Yeah, I'm not into touch that much outside of the bedroom either. Maybe that is why you and I liked our INTJs so much?Words of affirmation and quality time, totally. And I need those things with the same amount of enthusiasm that they would have if I were giving them to another person... that is to say, A LOT of enthusiasm. I dislike being touched, which is weird for an ENFP. Wish it were different.
Oooh, gifts are nice, too! Although I'm learning to wean myself off of materialistic things, little by little. After having been in a financially stressful relationship with my INTJ (the stress was my fault for being irresponsible, and contributed heavily to our dissolution)... I would rather be more financially secure and stable, and therefore be able to maintain a relationship, than to have gifts and material stuff and lose my relationship because of it.Yeah, I'm not into touch that much outside of the bedroom either. Maybe that is why you and I liked our INTJs so much?
Anyway, I tend to like quality time and gifts. Yay gifts! And I'm always down for sex.roud:
For me, it's not about body image. It's about freedom. I don't like feeling like someone is suffocating me.Oooh, gifts are nice, too! Although I'm learning to wean myself off of materialistic things, little by little. After having been in a financially stressful relationship with my INTJ (the stress was my fault for being irresponsible, and contributed heavily to our dissolution)... I would rather be more financially secure and stable, and therefore be able to maintain a relationship, than to have gifts and material stuff and lose my relationship because of it.
I'm fine with touch when it's someone with whom I am intimately comfortable... which is, almost no one. My ex's family would always go in for a hug, and I would always back up and try to get them to give me a high-five instead. I think, for me, it's a body-image issue thing and a self-consciousness issue. When I am safe and can let my guard down, touch is so comforting.
My experience is that, and I'm not suggesting you are me, is that to believe you are worse than you are is marginally more useful than to believe in your own goodness. Ideas of righteousness puts one hell of a slant on your perception, but tears can clear your eyes. The human spirit does not tend to darkness, it gets sick of it, which is why the depressed know there is something "wrong". If you were truely as bad as you thought, then embrace it for a moment, call its bluff. Be overinflated, proclaim your greatness as loudly as you can, reveal your hubris! Why should you care? You are worse than anyone alive, a scumbag, getting ideas above your abilities, you're just a stupid girl who no one respects, the centre point of all evil. So be stupid. Shout out the stupidity and roll in it, squeeze it between your toes, rub it over your face. And once the fear and pain subsides, take another look at what you see. I want to know how good you are. And I won't settle for just average.I admire you, Weka--I have no internal affirmation mechanism of any kind. Or if I do, it atrophied long ago. I worry that everything I think of myself is overinflated and incorrect, so I end up swinging all the way to the other end and assuming that I'm far, far worse than I'd imagined.
I rely on outside affirmation to straighten me out. Which is a bad idea, I'm betting. But everything I've tried to build some internal honest evaluation--positive and negative--hasn't worked yet. It's just internal flailing. Any advice would be deeply appreciated.
Plain.My experience is that, and I'm not suggesting you are me, is that to believe you are worse than you are is marginally more useful than to believe in your own goodness. Ideas of righteousness puts one hell of a slant on your perception, but tears can clear your eyes. The human spirit does not tend to darkness, it gets sick of it, which is why the depressed know there is something "wrong". If you were truely as bad as you thought, then embrace it for a moment, call its bluff. Be overinflated, proclaim your greatness as loudly as you can, reveal your hubris! Why should you care? You are worse than anyone alive, a scumbag, getting ideas above your abilities, you're just a stupid girl who no one respects, the centre point of all evil. So be stupid. Shout out the stupidity and roll in it, squeeze it between your toes, rub it over your face. And once the fear and pain subsides, take another look at what you see. I want to know how good you are. And I won't settle for just average.
For me, it's not about body image. It's about freedom. I don't like feeling like someone is suffocating me.
mmmm Identifying with you nowEnvironment has a lot to do with it for me. I grew up around some unpleasant (probably sad) people and the lesson I learned early was trust no one, feel nothing. So I repressed all of that affirmation stuff, just shut down the external sources as irrelevent. There was always a hook in praise or demonstrations of affection - $2 of praise for $500 of expected credit. The only person left to trust to be honest with me was me, until I met my wife. Then it was a struggle to open up and accept compliments etc. I had to force myself to do simple things. In my mind, if anyone figured out what I was doing I would have been attacked for it. But after a while I developed a to-hell-with-them attitude and it's been easier since then.