INFJs and the guilt train when disappointing others?

EveJ said:

Hi everyone,



I had one of those "Aha" moments today about myself/my life and I wanted to know if you can relate to this as an INFJ? 


I always feel extremely guilty and sometimes ashamed when I cannot meet other peoples expectations (even unspoken ones). 
Even if I say I’m sorry and the other person assures me that they understand and that it’s ok, it never helps me to feel less shi##y about it.
That’s because I know that internally their expectation is still there and that they’re consciously or unconsciously still disappointed in me or mad at me. Whereby "disappointed" is even worse ...

I wanted to ask if other INFJs experience this too because I had kind of a revelation after watching a video on YT by Tom Davidson called „INFJ & Toxic Shame“. It made me realize that the situation I experienced today is a recurring thing but I never fully realized it before.


----
 Optional background story:


I’m currently healing from depression and anxiety, so it’s probably even more acute for me then usual. Because of that I had to cancel an event where me and a friend should give a presentation about a project we did together. I already canceled a while ago and she wanted to do the presentation alone today but her train got delayed so much that she didn’t make it in time. So she had a lot of stress (for which I also feel guilty) and needed to ask another friend to fill in last minute.

Even though she assured me that she understands my situation, I always feel the unspoken „you’re not doing your part“ in every sentence she says or writes. I even thought about forcing myself to the event just so she's not so disappointed, but I finally reached a point where I'm not able to act against my own needs anymore.

While contemplating why I always make such an internal fuss about not meeting others expectations I stumbled upon the video. Anxiety/Depression pretty much forced me to stop now and to put my needs first - which is very hard sometimes and often results in feeling guilty because I cannot function how everyone wants me to. But I realized that this situation is pretty much representative for all my life and the reason why I ignore(d) my own wishes all the time so everyone else is happy.



Phew! … That was a long one…


But I think the guilt train may be a thing more INFJs? 
What’s your experience with it?

Click to expand...

OK, thanks for re-posting! Guilt and depression. Something I have "coped" with all my life. I think the guilt arises from feeling culpable or deficient in something. And that will eventually lead to anger, resignation, and depression. So as for meeting others expectations. I grew up an NF in an S family. Black sheep, as I mentioned on another thread. It was an extremely achievement oriented family. I had an older brother was brilliant, an ES, and I was in the shadows. So I achieved also, raised my school grades, went on into a field that I thought would please my parents, got an advanced degree. My life was directed by what I thought would please others. Then I got married to a college sweetie, We dated for 4 years, and then all my friends were getting married, and everyone was asking "Michael, when are you all getting married". So we had a large wedding, great, everyone got drunk, everyone was happy. The marriage lasted 20 months when I scared the crap out of her with talk of having kids.

So later in life ( i been around a while) I got the notion that since my background was in research, I would do something that the family would like and appreciate. I spent 15 years researching my family's genealogy, and I was going to present them with a nice book of family history. Well, not one of them could have cared less. It was pretty devastating to me.

I could go on and on about this. So I won't bore you with more. But the bottom line is, this INFJ expected some kind of feedback, some kind of pat on the back, and rarely did it happen. Conversely, I had high expectations to friends and family. I expected for them to reach out to me (you know, like keep in touch every once and a while) as much as I would reach out to them. You see, I always attended the family functions when called on.

So now, I have just withdrawn into an inner fantasy world where I make believe that I'm loved, popular, smart, productive and all the rest. I've pretty much cut off all relationships with the past, since it's the only way I can deal with it. I'm not totally unhappy with this setup, but it is an isolated existence.

I hope this can help you with some insight...