If the MBTI is valid and INFP's have similar thought processes and deal with similar issues of self-torment and sadness, can't we all just put our minds together and think of a solution to all this ?
Yes, I would also like that. I was reading another thread here - INFP's mirror of emotions - and I think a lot of the self-torment and sadness has got to do with that aspect of us. I think it was Starflower who wrote:
"I can feel another's emotions as my own, also. With my special one, I can feel what she's feeling (emotionally, not physically), even at a distance, when she doesn't tell me. But with anyone else, I can usually feel what they're feeling just by being in the same room. I think this is why crowds overwhelm me. I don't know how to turn this off without shutting my whole self off.
Along the same line, I really can't draw the line between what she is feeling and what I am feeling. I don't know where I stop and she starts. That sounds weird, but I don't know any other way to put it. Unless she tells me, I will wonder why I'm so sad or happy for no reason. The happy, I just enjoy. The sad can really get me down, though."
I have realised that I have been too empathetic before. It was like I was appreciated the most for being unselfish and being empathetic. As a child a had a strong identity but in my teens I sort of lost myself more and more. I had difficulties identifying with someone or something that reminded me of or was like me. I withdrew more and more and I think I compensated by being more and more empathetic. So with both friends and my family I shut down my own feelings more and more and it has been hard work trying to find myself again. This gets me into this place of being sad, unworthy and I torment myself.
I think we INFP's need to learn to experience and acknowledge our own feelings first, and not block them out, before we empathize with someone else otherwise we loose ourselves. We have to set boundaries for ourselves and others. That is not easy and it has taken me years to realize this. I can also get very angry for not have gotten the help to establish these healhty boundaries between myself and other people. I have been too masochistic... And our culture and society give you the image of girls being "good" by being unselfish and by validating others... My God it´s like everyone telling you to be a doormat and they are eager to wipe their feet on you...
Sorry, these thoughts have been going round in my head for a few days and I feel rather cynical at the moment. I have been sad and self-critical and when I notice it I beat myself up about it, wanting to snap out of it and it gets worse...
I want to be a healthy INFP feeling at peace with myself. I don´t want to mistrust people and feel that I have to protect and guard myself. But that is what I do nowadays. It has probably made me more sane, but now I can more clearly see what people is really like and it scares me sometimes... So many people don´t have healthy boundaries and I am afraid too fall back into that role of being like a therapist...
Like with depression I think the key word is getting in touch with your own anger... You have to be able to feel angry about something some time. In my family it has not been emotionally okey to show that you disagree and want to emancipate yourself... My parents have been far too clingy and I don´t like that and now I can experience that feeling of anger and physical experience of awkwardness when they try to be more close to me than I want them to be. Now I am more free to feel what I feel. But it has at the same time made me more scared of getting close to others and open up to them...but I am better at it when I finally do it. Well anyway, I think this is the only way to go and I will find someone to love.