Am I really an INFJ?

D

DeannaPrice

Three
MBTI
INFJ
I saw a lot of personality types that can be mistaken for INFJ. I took the test and honestly...I truly believe I am an INFJ but it still put doubts in my mind when I see that certain personality types can be so easily confused with the INFJ.

So can you guys decide?

Let me tell you all a little bit about myself and some of my views..

I believe that life is a cruel joke most of the time. And while it can sometimes be beautiful I feel there is too much pain in this world for this to really be 'living'. I look around at people and see how terrible, and callous everyone is to each other and it disgusts me. I don't understand why people just don't try to talk and understand eachothers feelings and emotions and why they feel certain ways. When someone is mean or nasty to another person it makes me mad even though I may not always voice it because of my own anxiety I feel great empathy for that person and often feel the hurt they are experiencing. I am often highly attuned to other peoples emotions, and immediately pick up on when something is wrong or when somebody is tense or experiencing an uncomfortable moment in the presence of others. I will often find myself trying to help or speak for them without thinking, even when I don't want to. I often feel very lonely, and feel as though no one truly understands me or the true meaning of life for that matter. I have one close friend--the only one who really knows, and understands me. And he is my whole world, and I can truly say I love him with every fiber of my being. I believe he is God's gift to me and am so very thankful for his existence. Sometimes I think myself above others with the way I think because I can't find anyone who thinks the same way. But thinking I can never find a person who 'gets' it besides my best friend makes me sad and again--alone. I often wonder if when we die...we're really just 'waking up' and being born into our new lives. Maybe its not death at all? Maybe its starting a new life? I often feel guilty for things out of my control...and I want to be a counselor when I graduate college to help people work through depression and other mental disorders. I often find myself surprised when people do something good and are selfless..and when they are it makes my heart melt with warmth. And just for a minute I believe the world might just be a good place.
 
To my limited experience, you sound very much like the description of INFJ. What other type do you think you may be confused with?

I believe that the only person who can absolutely type you is you, though. If you feel the description fits you, then that ought to be enough.
 
Everybody's an INFJ. Nobody's an INFJ.

Why do you care, honestly? What is your goal in knowing?
 
SealHammer said:
Everybody's an INFJ. Nobody's an INFJ.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the other risk with MBTI: too much concentration on "an INFJ is this and not that". All of the types are a little flexible, they have to be in order to fit all of humanity in 16 profiles. More reason why I think you have to type yourself, but you also have to be willing to accept that your results may vary.

SealHammer said:
Why do you care, honestly? What is your goal in knowing?
Click to expand...

That's a good question, too. Though I think everyone should care enough to do some introspection, and MBTI is one of those things that gives such introspection some structure. But it is important to know what the question is before you get the answer.

Are you looking to understand why you feel different from so many other people out there? Or why you are not always understood when something seems so clear to you? Or are you concerned with your own personal growth, and whether you can trust your intuition? Or why you can feel so much inside but show so little to anyone else? Or why such feelings make arguments with others, though their points are perfectly logical, so frustrating?

These are all things that I feel I'm understanding better through MBTI. How about you?
 
Dave Fallon said:
Yeah, that's the other risk with MBTI: too much concentration on "an INFJ is this and not that". All of the types are a little flexible, they have to be in order to fit all of humanity in 16 profiles. More reason why I think you have to type yourself, but you also have to be willing to accept that your results may vary.



That's a good question, too. Though I think everyone should care enough to do some introspection, and MBTI is one of those things that gives such introspection some structure. But it is important to know what the question is before you get the answer.

Are you looking to understand why you feel different from so many other people out there? Or why you are not always understood when something seems so clear to you? Or are you concerned with your own personal growth, and whether you can trust your intuition? Or why you can feel so much inside but show so little to anyone else? Or why such feelings make arguments with others, though their points are perfectly logical, so frustrating?

These are all things that I feel I'm understanding better through MBTI. How about you?
Click to expand...

To clarify, I ask because it's easy to get caught up in the minutiae of MBTI as a form of self-exploration/interpersonal relation and to let it turn into a neurotic fixation on the letters as an individual's identity. We've seen it on these here forums before; it's pathetic, ugly shit. The "no true infj"isms have been plentiful.

It's important to know where you're going before you've left the house.
 
In answer to both questions..honestly I just want to know myself better. I want to know why I feel things differently from people and why no one understands me. I feel like I'm an alien compared to everyone else. The whole world just seems so shallow...and unbelievable. And I guess I was just curious. I've been trying to discover more about myself. And I guess it makes me feel not so alone. And I though I might be an infp. Although I took the test multiple times and got the same result. Any way I don't believe personality tests truly define you...but it's interesting when you see some of the traits you have displayed in front of you so clearly
 
When you read the descriptions which one do you feel best fits?
 
Ok so, go with that for now. My understanding is that Jung wanted to show the different types so that you could work on lesser functions to become "whole". People do change with time so you may not always be an infj.
 
I'm not sure that anyone would consciously want to be an INFJ x
 
Delta said:
I'm not sure that anyone would consciously want to be an INFJ x
Click to expand...

Heh. But then again, maybe if everyone is truly objective about personality, they really wouldn't want to be anything at all except what they are.

There have been a few threads that I've seen as well about INFPs identifying as INFJ. The narrative seems to be that they assume the J because they want to be exclusive. Oddly, I think a lot of INFJs deeply regret the exclusivity; it is not really a source of pride. But I can understand that there are some who are not interested in finding out anything but only interested in presenting themselves as something, or getting in an "us vs. them" club. I'd hesitate to directly accuse someone of that, but the concept that there are those out there like that has merit.

But back to [MENTION=12723]DeannaPrice[/MENTION] : Your answer shows depth and interest, not anything like what I described above. Therefore, I strongly agree with [MENTION=8603]Eventhorizon[/MENTION] on this that you should trust your gut and use MBTI to help yourself grow and understand. This is a great forum for discussing things like this, so I hope you stick around and read some of the very interesting threads!
 
The next best thing to do is look at the functions themselves. What you described are both poster boy rants for both infjs AND infps. The thing is their processing is vastly different. So down the list...

Do you find yourself excited about one idea to the next to the next? (Infp, Ne) or are you constantly trying to merge ideas into one complete and final totally whole? (Infj, Ni)

Are your feelings and values mostly self referential? As in do you identify with your own feelings first before sympathizing with another? (Infp, Fi) or do you feel you have more of a direct reference to others emotions, regardless of your own feelings (infj, Fe)

Do you feel that when engaged in thought, you prefer to jump from one thing to another? (Infp, Te) or do you attempt to file and reference thought in a more organized systematic and referential fashion? (Infj, Ti)

Are you detail oriented with a good visual memory? (Infp, Si) or are you just totally clueless (infj, LOL!)

These are just some thoughts to help you break it down your descriptions can honestly be many different people. It's the process of the functions that really make up this work.
 
DeannaPrice said:
In answer to both questions..honestly I just want to know myself better. I want to know why I feel things differently from people and why no one understands me. I feel like I'm an alien compared to everyone else. The whole world just seems so shallow...and unbelievable. And I guess I was just curious. I've been trying to discover more about myself. And I guess it makes me feel not so alone. And I though I might be an infp.
Click to expand...

INFJ in what system? Today, the MBTI industry is overpopulated with viewpoints, and little discussion. It's kind of like everyone has a different take on God even though there's some degree of recognition of what such a term would mean. The INFJ type code is based on Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs' work, which proposed a way of using Carl Jung's typology model, yet it is unclear at this point if there's reasonable support for the claims made that the indicator indicates to the Jungian theory, so draw correlations loosely.

Your sentiments sound like those of enneagram 4 might be lurking around somewhere - I would read some quality enneagram books and see if that doesn't fit some. Enneatypes 4 and 5 are types that are together on the enneagram for a reason - both are locked into a sense of feeling alone, but the 4 is the more feeling type. Their feelings tend to center on the meaning of their identity. Simply wanting to be special isn't the same, but if you're a pretty intensely identity-centered individual, who feels cut off from the world, and a sense of longing as to finding meaning, a sort of thirst. This also has a enneatype 5 slant, so if you were a 4 you'd sound like a 4w5 to me.

There are correlations cross-system if you look at the deeper origins of enneagram, because enneagram also dealt with feeling and thinking types.
 
Yeah. I'm done trying to type people. Too much work. I'll still try with the easier ones. Bach and Edison for example.

I've pretty much decided that I don't need to type people to deal with them. I just need to do what they want, except for when I want them to do what I want.

Probably a true INFJ. If you are here to learn, you are here for a good enough reason for me. Although that is not why I learn.

And while I didn't at first, I realized why I am necessary.

Hrrm: You think like me. Talk like me. Look like me. Hrrm. But there are too many of you.

Are you the recluse or the outcast?
 
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