Biggest Source of Frustration as an INFJ

As previously posted, avoidance seems to be a common source of discontent in INFJs (myself included) in the external world. However, internally, I've realized empathy is a curse as well as gift. Seeing the world through so many different eyes and feeling the emotions of so many different people, drains me to a point where I lose track of what I'm seeing and feeling. I also hate how often I understand something important or know a truth, but can't seem to articulate it correctly.
 
Stephanie said:
In example, just recently I was so frustrated with some things (mostly just wanting to understand things happening and wanting some real answers) that I was laying in bed one night curled up in pain, though not truly a physical kind, and I just never wanted to get up again, but I almost wanted to feel real physical pain that I could truly explain. . . I'm not sure I'm making much sense of things today. Huh.:m075:
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I know exactly what you mean. I get that so often, especially wanting to take that emotional pain and turn it into something physical, something that can be fixed or explained or justified...
 
I'm so on board with what Satya and Wyote said it's not even funny. Feeling stagnant and stuck, feeling as if things are changing too fast and I don't have time to adjust - all these, taken to extremes (which become extremes when I finally take the time to notice them) physically hurt inside and out. Along with the emotional turmoil I get backaches, headaches, and stomach pains. My allergies act up. I snap at people and I get less patient - all of it comes up rather quickly.
 
Hmm...I'd say a big source of stress for me is other people. I've recently been involved in some incidents where people thrusted their feelings in my face about how they felt about me and my choices and I became frustrated. I don't share my feelings unless it's absolutely nessisary and I think that the person I am talking to will be able to help me. I don't understand people who can throw their feelings left and right at people; it's hard enough for me to actually know what I'm feeling at any given moment. When people are trying to solve a problem, it stresses me
1. When they are not specific enough in their questions making it impossible for me to give them an exact answer
2. They are extremely emotional and share their feelings almost for 'the sake of it'

When someone tells me about a problem I feel obliged to fix it, or refer them to people who can fix it. But if someone tells me their feelings I cannot fix it; I don't know what they want me to do.
 
rainrise said:
though we may have an innate sense of certainty, Ni is not concrete. intense and rewarding as it may be, it always leaves me with a sense of something hidden, something pending.
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Beautiful description.

I think for me any sense of certainty is overshadowed by the sense of more hidden and pending with potential to change the whole perception.

My sense of what is hidden, pending, is often a source of frustration for me. It is like a nightmare where I'm grasping for something very important, but always find it clouded, unreachable.

It is an experience of torment to realize perhaps I will always be able to sense more, but be forever denied ability to see it, touch it, communicate it.
 
Painful to experience pleasure in places those around me do not understand or appreciate.

If that reception of self by others comes, it is joy. But for me, there has been no one complete source of that joy. As an introvert, I find either frustration or pain in this. Frustration, if I choose to honor the need to be more fully received, as I'm drained and fragmented by managing many scattered places and faces where I may connect all the varied expressions of me. Or, if I choose to honor the introvert, to suffer pain of dead connections inside with nowhere to be received.
 
tovlo said:
Painful to experience pleasure in places those around me do not understand or appreciate.

If that reception of self by others comes, it is joy. But for me, there has been no one complete source of that joy. As an introvert, I find either frustration or pain in this. Frustration, if I choose to honor the need to be more fully received, as I'm drained and fragmented by managing many scattered places and faces where I may connect all the varied expressions of me. Or, if I choose to honor the introvert, to suffer pain of dead connections inside with nowhere to be received.
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This is so eloquent, it is more poetry than post and it speaks so clearly to the pain I feel.
 
some one close to me being picked on for something i love them for
 
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One of the smaller pests I dislike is being interrupted constantly by others. I have come to a point in my life when I would rather just stop talking about it altogether, which is where I sometimes feel frustration has actually turned cheek to pain. I question the difference as sometimes the two seem like soulmates in search of my inner soul to torment it. Maybe I do not give enough room for pain and my judgment may be clouded by frustration. Pain, to me, is but a short discomfort that will hopefully go away. Frustration seems to be more like Groundhog Day, as there seems to be a repetitive nature to that which I allow to frustrate me. Frustration to one that tries to be in control spiritually is a form of pain, as a weakness of self tends to break the back of what one is carrying on one's shoulders.
Rejection seems to bring pain in a sense when presenting something of self-value and watching it get thrown off to the side where it stagnates.
Risking my vulnerabilities to share something, I feel rejected and end up
feeling sorrow moreso for those unattentive than my own self. They were allowed a glimpse inside my soul they must mostly not even have the abilities to see, but the importance was placed on that I shared; not who shared it or how. My frustration, therefore, rather than make an empty assumption as a broader generalization including all of us infj folk,
turns rather outward for the others than inward for my own self. I become frustrated they will not know, rather than I was vulnerable in trying to show them anything at all. I guess that points right back to another's post: I sometimes feel it and see it, but cannot communicate it into being acceptable.
Mere human frailties have cost me a lot over the years, but I have somewhat grown out of most of that unless it is close by my side and I dine with it day after day. That brings to me sorrow, and sorrow is but another expression of pain to me. :rain: Sorrow can become unbearable, but there are rays of hope and glimmers of light out there we can be thankful for to get us by another day until happiness can find its place back where it belongs. All in all, I have faith things will get better and hope they will when feeling down. There is, in a calm pool of water where the current of life sometimes leaves us with no breeze to fill our sails, a moment of enlightenment awaiting us. We are allowed to look at self in the reflection of the calm pool. In so doing, and after doing so for any amount of time, most of us realize there is life below that surface and a current we do not see that is moving along its way. We sometimes ponder it long enough to reach below that mirrored surface and feel the life that has been waiting there all along should we be able to look past our own reflection on the surface of life. What a joy it is when we can do so.
 
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I can relate to a number of the posts so far in this thread. I'd also like to add that I struggle with parties (with many concrete people), new people and dating.
I think it stems from the fact that I'm a male INFJ, and that many of my interesting concepts are locked inside my head (Ni) and then I have to deal with the world in a feeling way (Fe), which I don't mind when talking to women whom im not interested in, but when dealing with many other males I check out of the conversation because it doesnt interest me and I don't emotionally connect with the topic.

I also have a tendency to stay at a party longer than I should in the hope that an abstract conversation will start, but usually I'm disappointed and head home feeling frustrated and upset.

I also feel that my awkwardness, oddness and desire for an NT woman pervents me from talking to women, so that causes me a high level of pain, where most women in the pub/club scene being sensory.

Do others relate to the relational issues I've mentioned?
 
^^ I'll agree with that one.
 
slant said:
When people are trying to solve a problem, it stresses me
1. When they are not specific enough in their questions making it impossible for me to give them an exact answer
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That drives me crazy! and when I try and get a more specific answer out of them they look at me like I just grew a second head!
 
Greatest source of frustration for INFJ huh...

I would say taking the time to sit back and look over my accomplishments and to just bask in the moment.

I can relate to the others that have posted about people who could not understand them. Think of it like this: when teaching a class, the students sit on one side of a gorge while the teacher sits on another. The gorge here represents understanding of the material. During a lecture, the teacher throws ropes across the gorge. Some students grab the rope immediately and can get across (they understand). Others need several ropes before they realize what is going on. And some never cross the gorge. The key is to be patient. An INFJ's complex way of thinking about things is difficult for people to catch a hold of, yes? Otherwise, everyone would be INFJ :D
 
I think Satya did a good job summing up how I feel or what my basic frustration is. I feel like I am simultaneously very caring and completely apathetic, and it is very hard for me to do anything. I fail to do many things I should do, and I procrastinate on everything.

The biggest problem with this is that I often end up very lonely. Another problem is that I want to help the world but I feel powerless to do so.
 
It has been said by several people already, and this certianly is the biggest source of frusteration/stress for me, it is one simple, dreadful word:

Uncertianty.
 
When am I frustrated?

A little story

Me (cheerful): Hi, xy (xy is my estj friend)!
Xy (also cheerful): Hi, you!
Me: What are you doing?
Xy (more cheerful): I'm going in shopping. I have just met z,y,x,v...just some small talking...Coffee?
Me (still cheerful): Yes!
...
2 hours and 3 or 4 coffee later...
Me (with "gut feeling":): Are you ok, actually you don't look so cheerful?
Xy: Look, this coffee is better than last time.
Me (more "gut feeling")): Is it everything ok?
Xy: I'm just tired. Did you hear...(speaks something irrelevant and very practical)...?
Me (still trying): I am not ok, it's alright to be sometimes not so much ok, tired, depressed, not so effective, not so right...are you ok?
Xy: What are you going to cook tomorrow, can I help you?
Me (frustrated): Yes, please.



I hope that you understand what I want to say...
 
Jana said:
When am I frustrated?

A little story

Me (cheerful): Hi, xy (xy is my estj friend)!
Xy (also cheerful): Hi, you!
Me: What are you doing?
Xy (more cheerful): I'm going in shopping. I have just met z,y,x,v...just some small talking...Coffee?
Me (still cheerful): Yes!
...
2 hours and 3 or 4 coffee later...
Me (with "gut feeling":): Are you ok, actually you don't look so cheerful?
Xy: Look, this coffee is better than last time.
Me (more "gut feeling")): Is it everything ok?
Xy: I'm just tired. Did you hear...(speaks something irrelevant and very practical)...?
Me (still trying): I am not ok, it's alright to be sometimes not so much ok, tired, depressed, not so effective, not so right...are you ok?
Xy: What are you going to cook tomorrow, can I help you?
Me (frustrated): Yes, please.



I hope that you understand what I want to say...
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Oh yes I do! SJ's drive me NUTS!
 
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