INFJs and feelings of being alone, different, disconnected or lost

infjs and feelings of being alone, different

i am more often than not alone, but rarely lonely. i am surrounded by people who love me and who i love--my partner, my sons, my weekend lover--but still alone. i value this. my greatest fear is of getting 'lost' somehow in someone else. people--complete strangers on buses sometimes--confide their life stories and though i listen and empathize, even offer my own experience and what passes for advice with me, there's still no real connection. of course too much of this is emotionally draining. even too much intense time with loved ones exhausts me. without a lot of solitude, i become fragmented and lose my sense of self.

i value my differentness, though as a child it was baffling and painful. i am surrounded by 'e's--sons, partner, lover--and i wonder how this came to be. i feel i have something to learn from them, though i have no idea what it is, and i sense i am an enigma to them. perhaps all is as it should be. certainly there is nothing i want to change.
 
I am lonely often, like right now. I wonder sometimes if Introversion doesn't actually exist and is the result of negative emotions taking their toll. Of course, by Extroversion could also fit into the category of negative emotions taking their toll, only in a different way. Extroversion could be just as non-existent as introversion.

In any case, I hate being lonely. I do feel different, disconnected, and lost.
 
Yes, it's definitely an INFJ thing to feel alone. I can be surrounded by friends and family but still feel totally different, disconnected, and alone.

The only time that I don't feel so alone is when I'm really connecting on a deeper level with somebody else or when I can feel intimate with another person. Unfortunately, most other people don't seem to need this deeper connection at all or as often so I don't get it as much as I need. So, mostly I feel somehow disconnected to the life that everyone else seems to be living.

I can also totally relate with the meaning or no point issue. I often think to myself "what's the point?". I get absolutely nothing from small talk or superficial social events yet I feel somehow like there's something wrong with me that I like to avoid them. I also have to watch myself with trying to force deep conversations out of people - I guess there's a time an place for those.

Although I love my alone time, I feel too guilty to take more of it. I usually force myself to be a little more social than I want to because I want to be there for others and I feel that the only way to actually make a difference to other people is to fight a little bit against introversion (I'm VERY introverted and VERY intuitive on the MBTI scale) and give a little bit of yourself to others. It might help to think that although you're getting nothing from the small talk, the other person might be...so it's worth it.
 
Fireflies-free said:
The only time that I don't feel so alone is when I'm really connecting on a deeper level with somebody else or when I can feel intimate with another person. Unfortunately, most other people don't seem to need this deeper connection at all or as often so I don't get it as much as I need.
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this.
 
Fireflies-free said:
Yes, it's definitely an INFJ thing to feel alone. I can be surrounded by friends and family but still feel totally different, disconnected, and alone.

The only time that I don't feel so alone is when I'm really connecting on a deeper level with somebody else or when I can feel intimate with another person. Unfortunately, most other people don't seem to need this deeper connection at all or as often so I don't get it as much as I need. So, mostly I feel somehow disconnected to the life that everyone else seems to be living.
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I totally agree with what you said here... I cherish those rare occasions that I can really open up with someone on a deeper level. All too often though, I get the feeling that most of the people around me are not at all concerned with the deep and important things that I dwell on all the time. It is a very wierd feeling actually, but I feel like they are walking around like zombies, completely oblivious to some of the things that I cannot help but notice.
 
JasonB52 said:
I totally agree with what you said here... I cherish those rare occasions that I can really open up with someone on a deeper level. All too often though, I get the feeling that most of the people around me are not at all concerned with the deep and important things that I dwell on all the time. It is a very wierd feeling actually, but I feel like they are walking around like zombies, completely oblivious to some of the things that I cannot help but notice.
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*laughs* Yes, Zombies! ..but somehow we feel like the freaks!
 
We should embrace our freakishness!
 
I value and protect my alone time! I need it and can and will take it at will... I love being different and the same lol
 
Marc said:
I rarely feel a deep sense of belonging. I usually feel I have to justify my being where I am and I am constantly bothered by this creeping feeling that other people don't exist on the same wavelenghts as I do, and even though they underestand what I say when I explain it to them they don't really get me.

True and sad feeling. I find that I do belong in the places I go to and participate in; but it is only an aspect of my personality that belongs there and the people only see that certain side as all of me. They only assume and judge me based on my public, non threatening facade. But if they only knew....:m197:
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gloomy-optimist said:
I...feel something of the sort. I don't know if I would call it lost-ness; it's more of like a lack of sense of self for me. I know what I feel, what I want, how I see the world....and yet I don't. For everything I come to understand in myself, I lose that understanding, then regain it, but every single time it seems to be somewhat detached, somewhat surreal; less tangible than what others say they think or feel, in a way.
I think some of my S friends help draw me out of myself so I don't notice it as often. But when I'm in myself (that's the only way I know how to describe it; there's a distinct difference from when I'm viewing the outside world, when I'm caught inside my own mind, and when I'm in my mind but registering the outside world, kind of in the way of looking through glass like oceanic99 said) it's as if nothing's quite as solid as it should be. It's fine when I'm only lost in myself for brief periods, but if I am in myself for extended periods or too frequently, I begin to lose what I have navigated and what I have not, or what I am aware of, am fleetingly aware of, or was never aware of at all.
It's the strangest thing, that; there are times when the "real" world seems something less than real. There were times when I'd have to really think to grasp what goes on in the "real" world because the place in my head seems so much more solid, but less tangible and more dynamic, if that makes sense. There are times when I notice that I don't really remember the real world, or it's very dim, even if it was recent; I know it's not my memory specifically, but rather there was nothing for my mind to register, since I never really noticed anything in the first place.

How do you really describe it? I've become used to it myself, but once I start to think about what it is again, I'm mystified. I understand myself better than most; I am more confused about myself than most. But how do you explain that to someone who doesn't know? I've tried to get friends to read about INFJs to kind of have a glimpse at this dilemma, but I don't think they really get it; I don't think I seem that complicated on the outside.

I don't know. Lost-ness is probably the only way to really describe it.
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Wow, I want to frame this. It's exactly how I feel most of the time. I thought I was crazy till I found this forum and found I wasn't alone.

One of the biggest problems I face is that I seem to have an amazing capacity to understand exactly how other people feel, but then knowing that most people can't return me the favor. I feel alone not out of the fact that I don't have friends or even close friends because that's never been the problem for me, it's more out of the fact that I feel the things I experience can't be explained for them to understand.

I think the reason that many of us feel that our friends only see limited sides of us is that as INFJers we understand people so well that we can easily imitate other personalities to get along easier (and many of us do that naturally). In high school, I remember taking a personality test and when I came up "introverted" a good friend of mine was convinced that I did the test wrong. She couldn't of been further from the truth.

I agree with many of you who have said that the best way to cope with this is to find creative outlets for things. Every-time I feel down, I seclude my self for a few hours and pick up my guitar. I have also found stream of conscious writing to be very therapeutic.
 
You've come to the right place, because I relate very well to everything you said :D My ESTP friend is still convinced I'm extroverted, although I think introversion is actually the strongest of my letters (if that makes sense).

But I think it's true. I instinctually understand people very well (sometimes too well), although I don't think people can return the favor. Actually, I shouldn't say that; I don't think people are conditioned to return the favor, moreso. People are used to seeing what they get; there's a way a person acts, and that's their personality. Unfortunately, I and many other INFJs kind of have different ways of acting in different situations, and that confuses people and throws them off...

But it's difficult to explain that, and many other things. Words can only go so far.
 
I definitely get this. I would say I have quite a lot of friends but it is very rarely that I feel like I connect with them or need them. It's more like I see them on a social level. In terms of a deeper connection, I am very lucky in that I have a twin sister who is INTJ. We are very similar in some ways but she has a unique way of detaching herself from things and being objective about them that I admire and I love talking to her and getting advice. I do get feelings of depression occasionally.. I think I usually get this either in a response to people I love sinking down, or to inconsistencies between my actions and my expectations of myself. It makes me feel anxious and disconnected. Difficult to articulate but pretty unpleasant!
 
tsk5 said:
One of the biggest problems I face is that I seem to have an amazing capacity to understand exactly how other people feel, but then knowing that most people can't return me the favor. .
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I hate this feeling. I don't even realise I'm doing it, but for some reason people always say "No one ever gets me but you totally do". And they think we have some amazing connection, and that it goes both ways, but I don't feel it back from them. Or sometimes I do a bit, but I think I've only experienced it once completely. I took that for granted and didn't realise how difficult it'll be to find again!
 
Nicola Jane said:
I definitely get this. I would say I have quite a lot of friends but it is very rarely that I feel like I connect with them or need them. It's more like I see them on a social level. In terms of a deeper connection, I am very lucky in that I have a twin sister who is INTJ. We are very similar in some ways but she has a unique way of detaching herself from things and being objective about them that I admire and I love talking to her and getting advice. I do get feelings of depression occasionally.. I think I usually get this either in a response to people I love sinking down, or to inconsistencies between my actions and my expectations of myself. It makes me feel anxious and disconnected. Difficult to articulate but pretty unpleasant!
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My twin is ENTJ -- it does help that she's extroverted and can make a bridge between my introversion and the outside world, but I think it'd be a lot easier for her to relate to me if she was INTJ instead...
 
gloomy-optimist said:
My twin is ENTJ -- it does help that she's extroverted and can make a bridge between my introversion and the outside world, but I think it'd be a lot easier for her to relate to me if she was INTJ instead...
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Wow, "The Commander" that is very different! I think the extroversion and the Thinking would make that pretty difficult for me. Still at least you've got the N, my brother is ESTP and we are quite literally on different planets. Its true INTJ's don't do a bad job relating and they're very good listeners. THe ENTJs I know can be great listeners when they want to be and rubbish when they can't be bothered lol. It's great having a twin though isn't it :)
 
Nicola Jane said:
Wow, "The Commander" that is very different! I think the extroversion and the Thinking would make that pretty difficult for me. Still at least you've got the N, my brother is ESTP and we are quite literally on different planets. Its true INTJ's don't do a bad job relating and they're very good listeners. THe ENTJs I know can be great listeners when they want to be and rubbish when they can't be bothered lol. It's great having a twin though isn't it :)
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Lord, if I didn't have a twin, I'm pretty sure I'd be a social mess ;) But yeah, you nailed the ENTJ attitude on the head -- listen only when they want to.
But I bet being related to an ESTP must be a pain in the butt too -- my good friend is one, but I choose to like him...if he were a brother, I could see how our attitudes towards each other could have developed differently lol
 
I find that lonlyness, for me, is not lack of interaction in itself. If I can completely cut myself off from the people I care about emotionally I am never lonely. Lonelyness for me is the desire for some, often specific, type of connection with another specific person or people. Sometimes I think I am too loyal and as so expect loyalty and thereness too much. I always know what I when it comes to interaction with people. Often my desires are not met. It is wierd to me why seeing each other once every 1/2 year is too much for a close friend to comply with. Anyway, I have never fealt lost. I felt pushed away from a group that I would never be able to belong in many times. I am often lonlier in a large group than alone. I really can't connect to that many people at a time. There are too many variables in situations like that to which I do not know how to react properly. I like one on one where one can take in more information with one person, make more eye contact, and conect more. If I talk too much with people I generally become lonely, but will not stop talking. It is annoying to me
 
I feel like that, too. Completely, actually... People who know me well often forget that it took me six months to approach them, and people I know online are usually shocked to learn that I have two friends, with whom I only communicate through email & text message.

I have a really hard time with it because I prefer being alone, but like you said, I need to connect with others... Whenever I try to, it's sort of clumsy for the most part. It's hard to explain. It's like each aspect of a relationship is such a delicate balancing act... I'll tell you this, and see what you do with it... I also find that I need the person present a certain amount of time or I start thinking they hate me, and I won't find out, because I don't want to intrude. Finding anyone who understands all that (or really any other thoughts of mine, lol) is obviously a challenge...

So it's kind of a clumsy dance.

If that makes any sense.
 
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