I was like, OH MY GOD!!!! THAT’S SO TRUE!!!!!!!! I laughingly/sarcastically did an imitation to Tom of “ME OUT IN THE WORLD,” putting on an exaggerated simpering voice: “I’m so sorry….thaaannnk you…. thaaannnk you, I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I apologize! I’m sorry! thaaannnk you, I really appreciate it! I apologize! I’m sorry! I’m just so sorry, thaaannnk you, I REALLY appreciate it….oh my god I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I’m REALLY sorry! thaaannnk you….” That’s all INFJs do, is apologize (and thank people) it seems, for shit we had nothing to do with and things that were not our fault, always trying to make people feel better and at ease, and eliminate any rough edges happening in an interaction. That, combined with INFJs typical difficulty with putting up boundaries in their in-person interactions, often allowing for aggressive steamrollers to bulldoze their way over them, reluctant to say NO and put up their hand, is the big reason they’re often (mistakenly) viewed as meek/weak, and thus, seen as easy targets by those with a predator streak.
On a different, much nicer timeline would I have been somebody who still went around constantly apologizing and thanking people and always showing appreciation? Would I have been somebody whose first inclination in a face-to-face interaction is to “not rock the boat,” “don’t upset them,” “don’t hurt their feelings,” “try to be liked,” etc. had I not experienced what I did for years on end in childhood? I guess I’ll never fully know. (And to be fair here – a lot of this above-and-beyond nice-y nice thanking and apologizing also stems from years of working in highly intensive, customer service based jobs mostly during my 20s, be it waitressing/hostessing/cocktailing, hotel front desk/reservations, retail cashiering, etc., which has made me, like many others who’ve also worked in those sorts of jobs, extremely sympathetic to anybody out there who is in that sort of position. Because I’ve been there, experiencing levels of badness from customers that’s absolutely mind boggling, means it’s just so important to be as nice as I possibly can to anybody who’s waiting on/serving me in public. I’ve been there, so I know. I’m not going to be “THAT CUSTOMER” who causes problems or ruins somebody’s day.
What’s funny is that apparently because I’m that way means I get remembered wherever I go as a regular, without trying. But any places that I shop at on the regular the cashiers and staff and such remember my name, usually remember my specific orders saying it first before I can, seeming happy and proud about being able to do that, smile and “light up” when they see me….and sometimes have given me free food. O.o It’s wild. [Even Tom’s witnessed this “compulsion to just give me free food” thing when we’ve been out eating and I order something more or extra, pulling out my wallet. “Oh no, I won’t charge you for it, don’t worry about it!” Meanwhile as he looks over at me like, “wow….” O.o ] Despite all the customers they’re dealing with, and despite the fact that often times I’m only going into these places once a week, something about me stands out, and they go out of their way to remember me. Too many times to count where I’m walking up to a register and it’s “Hi Carissa!” and I’m just like, “huh??” surprised that they remember my name. But what this goes to show is not just that “a little kindness goes a long way”……..but apparently how rare it’s actually becoming in this world. O.o Which is why I’m standing out wherever I go. I’m just being me, but the way I am isn’t the norm I guess, but especially in a place like south Florida, where there’s a lot of nasties from the northeast causing problems wherever they go.)
What I do know for certain is that the life I’ve experienced has shown me the dark side of people, and one where parents don’t even care about their own kids. So whenever I’ve encountered anybody in the world who went out of their way to help me in any kind of way, no matter how small….I was definitely grateful, because I knew, this world doesn’t owe me anything. “If even your own parents don’t care, then trust me, strangers aren’t obligated to do jack shit for you.” So if they did….some profuse thanks was in order. Which led to me feeling this need to constantly thank people for every little thing and reinforce the good side of them that does that. But ultimately that’s fueled by the high level “people component”/sensitive emotions of the INFJ configuration. Other configurations who aren’t so inherently people-oriented, sensitive or empathetic wouldn’t feel the same need, even if they too were abused or bullied and were receiving unexpected kindness from strangers.
*****
So, by the time it’s all said and done you have somebody that as an adult now has this strangely contradictory, artificially rewired profile that only 1-2% of all other people share. The introverted extrovert, almost equally feeling/warmly empathetic and thinking/cold logic, both fringe-y “woo” and grounded no-nonsense, equally 360 wide view and tedious details all at the same time, organized and perfectionistic but spontaneous and free spirited, and seeing everybody’s perspectives so well all at the same time that they end up not committing to pretty much any of them.
There’s also how in my own case I had some additional “help” along the way to shape my final personality outcome, courtesy of the lifelong abductions/MILABs happenings that were detailed in “Chasing Phantoms,” which also probably tinkered with both my intelligence and psychic abilities. As noted in “CP” by the age of 22 I had a newfound photographic memory capability that was on the level of bizarre, but definitely helped at my various jobs; can’t screw up and make mistakes when forgetting things becomes an impossibility. (Trust me though, it’s not fun, and is actually maddening. There’s a reason we forget most of the nonsense we do or encounter in any given day – it can be overwhelming to remember every last detail of your life and say, every single table you waited on and what every last person ordered for every shift you worked, and every conversation you had in word-for-word detail…..all from over a week ago, for instance. Other servers had to write down every little thing, and still managed to screw things up. Meanwhile there I am…..not writing things down and remembering entire shifts worth of tables’ orders down to the minute detail days/a week later. It’s not necessary, and clogs the brain. So going through that was weird when it was dialed up to the max amount, like an actual computer, it was just too much. But luckily it didn’t last to that extreme level. It soon tapered down to just having “excellent memory.”)
And there was also the newfound ambidextrousness, to where I was now doing many things left handed instead of right, along with newfound lightning fast reflexes, including left handed reflexes, and which I’ve accidentally demonstrated in front of various people over the years, weirding them out. There’s no controlling it either. It’s just….there. The newfound psychic abilities included telepathy and precognition, skills I didn’t have as a child, but which I suddenly had as a teen, and which continued to only get stronger as I entered into my 20s. (Which is when I now really needed them, since I was out in the working world in a jam packed mega urban area.) All of this overlapped with some pretty overt indicators of MILABs activity happening to me during the same time period, flashes of things that I didn’t understand/realize at the time (like stumbling around in a facility seeming to be drugged up/MK’d, trying to get away in vain even though there’s nowhere to go; “them” silently/stealthily swooping in on me in the dark, rifles drawn, to yank me up/drag me out with them, etc. etc.) but later understood after learning about the subject.
I also believe my dad’s bizarre and over-the-top Drill Sergeant/Tyrant treatment was one giant home-based extension of MK programming that was also being administered during abductions, as mentioned in “Chasing Phantoms.” As mentioned in CP, he spent four years in military intelligence during the Vietnam War, reporting to the NSA, and where I firmly believe he was also instilled with a shitload of MK programming himself, based on some things he later relayed to me, as well as the fact as he displayed the obvious signs. The latter of which included the most telltale indicators of all: multiple personas, complete with black out/dissociative periods, where one part of him did things the other part not only didn’t remember, but also wasn’t even capable of. Skills and talents from an unknown origin, that his main operating persona wasn’t even aware of.
There were other things he was doing, beyond just the crazy level tyrannical perfectionism with school, and which were classic MK training techniques as I would come to discover in my research into the MK Ultra program, much of which I get into in more detail in “Chasing Phantoms.” (which is available as a free download.) Nothing about his behavior was “normal guy” or “warm and friendly nice person.” No real love, empathy, warmth or kindness towards me and Joe. Those moments where he was being “nice” could change quickly, because it was conditional. We were objects to him to be controlled, burdens he felt forced to take care of, not actual people/kids that he genuinely unconditionally loved and truly cared about. Just “things,” whose purpose was to reflect him – mindlessly obey, don’t talk back, just do what he says, don’t have a differing viewpoint, a differing opinion, or God forbid, a different way of living your life (or else, as I later learned the hard way, hear directly from him or through the “biological relation grapevine” the various nasty names you’ll get called/cussed out); don’t be your own person, just be an exact mini-me version of him that reflects him and his beliefs/lifestyle down to the letter, don’t stand up for yourself, and just make him look good with high level “achievements.” There’s only one right lifestyle/path and way to be in life…..exactly like him. Woe to the person who deviates. O.o Or maybe…..just be ignored completely, as his eyes pass over and around, not truly seeing you at all…..just a piece of moving furniture in the background. There was never an interest in who we were as actual humans.
It was so over the top, so self-hating, insecure and miserable that you almost have to just feel sorry for anybody like that. People who truly love themselves and are secure in their own being can accept differences in others, and can let go and allow others the freedom to be who they are. I’ve since come across YouTube vids describing narcissistic dads, and he hits pretty much every trait on the checklist. Especially with regards to narcissistic dads and how they view/treat daughters specifically. Though I believe there was more to his situation than just that. There was a reason he was that way….and it’s a bit of a multi layered “woo woo” conspiratorial reason.
When I was very small there was still some sign of “niceness” with him, but past the age of seven or so it became either cold harshness, sometimes outright nastiness, that was obsessively, myopically focused in on shit that didn’t matter in an effort to micromanage me into the ground, most likely for MK purposes, or being in this neutral but still kind of grumpy looking, far away/mentally checked out/tranced out mode. Those were the only two flavors that existed by that point. He was an excellent provider, but thought that was the only thing you have to do for your kids. Materially provide for them (up to 18) and that’s it. As an adult, with massive exposure to the rest of the world and tons of other people…….yeah, I was now able to see the problems there. And hence, the eventual infamous INFJ Door Slam Boot, after years of chasing around after him, trying, and trying, and trying, and trying, and just getting nowhere, or hearing yet another awful thing coming out of his mouth. I’m done. I don’t want this “person” in my life anymore.
What’s worth noting about the “programming” aspect of things in relation to the rewiring of the personality into an INFJ, is the way in which I’ve also noticed a pattern to when things happened to me in life, or rather……were introduced. And not just with me, but others out there in the world. Like a very controlled experiment. This was also touched on in my book, because it was something that was relayed to Joe by “Them” during one of his supposed abductions. He was told that both of us were “an experiment, to see what we’d do and how we’d react.” A rather simplified version of what I imagine was a much more complicated situation.
If you live long enough and travel around enough out in the world, working at enough jobs, doing enough research and talking/listening to enough people, you eventually start to notice some patterns in the chaos. And one of the possible patterns I noticed years ago centered around multiple people, myself included, seeming to have very specific negative happenings and key disruptions introduced into their lives, and at specific ages, which coincidentally happens to correlate with child psychological development. In my case my parents were never “right” to begin with, but in general my life was stable and “okay” for the first full seven years of my life – exactly what’s needed according to child development research in order to ensure the successful formation of your base core. Then enter in a disruptive move once I hit seven years old, uprooting our pleasant existence in Massachusetts and bringing us to Connecticut, to a house we should never have been living in, in a town that totally sucked, and surrounded by some seriously fucked up neighbors, and the resulting off the charts amping up of both of our parents misery, which then got taken out on me and Joe. Annnnddd….cue the long slow decline.
By nine several things converged, including a very severe level of bullying that was now in full swing, as mentioned previously, by that group of older neighbor kids, and a severe decline in positive aspects of our home life, with my mom becoming increasingly more hostile, verbally abusive and all around unstable. Then cue The Divorce, which completely tipped her over the edge, then the second move, to SoCal, and the verbal, psychological, and now physical abuse, ramping up to ridiculous levels. But I’ve always noted that the reason I was able to turn out relatively okay (after a bit of a….bumpy period from 16-21) and hold it together is because that all important foundation was in place for those first seven years. It’s like putting wet sand into a pail and packing it into place, so that when you disrupt things, turning the pail upside down and separating the sand from its “home,” it still maintains its shape.
In listening to other people’s life stories (of which includes my own “parents”) I’ve also noticed “coincidental” patterns to when negative things and various disruptions happened to them in life as well. It reminds me very much of a scene in the 1998 movie “Dark City,” where the character of Dr. Schreiber, played by Kiefer Sutherland, is explaining the process of creating people’s manipulated/rewired personalities and fake life memories to be inserted into them by the Overseers of the artificial construct reality the characters all live in. Add a bit of this, add a bit of that….and voila, the end result is whatever they need that person to become, to help “Their” ongoing and far reaching experiment on the human population. So if what Joe relayed was true, then we wouldn’t have been the only ones. This is something that most likely extends to many people on this planet. (Like I said at the beginning of this article…..be prepared for some seriously “woo” level detours in this write up. This isn’t your mainstream world’s INFJ dissection. But since INFJs are notorious for being into the weird side of reality, I think any INFJ readers can handle it.)
So that aforementioned difficulty with verbally expressing myself about complicated subjects to unfamiliar/untrusted people stems probably from years of being isolated in many ways. But there was also an undeniable concerted effort on the part of my parents to shut me down with regards to speaking, which played just as much of an important role in my final personality outcome and which I do believe ties into that home-based extension of MK thing mentioned above. Whereas my early childhood in Massachusetts was normal, surrounded by tons of friends to the point of being that “social butterfly” who “talks too much” (to which I did get in constant trouble for, as mentioned, showing that the “STOP SPEAKING” programming was already in full effect….) after about the age of nine things became really isolated. Now living in rural eastern Connecticut, cut off from the rest of our very large extended family on both sides, and with a lack of friends. As a psychic internet acquaintance once noted, “You had to go within.” Indeed. Books became my new best friend, which led to writing. In addition, also spending hours upon hours by myself outside, often times in the woods, with nature. Spending so much time by myself and not experiencing many of the social and family interactions that others normally do leads to “not talking” becoming the norm. (This also was part of the reason for the rewiring towards I/Introversion, and a developed preference for being alone in nature.)
For years I was consistently punished by my mom for even so much as speaking with my brother up in our rooms when she was trying to take a nap downstairs. I’d be the one singled out, always, and punishment usually meant….banished down to the basement “rec room.” More hours of being by myself, having to find a way to entertain myself. By the time I was 17 to 18 living in SoCal I was experiencing ongoing severe sore throats, probably on the level of strep throat pain, that would turn my throat a purple red color, yet with no discernable origin. They weren’t illness related, and would always “coincidentally” erupt after more ongoing verbal, psychological and physical abuse from my “mom,” with the usual threats of not talking/telling anybody what she was doing to us/exposing her …..or else get kicked out of the house and sent back to Connecticut against my will. So basically psychosomatic in origin, as a result of all that “not being allowed or able to speak.”
Considering where my voice would eventually take me, with my online activity, my website and “Chasing Phantoms,” all this effort towards “STOP SPEAKING” doesn’t surprise me I guess. (I even had the threat from “them” about staying silent while finishing “Chasing Phantoms,” mentioned in the book – “Rivers flow north, rivers flow south, rivers flow red, SO SHUT YOUR MOUTH.” Which actually cracked me up at the time. O.o Truly though, I couldn’t stop laughing, just thought that little rhyme was so funny and clever….and meanwhile continued doing exactly what I was doing. Didn’t stop me.) If I had a dollar though for every time I was hatefully berated for “my mouth” and treated as if there was something wrong with me by my parents for speaking/talking (and merely existing……) Basically we’re looking at years of attempted negative reinforcement conditioning. That’s really all it was. “Stuff” working through the empty vessels called my “parents” to create an at home extension of whatever programming I was being given during abductions.
I will say this though – I’ve come a long, long way in life against this “no speak” programming. So far this year (2020) I’ve done two more internet radio/YouTube show interviews, one of which was over 2 1/2 hours…..on camera…….and if you didn’t know I’d ever experienced issues with the “no speak” thing then you probably wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe. I do wish I could be more poised in my speaking style like so many others are, but then again I’m battling against a lot of things to be able to even speak on camera at all, and for such long intervals, so I have to just accept it. This is as good as it’s ever going to get. Which is hard when you have a mega perfectionistic aspect happening. That last 2 1/2 hour interview I did I deliberated about for days afterwards about whether I wanted to have it promoted in any kind of way, due to multiple self critical/hyper perfectionistic reasons. In the end I conceded, realizing the topic of discussion – negative forces and entities – was too important to let my perfectionism and vanity get in the way.
So all in all it’s been one more thing on the “incarnational karmic/spiritual to-do list” that’s been conquered. If you know you’ve been reprogrammed/suppressed in life then you owe it to yourself to push back against it and claim yourself back, get back/conquer what they tried to take away from you. Get that cleared out now, the sooner the better while you still have the chance and are alive, so it doesn’t become leftovers that you need to deal with in some other existence, clogging up the works.
For people being subjected to any ongoing, years-long abuse or negative reinforcement campaign things pretty much go one of either two ways. Either the target succumbs, which can mean all around life derailment or even outright suicide, or…they wind up flipping the fuck out and going the other way. I wound up being the latter. Just depends on how much fire and fight they have in them.
Tom was curious to see whether other INFJs spoke or came across similarly to how I do, so had me look up various YouTube vids made by other INFJs speaking to the camera. And yeah, there definitely seems to be a pattern there. In general, there’s a kind of weary, almost sad look to most of their faces and eyes, and they usually speak in a more monotone, subdued, lowkey voice. I’ve described one INFJ guy who has a channel full of vids as looking like a sad puppy dog. :D They’re usually not the “LOOK AT ME YOUTUBE!!!!” moving all around with tons of motion and crazy up and down annoying speech patterns and antics. Though I did actually find one instance of that, which made me doubt whether she really was an INFJ. “Yeah…..I don’t know about that girl……might wanna retake that test……..” ;D Again, it’s the hallmark of the INFJ – calm, low key, measured, though friendly, open and warm, not aggressive/dominating.
(On a side note, there have been so many times where I was so calm and lowkey while speaking with people, with my personal energy pulled in and contained, that I almost seem to just….disappear altogether to the other person’s perception or something, which has resulted in the repeated phenomenon of people just dropping me mid-sentence to turn and suddenly start speaking animatedly to somebody else, forgetting all about me. I just…..ceased to exist for them. Mid sentence. Couldn’t even bother to finish the actual damn sentence. :D Need to SHOUT TALK AND WAVE MY HANDS ALL OVER WITH LOTS OF UP AND DOWN VOCAL INFLECTION!!! I guess to keep their short attention span. But the whole thing then created a feedback loop in my mind that “there’s no point in even trying to talk to people because they’re not listening.” So then I began emitting that message subconsciously, which I think caused the problem to continue manifesting to me. Which further reinforced the whole “STOP SPEAKING!” thing. It’s to where I’ve actually been floored when encountering somebody who’s actually truly listening and hearing me, despite my low key disposition. Like, Holy shit!!!! And in other instances I’ve noticed that I’ve been “invisible” to people in rooms, who didn’t initially perceive my presence even when I got within a foot of them, and so I wound up scaring/startling them, so constrained/subdued was my ego energy in the moment.)
In a couple of particular vids that we looked up on YouTube the INFJs in question did look and come off as mentally “off.” In one of those cases the female in question admitted to being on psych meds. In another, whom I personally knew from online and who is a HUGE conspiracy theorist, and very intelligent/aware about the world situation, both physically and metaphysically, I was aware that she’d apparently tried to commit suicide multiple times.
So while a lot of people may take pride in being the rarest personality type in the world, I admit, I don’t. All the descriptions I’ve seen or heard about the INFJ ultimately come across as somebody who’s troubled. In fact, the most troubled of all 16 personality configurations. Probably the one most likely to off themselves. A kid who was way too smart and sensitive for their own good, and then was probably put through the ringer of life.
As noted pointedly to me by one of my (INTJ) roommates back in my early 20s who went on to become my boyfriend….. “YOU’RE suicidal.” He looked alarmed when saying it, after hearing about whatever latest weird and dangerous life adventure I’d put myself into. “No I’m not!” I laughed. “YEAH, you ARE.” “No I’m not!” (laugh) “YEAH, you ARE.” He maintained a bug eyed serious stare, not backing down.
As somebody who was hospitalized for suicidal ideation/attempts and extreme addiction as an early teen (due to childhood molestation, which I only figured out after we broke up), released and already fully rehabbed by the ripe old age of 16 means he knew self-destructive suicidal behavior when he saw it. And I was apparently it. (There was more going on with him though then “just” some sort of random childhood molestation, being that his dad was career NSA, working in nuclear engineering. They even lived in Rockville, Maryland for a year, where the NSA is headquartered, and there were government agents/whatever they were that would intermittently knock on their neighbors’ doors in suburbia to inquire/investigate about his family, make sure they weren’t divulging any NSA-related doings or classified info. So, it was to THAT level. Hardcore. Not so coincidentally, as tends to be the case with so many offspring or spouses of military intelligence, my ex displayed a high level of MK, one of the worst of anybody I’ve known, complete with dissociative/black out periods. [It was no accident that we wound up together in life. I was flat out told by “them,” “You only date who you’re allowed to date.” This particular ex is a prime example of that. When any other guy that wasn’t “allowed” tried to happen, and the feeling was mutual, they gave it their best shot to shut that shit down.] Behind-the-scenes government programming/trauma-based MK would have dated back to early childhood, and coupled with whatever was done to him in the everyday world – which I actually think was from at least two different sources, based on what I can piece together – would most likely have lead to an unnatural level of drugs and suicidal tendencies at an unusually young age.)
My now ex was the first one to introduce me to the whole Myers-Briggs thing though, back in ’96. And when I first took the test back then at 21/22, administered by him reading questions aloud and noting my responses, I came up as INTJ, same as him, but I don’t know how accurate it was. I know that my perception back then of my own self, including how tuned into people I was, was very minimal; the way I viewed myself and my place within the world, due to negative programming scripts running through my mind that came from those aforementioned years of negative events, didn’t reflect my actual actions and what reality truly was. So I perceived myself as caring way less than I actually did, being more disconnected and on the outside than I truly was, and not needing people as much as I actually did. Despite these negative scripts about my own self that were always running through my mind my actual real life actions with all the people around me, be it friends back in school, roommates, coworkers, boyfriends, etc., contradicted that skewed, negative perception. Which is why people ultimately liked me and sought me out, feeling like I was the one they could go to for help, advise and to vent to. So I don’t think I answered a lot of questions accurately. At this point in life, being way more tuned into myself and after doing a ton of personal work, I keep coming up as INFJ.
But since he wouldn’t back down in his insistence about my insistence on trying to get myself killed I had to pause and think about it, reflecting on all my crazy, dangerous behaviors that kept putting me in harm’s way, over, and over, and over. Things that normal 21, 22 year old females don’t do. “hmmmm….” I thought. I realized yeah…..I guess I am. I knew that I was consciously wishing for death as a teen, but thought that was in the past, now that I was finally in SoCal, away from my “parents,” on my own and taking care of myself and having lots of fun with a houseful of other 20-something roommates who all got along. But I realized it was all very much unconscious. It had never left. (Just suppressed.) Apparently I just did NOT want to be here. And while I wouldn’t have directly tried to kill myself and take things to that drastic level, the subconscious attitude at the time was “Well….if I just happen to die while doing this, or that, then….oh well!! oops!! Not my fault!!” :D :D :D O.o
What came first….the quantified personality profile or the soul’s destiny?
INFJs are often burdened with this feeling that we’re supposed to fix and help and solve the world’s problems, as I’ve come to learn. Again, the whole “the counselor” and “the advocate” labels we get. So ridiculously true. I was that kid lying awake at night fretting about pollution and the rainforests getting chopped down, animals going extinct and images of nuclear/hydrogen bomb explosions in my head that I’d seen in the media, and wanting to do something to fix/solve all of it.
Later as an adult I had a glimpse into my soul’s purpose and it was me, coming here with many others, to try to fix/help/solve things that had gone off the rails. Add in a “splinter in the mind” nagging that had followed me around my entire life, going back to young childhood, that “THERE’S SOMETHING IMPORTANT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING!!! THERE’S A BIG DESTINY FOR YOU OUT THERE!” Nobody else around me seemed to have that issue. Meanwhile, as I was always looking around wondering WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE DOING?!? WHAT’S MY PURPOSE?!? I’M SUPPOSED TO BE DOING SOMETHING!!! WHEN IS IT GOING TO HAPPEN?!? WHERE DO I FIND IT!?! Though knowing that I would just somehow stumble into it. And luckily I did. And when I achieved it, and it involved a very specific thing happening/being done, then that splinter went away overnight, never to return. It was bizarre, leaving behind an empty void. Though the drive to still be “DOING SOMETHING!” and “HELPING!!!” was still there. That never really goes away. I even once went to a professional intuitive that had been recommended to me to get insight into what I should be doing with my life now that the “splinter in the mind” is gone. Is there any other big thing I can be doing to make myself useful, and which has true meaning in the big scheme of things?!? (the last part of that sentence is vital.) Not much luck with that though in terms of the feedback I got.
So in the meantime it was just trying to find things on my own that I could do to contribute to the world, lot of charity and volunteer related activities and such. Of would include my website, whose entire goal was to “help people,” which is why everything on it, including my book, is free. Making sure nobody who needs the help or insight is denied. But it’s more INFJ cliché. Part of the “package deal” I guess. :D And also interesting, since I wasn’t raised that way. And especially not with my mom, where it was the whole “What can you do for me?” attitude, the never ending black hole of “me me me, take take take.” It’s always interesting to me when people weren’t raised a particular way or with certain ideas….but inherently have them on their own.
So that kind of makes me wonder….what came first? The INFJ rewiring, or the soul/higher spirit’s destiny life purpose mission? In my research I’ve come across the idea that our soul molds our circumstances, including being born into particular astrological configurations, because that’s what’s a match for who we are on a soul level. The upper molding the lower.
What’s interesting and lends credence to this theory is that if you research people’s Eastern and Western astrologies, as well as their numerology, specifically the Life Path number that’s derived by adding up the birthday, you’ll often find that it all matches. Meaning, the personality and energy characteristics attributed to their astrological configurations, Eastern and Western, are pretty much the same as what’s attributed to their numerology. I’ve researched multiple people, and over and over again the descriptions attributed to them are so spot on accurate that it’s actually scary. To the point where I can often times successfully guess people’s sun AND moon signs, first try, straight out the gate, or their Chinese astrological animal, and now even their numerology. Tom too, he’s had some fun successfully guessing people’s birth path numbers once he learned about it because it was just so obvious, once you learn all the personality traits.
And while that may not sound like much, think about what I’m saying here – I’m saying being able to predict what a person’s birthdate adds up to. Just by observing their behavior and personality. “?!?!?!?! Say what?!?!?!?!” O.o Which sounds insane. But we’ve both done it now with success. It’s one thing for people to claim that they see themselves in a personality profile after the fact……..but it’s another thing entirely to be able to accurately pinpoint somebody’s Eastern and Western astrology and/or numerology before getting confirmation. Then it gets infinitely weirder if you also see that their numerology personality aligns to their astrology personality. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it all has validity, whether we understand the how’s and why’s. Most people are walking programmed vessels apparently. Myself included, because there’s nothing in any description of the “Life Path 5” that I’ve ever read on any source that isn’t me. (well…..about 98%…. :D ) Same with Tom, who’s a 4. And both of our numerologies also align with our Eastern and Western astrologies.
So when all those spiritual/metaphysical sources claim that the soul maps out when it’s going to be born, making sure to arrive at a particular point when energies are in a certain alignment, in order to make sure the soul either has what it needs in order to do what it plans to do with its incarnation, and/or creating the exact sort of challenges a soul desires to take on, they just may be right, and that kind of helps prove it. If there wasn’t anything to that idea then I imagine there would be a lot more chaos and conflict in terms of people’s astrologies and numerologies, with things not lining up. Instead, it all comes together like some perfectly configured computer program. :/
That last sentence probably should be pondered on, because I actually don’t necessarily believe that the reasons we’re given for the how’s and why’s of astrology is really what’s happening here. Sure, it would be nice if it really was just a soul/spiritual thing. Instead it comes off as straight up computer program. Computer programs rely on numbers. And that’s all any astrology really is, when you boil it down. It’s just repeating cycles and numbers. Especially when you realize the whole “Precession of the Equinoxes” thing, which means none of the zodiac signs are actually where they used to be in the sky….yet everybody is still holding the old energies of where things used to align to, to the point where people like me can accurately guess somebody’s sun and moon signs sometimes, first try. How is that possible? It means the mainstream explanation for astrology clearly isn’t the right one. Something else is going on here. While I don’t believe it’s a situation of a literal A.I. fake “matrix” that we’re all plugged into, like what’s seen in the movie, it is something that’s operating in a computer-like manner, complete with glitches, and where conventional laws of physics often don’t apply.
(On a funny side note, everything about any part of me and Tom’s astrologies, Eastern and Western, as well as numerology and so on is completely opposite, and in MAJOR direct conflict. We shouldn’t even know each other, let alone have partnered up. It’s insane. Year of the Tiger vs. Year of the Monkey? According to one source, “Mortal enemies.” ;D Love it. He’s pretty much one of the worst Chinese animals you could put with a Tiger, along with Ox and Snake. And trust me, he’s VERY much a Monkey, and I’m such a Tiger it’s cliche. My Scorpio, vs. his Taurus? Opposite of each other on the astrology wheel. And the rest of our astrological charts in terms of planets and alignments? Everything is in contradiction with each other. And our numerology? His 4 is one of the least compatible numbers you could ever put with a 5. They both stand for polar opposite things. The 4 is considered the “builder.” The 5? “FUN ADVENTURES!!!!!!!!! EXPERIENCING ALL THAT LIFE HAS TO OFFER!!!!! WEEEEEEEEE!” Even the way in which he spent years of his childhood and teen years living in the benign, folksy, cornfield ridden Midwest, where everybody naively trusts everybody else and never says no, while I was born and raised in the harsh northeast, surrounded by mean people and nasty New Yorkers for parents, where “fuck you” is the name of the game. Can’t think of two more opposite regional cultures in the U.S.
(Does it mean all these “sciences” are wrong? Nope. Just means higher spirit overrode a few things. [I also believe that the endless list of opposites that’s to a level that can’t be ignored was by design…draw attention to things, so we’d notice, question and realize. If it was just one or two things that conflicted……okay, no biggie. But every single “quantified personality/background trait” possible is completely opposite. Yet, while we both hold pretty much the same views on politics, religion/spirituality/metaphysics, alternative health, and our worldview in general, including mega conspiracy awareness, which is very….convenient. Otherwise there’s no way in hell we’d be together.] But that ties into my Parallel Timelines write up, where I discuss the spin-off concept of a soul “going back” and taking control of a body who originally had a very different destiny, overwriting a previous timeline. A concept that was in fact “confirmed” about my situation by certain “stuff.” O.o The original astrological/genetic/numerological configurations of that physical body shell remain the same and are still loudly on display, but with a new soul pilot or directive, squelching a lot of that down, overriding things. Take a body with a personality/energetic configuration that was designed for extroverted dance/performance/theater/acting/creative arts and forcefit it onto an intellectual and metaphysical path, for a completely different end game. Pound that square into a round hole, dammit. O.o Which again ultimately brings it all back around to the “rewired/suppressed INFJ.”)
If the upper molds the lower, which I believe it does for many more reasons than I’m getting into here, then there’s some crazy implications going on. The fact is, the only reason I’ve done anything of consequence in my life, enough to eliminate the nagging “splinter in the mind” of needing to fulfill some destiny, is because of everything negative that ever happened to me, which not only rewired my entire personality into an INFJ, but led to me even creating my website and book in the first place. If those negative things had never happened…………then no learning lessons. Which means, no website. And no book. Which means, no helping others. Of which includes helping certain people, including Tom, achieve more than they would have otherwise due to me being part of their lives and helping to avert potential negative timeline divergences, targeting and derailing that was directed at them. Which means…..a life of no consequence. And therefore, no destiny fulfilled. O.o The original purpose of dance/theater/performance/creative arts was already stripped from me on this timeline, so without my website, book and years of inadvertent online counseling there would have literally been nothing else for me to do here.
The reason I was targeted so heavily in this life was apparently because of what I was going to wind up doing. But the fact is, it’s only because of that targeting that I wound up doing what I did, and thus, accomplishing anything of meaning and helping people. If they hadn’t targeted me then I would never have woken up/saw behind the curtain we’re not supposed to know is there, and became who I am. Which includes becoming an INFJ, and all that goes with it. Although, being who I am on a soul level, and coming here with the intent to “help and fix” means I would have achieved it somehow, someway, regardless of any interference helping to inadvertently speed things along. It just would have been a lot more minor, probably barely registering in any kind of meaningful way. I also seem to have already been on negative “stuff’s” radar, prior to incarnating into this particular existence. Have had several very intuitive people separately confirm the same specific things relating to that. Hence, the concerted effort to target and derail/destroy from the moment I arrived on the scene, based on past grievances carrying over.
And earlier in this piece I delved into how some sources have noted that INFJs are notorious for attracting in bullies, abusers, narcissists and psychopaths. Well, this phenomenon could also be explained by the idea of a positive soul incarnating with a mission to help fix/change the world getting targeted by Neg elements to derail them and prevent that from happening. Yet another “what came first” scenario. So in other words: the soul itself could already have been a total match for what an INFJ tends to be, so therefore it chose when it would be born into the physical realm, creating that astrological/numerological match, as well as molding and/or drawing in particular life circumstances that were in alignment with that, which helped to reinforce and mirror itself. So, just some food for thought for other INFJs to consider when looking back on their own lives. Though this concept would apply to all people, whatever their configuration is. Your astrology/numerology and any quantified personality profile about yourself are probably just reflecting who you are on a soul level, with the lower mirroring the upper.
“Stuff” takes a risk when they go after people, because even though they succeed in most cases, in some cases it ends up backfiring on them…..very badly. Leading to creating the exact thing they were trying to prevent….and now maybe even 10x more than it would have been otherwise. Which seems to be the case in my situation, because I can’t imagine that there’s anything I could have/would have done to “help and fix” in a non-interference/zero targeting timeline that would have come close to what I ended up doing in this one that they tried to stop…..and thus, wound up creating. That’s the risk they take though. And they obviously feel that not doing something to try to derail that potentially positive future is not an option. So, they take the risk and “hope for the best.” O.o