Hey
@worthy , let me give you my experience. I've just been door-slammed by an INFJ colleague whom I was getting close with for this reason. It took me a couple hours to push through this emotionally and thank God i was alone at work, but it also gave me a lot of reflection. The problem with INTJ's (and T in general) is that we should understand that expressing your feelings is a way of going through a situation, trying to process it. The same as we INTJ's process our thoughts verbally. And as
@Wyote said, your feelings are surprisingly private and expressing them to whom you trust is something very important to you.
I did not get to understand this in time...Instead I tried to solve the issues that were causing her emotional pain, as if it they were a project, so she would't be hurt anymore. This in return put her in more emotional stress because I made it a problem instead of trying to understand what she was going through, let her process it, hell even making the situation more bearable by joking. Eventually i tried to push her away so she would not be emotionally hurt anymore through my actions...and I though it was the most fair. And I was so so wrong...
This was the first time I ever felt the door slam...and it's cold and grieving. But after my reflection I understood where it went wrong and why she did it, so in a sense it is also fair. I cannot blame her as this one is my fault alone and an important lesson to learn from it. Had to steam this off for a second. And hopefully we can mend our relationship just a bit to make the situation somewhat comfortable...but knowing the door slam it'll be very hard...
This is something T's in general need to understand, that these feelings are important and should be respected instead of being waved off. Now from my experience with INFJ's now and in the past is that you tend to ooze your emotions to those that you trust, it's a lot of raw emotion (which I find beautiful) but I do understand that for heavy T's this will be overwhelming, it's a lot of emotion at once and T's do not have the quick emotional baggage to quickly and properly react upon it. I'd say try make them understand that it's part of how you process emotions (assuming they know what MBTI typology and the types are) and to just take a bit of time to hear you out first and listen. You do well to express your feelings to other F friends, they will understand it easier. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
Anyway, I got some more reflection/sobbing to do and going to train a bit...best way to steam of my emotional energy. Hope this helps you a bit.
That sounds like a bit of an ordeal,
@dragulagu, and a hurtful situation which isn't really anyone's fault. I hope you can feel better soon and resolve this.
I've got to say, though, that this isn't really my experience. When people confide in me I just listen and offer support, and occasionally articulate their feelings in words. When I was a teacher, students (of course), but especially colleagues, would spill their guts to me in long, emotional conversations, and afterwards they would feel cleansed and supported and very often stronger/happier. If they wanted/asked for a plan of action,
only then would I give it to them, and even help them execute it if they needed the practical support or a hand-hold.
Supporting people like this must be a gentle process, whereby you first
listen and
understand them. If you can even get to the 'planning/action' stage of such a process in one conversation,
it will come at the end. You might be able to feel this moment, but the outward signs will be a certain 'exhaustion' with crying/emoting/expressing - they need to fully complete their 'venting', 'shedding' or 'expressing'... and then they'll start taking deep breaths and saying words which serve as markers of the approaching shift in mindset, such as 'right', 'ok'. If you sense this caesura, and you feel that they would like a plan of action, only then do you suggest it to them. Sometimes they want someone in control, in which case you say something like 'right, this is what we're going to do'; other times you'll detect that they need to be in control of the resolution and just want to discuss ideas, or they might just want to run
their idea by you, &c. &c. everyone's different. The point is that I cannot tell you a time when I've been in this situation where an emotional 'cleansing' phase wasn't first necessary before the person even wants to consider practical next steps.
Vent - breathe - solve.
Now what
I find difficult is when the person
can't or
won't go through this 'venting'; where they want to suppress, avoid, or run from any emotional expression of their problem. They'll tell you the issue, but might want to be
distracted because it's too painful - this takes much more mental reserve on my part because I can't easily switch between emotional states. I can
do it, but it's hard as fuck, and I'll often just be dwelling on their issue while trying my best to distract them. I think maybe Ne-types are better at this kind of fun/distracting support.
