INFJs at wakes and funerals

MoonFlier

MoonFlier

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INFJs: At a funeral or wake do you find the emotions of the families and friends mourning the deceased to be overwhelming?

Its almost as though I'm absorbing all their pain all at once. To say it's incapacitating is watering it down.

How do you deal with it? Is talking best, or just stay active? I've tried all the tricks I can think of without resorting to drugs or alcohol.
 
I have like two modes:
Emotions OFF. I am zombie.
Emotions ON. This is too much, I am embarrassing myself.
 
MoonFlier said:
Is talking best, or just stay active? I've tried all the tricks I can think of without resorting to drugs or alcohol.
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Try to be useful. Put your Fe into automatic. You will shine and you'll keep the overwhelm at bay, generally.
Don't get too crazy with it though.
 
I definitely get this way too. Often I will have no emotions for the person who's died (probably because I don't know them super well). But I find it excruciating being around all those people who's sadness becomes my own. I usually sorta latch onto someone- it can be anyone, someone I don't really know even. And just sorta spend time with them and be comforting (people tend to like to hug me at funerals, even if I don't know them- idk if that's common)- so I just let them hug me and stuff.

I find it worse at animals funerals- I'm not sure why?
 
Gadsden Mountain Ranch said:
I can turn my emotions off temporarily
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Lucky.

I got through that wake by zipping though. Don't think I touched the ground I flew through so fast.

My problem is not that I have my own feelings, I'm fine. A body doesn't upset me - the person is not in it anymore. I don't cry at funerals unless it is someone who was very close to me.
It's encountering the family members, or others who are emotional. The muscles along the back of my throat seize up and the pain shoots through to my head and I have to leave.
(Take the pain of strep, now multiply it by 100.)

I think a muscle relaxant might help, but I don't want to fall asleep either.
 
I can be really robotic.
I've only cried at one funeral.
I usually turn my emotions off and try to be there for people who need support.

Even if I'm being robotic it is still emotionally overwhelming to have so much sad and negative emotional all around me. I get saturated with it, so I usually need time alone after the event and have a difficult time snapping out of the fog if I can't have that time to recharge. Sometimes releasing the emotion I get saturated with is easier and healthier than pretending I don't feel it.
 
I feel numb and can't cry at the funerals, usually if someone close to me dies. I only cry many weeks after the death...
 
MoonFlier said:
Lucky.

I got through that wake by zipping though. Don't think I touched the ground I flew through so fast.

My problem is not that I have my own feelings, I'm fine. A body doesn't upset me - the person is not in it anymore. I don't cry at funerals unless it is someone who was very close to me.
It's encountering the family members, or others who are emotional. The muscles along the back of my throat seize up and the pain shoots through to my head and I have to leave.
(Take the pain of strep, now multiply it by 100.)

I think a muscle relaxant might help, but I don't want to fall asleep either.
Click to expand...
My grandma's funeral, I made a very emotional speech. Everyone cried. Even my future sister in law nearly, who had never met her.

How did I do it? Memorized it. Looked straight ahead at the audience of people and the only thing on my mind were those words, regardless of my feelings.

Now, me when I got back to Oakhurst? I wore out and broke down

It's not the fact I'm an INFJ. It's that I simply put my emotions aside and dealt with them later
 
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