I started out reading up on MBTI out of curiosity about a month ago - i initially tested as an INTJ, but then started having doubts and took close to another dozen tests and read many other descriptives. still consistenly tested as an INTJ, but occasionally got ISTJ as well. it doesn't help that i probably used to be an INFP as a child (an epiphany derived from the Keys2Cognition's suggestion that i may be an INFP or ESTJ, if not an ISTJ). yeah - big leap.
and the problem with enneagrams (which i've started exploring obsessively a couple of weeks back) is that there are too many contradictory descriptions everywhere i turn, thus making things a lot more fuzzy. i do seem to be getting further with this than the MBTI, though: i've pretty much narrowed it down to 5w4, 5w6 or 6w5. i should think that i'm a 6w5, but it doesn't hurt to seek a second opinion, eh? (can't properly do this irl because i've recently moved overseas so i don't exactly have any close friends around atm)
let's get to it. adding in a fair bit of my childhood because i'm only 19 (only so much experience to draw from) and i think it'll be an important factor in enneagram typing:
- i lived within a world of my own as a child, but not to the point of having imaginary friends. i loved playing make believe, though, and every single one of my soft toys had a first name, middle name and last name (yeah, i categorised them into families. don't ask). in contrast, i thought barney was a terribly condescending show but otoh loved winnie the pooh. wasn't a fan of fairy tales either - thought sleeping beauty was all sorts of ridiculous (100 years of sleep whaaa?)
- had trust issues even as a child (was intensified when a 'friend' started bullying me when i was just 7). i had little trouble coping academically, though; i pick things up easily and effortlessly ranked 1st in grades 1-3 even though i didn't even know what the concept of studying was (one of the reasons why i was continuously picked on).
- wasn't the type to speak up in class, but this didn't mean that i didn't have an opinion. i disagreed with many of the things the teachers did or said but never spoke up because i didn't like drawing attn to myself (i'd often mutter to myself or a friend about how flawed a certain instruction/concept was, though).
- i absolutely hated homework in primary school. often didn't complete it either, which got me into a great bit of trouble. i wasn't oblivious to authority, though. i did experience feelings of fear when i didn't finish my homework, but it wasn't enough to get me to want to do it (discipline fail). i still did reasonably well academically though, so i guess they didn't make too big a deal out of it.
- i was pretty damn timid as a child and had a lot of trouble standing up for myself. By the time i reached high school, even the guys didn't much dare to mess with me because they've seen how ferocious i can get when something wasn't done properly (mostly thanks to my perfectionism). i've toned down a little since then haha.
- otoh, i hated being patronised. if there's one thing i remember from when i was a child of 7-8 yrs, it was that i often reminded myself to never treat a child as condescendingly as many other adults do. it wasn't that i thought i knew everything - i just thought it very... elitist? for adults to act more otherworldly than children. i'm now fully aware of how little i've known back then and how little i will always know, but my childhood defiance reminds me to treat every child like an adult today.
- hated drama even as a child. i thought the whole 'i don't friend you but i friend you two hours later' trend was positively idiotic, and when my classmates played the game with me, i just went along with it (oh you don't friend me? that's okay, you'll come running back in a good couple of hours).
- i remember having suicidal thoughts at around ages 8-9. i've often thought about existential issues and i often wondered what the point in living was if we're all going to die anyway. i often felt trapped, suffocated and helpless as a child. i consider myself an agnostic today. as a whole, i had very dark, murky mood swings from ages 7-11 thereabouts and kept a LOT to myself. jeez i was pretty screwed up, now that i look at it. i think the excessive amounts of alone time and pessimistic thoughts were to blame.
- in both my childhood and teenagehood, i was pretty emotionally disconnected. i always thought it was rather lame to cry when watching romantic movies (as you can tell, i wasn't entirely the most pleasant child around :|) err i'm a lot more balanced now, i think - i do tear up when watching quite a few movies nowadays. still not very comfortable with displays of emotion irl.
- was afflicted with the peter pan syndrome since childhood. everyone around me wanted to grow up quickly so that they could drink booze and watch R movies (seriously?), but i've always thought that children had more fun - they got away with more and had no responsibilities. y'know, reflecting on my childhood, it's surprising i turned out relatively 'normal' without any psychiatric help -.- thing is that i didn't come from a broken family - my parents were caring enough and i was close enough (in a bickering manner) to my siblings, so i wonder why i turned out that way *rubs chin*.
- started coming out of my shell at around 14-15 yrs old. was more involved in clubs and the sort. wasn't out of a genuine desire - more a circumstantial thing than something i really worked for. high school was when my perfectionist tendencies fully fledged its wings (had it as a child, but seeing how i didn't involve myself much in school or really anything in general, it didn't have much of a chance to flaunt itself).
- i don't have many close friends. realised that i could generally get along with many people but 95% of the time, progressing beyond the acquaintance threshold revealed things about them that i couldn't stand. hardly have any guy friends because pretty much every guy in my high school was incapable of acting their age. had very few girl friends because too many of them were involved in (and could only talk about) petty drama.
- am a dreamer - always have been, always will be. enjoy wasting time forming conversations with non-existent people (still do this sometimes) and constructing alternate realities. not entirely the most observant person (i'm always the last to notice when mutual friends become a couple - i wouldn't even have noticed the flirting stage).
- i love food, new experiences and to a certain extent, fashion. hate it when people like indie/popular stuff for the sake of. i do genuinely like quite a number of indie things tho. nope, no need to point out how potentially hypocritical this is - i've noticed it myself :|.
- can't stand indecisive people. also feel uncomfortable if i'm consistently deciding everything when out with a couple of friends, i.e. when i get the feeling that they do have an opinion but they don't want to voice it out. i start to think that they'd probably get pissed off if i end up deciding all the time when they actually have sth in mind. you can prob tell that i like it when people just let it out when they have a problem with me. it's better than having them sneak around behind my back or hold in resentments.
- i'm honest with most people, unless i get the impression that they're the types who cannot handle direct criticism.
- am very hard on myself when it comes to things that i really care about. tend to get very idealistic with certain things (politics, human rights yadda) and can get quite frustrated when people are apathetic about such issues and say that there is no hope etc. i can surprise people with a sudden outburst of enthusiasm in certain subjects.
- i have a competitive streak (that wasn't very apparent before puberty), and though i sometimes feel threatened by those more brilliant than i am, such an emotion's usually trumped by a feeling of genuine respect.
- i may appear to have wonderful work ethics, but i'm the best procrastinator i know.
- hate vague instructions. don't mind if they specifically say 'do whatever you want', but if they're looking for something specific but don't give clear directions i get annoyed.
- i can count on one hand the number of friends i truly treasure, and i could go to great lengths for them. which is why it doesn't make sense how i have the tendency to forget their birthdays :|.
- not the kind of person who would give everything away for others, though. i have a tendency to put myself first, although i've been trying to change this aspect of myself heh.
- an introvert (as if you couldn't already tell). i'm getting a lot better at small talking and the like, though - years of study in the marketing field does that to you (fyi - wasn't my first choice. an asian family influence thing. would've rather chosen liberal arts/philosophy/social science. i don't quite mind it, though, apart from the excessive human contact har har - i think it also helps that i can find almost anything fascinating).
huh am i long winded or what. guess i was hoping a clearer picture = a more definite answer.
opinions?
and the problem with enneagrams (which i've started exploring obsessively a couple of weeks back) is that there are too many contradictory descriptions everywhere i turn, thus making things a lot more fuzzy. i do seem to be getting further with this than the MBTI, though: i've pretty much narrowed it down to 5w4, 5w6 or 6w5. i should think that i'm a 6w5, but it doesn't hurt to seek a second opinion, eh? (can't properly do this irl because i've recently moved overseas so i don't exactly have any close friends around atm)
let's get to it. adding in a fair bit of my childhood because i'm only 19 (only so much experience to draw from) and i think it'll be an important factor in enneagram typing:
- i lived within a world of my own as a child, but not to the point of having imaginary friends. i loved playing make believe, though, and every single one of my soft toys had a first name, middle name and last name (yeah, i categorised them into families. don't ask). in contrast, i thought barney was a terribly condescending show but otoh loved winnie the pooh. wasn't a fan of fairy tales either - thought sleeping beauty was all sorts of ridiculous (100 years of sleep whaaa?)
- had trust issues even as a child (was intensified when a 'friend' started bullying me when i was just 7). i had little trouble coping academically, though; i pick things up easily and effortlessly ranked 1st in grades 1-3 even though i didn't even know what the concept of studying was (one of the reasons why i was continuously picked on).
- wasn't the type to speak up in class, but this didn't mean that i didn't have an opinion. i disagreed with many of the things the teachers did or said but never spoke up because i didn't like drawing attn to myself (i'd often mutter to myself or a friend about how flawed a certain instruction/concept was, though).
- i absolutely hated homework in primary school. often didn't complete it either, which got me into a great bit of trouble. i wasn't oblivious to authority, though. i did experience feelings of fear when i didn't finish my homework, but it wasn't enough to get me to want to do it (discipline fail). i still did reasonably well academically though, so i guess they didn't make too big a deal out of it.
- i was pretty damn timid as a child and had a lot of trouble standing up for myself. By the time i reached high school, even the guys didn't much dare to mess with me because they've seen how ferocious i can get when something wasn't done properly (mostly thanks to my perfectionism). i've toned down a little since then haha.
- otoh, i hated being patronised. if there's one thing i remember from when i was a child of 7-8 yrs, it was that i often reminded myself to never treat a child as condescendingly as many other adults do. it wasn't that i thought i knew everything - i just thought it very... elitist? for adults to act more otherworldly than children. i'm now fully aware of how little i've known back then and how little i will always know, but my childhood defiance reminds me to treat every child like an adult today.
- hated drama even as a child. i thought the whole 'i don't friend you but i friend you two hours later' trend was positively idiotic, and when my classmates played the game with me, i just went along with it (oh you don't friend me? that's okay, you'll come running back in a good couple of hours).
- i remember having suicidal thoughts at around ages 8-9. i've often thought about existential issues and i often wondered what the point in living was if we're all going to die anyway. i often felt trapped, suffocated and helpless as a child. i consider myself an agnostic today. as a whole, i had very dark, murky mood swings from ages 7-11 thereabouts and kept a LOT to myself. jeez i was pretty screwed up, now that i look at it. i think the excessive amounts of alone time and pessimistic thoughts were to blame.
- in both my childhood and teenagehood, i was pretty emotionally disconnected. i always thought it was rather lame to cry when watching romantic movies (as you can tell, i wasn't entirely the most pleasant child around :|) err i'm a lot more balanced now, i think - i do tear up when watching quite a few movies nowadays. still not very comfortable with displays of emotion irl.
- was afflicted with the peter pan syndrome since childhood. everyone around me wanted to grow up quickly so that they could drink booze and watch R movies (seriously?), but i've always thought that children had more fun - they got away with more and had no responsibilities. y'know, reflecting on my childhood, it's surprising i turned out relatively 'normal' without any psychiatric help -.- thing is that i didn't come from a broken family - my parents were caring enough and i was close enough (in a bickering manner) to my siblings, so i wonder why i turned out that way *rubs chin*.
- started coming out of my shell at around 14-15 yrs old. was more involved in clubs and the sort. wasn't out of a genuine desire - more a circumstantial thing than something i really worked for. high school was when my perfectionist tendencies fully fledged its wings (had it as a child, but seeing how i didn't involve myself much in school or really anything in general, it didn't have much of a chance to flaunt itself).
- i don't have many close friends. realised that i could generally get along with many people but 95% of the time, progressing beyond the acquaintance threshold revealed things about them that i couldn't stand. hardly have any guy friends because pretty much every guy in my high school was incapable of acting their age. had very few girl friends because too many of them were involved in (and could only talk about) petty drama.
- am a dreamer - always have been, always will be. enjoy wasting time forming conversations with non-existent people (still do this sometimes) and constructing alternate realities. not entirely the most observant person (i'm always the last to notice when mutual friends become a couple - i wouldn't even have noticed the flirting stage).
- i love food, new experiences and to a certain extent, fashion. hate it when people like indie/popular stuff for the sake of. i do genuinely like quite a number of indie things tho. nope, no need to point out how potentially hypocritical this is - i've noticed it myself :|.
- can't stand indecisive people. also feel uncomfortable if i'm consistently deciding everything when out with a couple of friends, i.e. when i get the feeling that they do have an opinion but they don't want to voice it out. i start to think that they'd probably get pissed off if i end up deciding all the time when they actually have sth in mind. you can prob tell that i like it when people just let it out when they have a problem with me. it's better than having them sneak around behind my back or hold in resentments.
- i'm honest with most people, unless i get the impression that they're the types who cannot handle direct criticism.
- am very hard on myself when it comes to things that i really care about. tend to get very idealistic with certain things (politics, human rights yadda) and can get quite frustrated when people are apathetic about such issues and say that there is no hope etc. i can surprise people with a sudden outburst of enthusiasm in certain subjects.
- i have a competitive streak (that wasn't very apparent before puberty), and though i sometimes feel threatened by those more brilliant than i am, such an emotion's usually trumped by a feeling of genuine respect.
- i may appear to have wonderful work ethics, but i'm the best procrastinator i know.
- hate vague instructions. don't mind if they specifically say 'do whatever you want', but if they're looking for something specific but don't give clear directions i get annoyed.
- i can count on one hand the number of friends i truly treasure, and i could go to great lengths for them. which is why it doesn't make sense how i have the tendency to forget their birthdays :|.
- not the kind of person who would give everything away for others, though. i have a tendency to put myself first, although i've been trying to change this aspect of myself heh.
- an introvert (as if you couldn't already tell). i'm getting a lot better at small talking and the like, though - years of study in the marketing field does that to you (fyi - wasn't my first choice. an asian family influence thing. would've rather chosen liberal arts/philosophy/social science. i don't quite mind it, though, apart from the excessive human contact har har - i think it also helps that i can find almost anything fascinating).
huh am i long winded or what. guess i was hoping a clearer picture = a more definite answer.
opinions?