MBTI Confession.

Hi,

I'm an MBTI enthusiast and MBTI has become a big problem of my life.

I know MBTI for a year. At first it was ok, I found MBTI and I was eager to find about my personality type and all that. I find self-knowledge very important and I was eager to find more about myself and other people. Everything sounded cool. I was typed as an INTJ in the first test I've made, then I used to type as INTP more frequently, I didn't remembered the "J" part in the first test I took because the description was on another page so I closed that page, tried to remember the letters and then remembered I typed as an INTJ, but then as I mentioned I found out in other tests I would type as an INTP, more fequently actually.

Given the fact that at that moment my knowledge of MBTI was limited I took the J vs P as 'Orderly vs Open-Minded' and given the fact that I'm not orderly nor hardworking e.t.c I said "Well, I must be an INTP then, most tests say that too". Then I red the description, I could relate, I was actually very proud of the description, it gave me confidence and a sense of self. Everything was cool.

But then I got deeper into MBTI, the preferences made sense and were easy to explain. The cognitive functions were not. Like "What the hell". They didn't make sense, saying that we use only 4 of those 8 functions, and since Fe is "Connecting with other people" while Fi "Stainding true to your own values" does that mean the type does one and doesn't do the other one ? No this can't be right, I see people doing both, all the time. Or is it just my assumtpion ? or is it not ? This is a long-time theory, these guys must know their stuff, but it's so wrong. It's not like preference, here you don't prefer one over the other, you either do one or the other but it doesn't make sense.

And the way they are explained. All the descriptions of Thinking, Feeling, Sensing and Intuition were very easy to grasp and very similar on all internet sites, I can easily define name with one word as: Logic, Importance, Concrete and Abstract. But the cognitive functions weren't just hard to grasp, because everybody would say only what the functions DO, not what the functions ARE, 'Introverted Thinking is when you analyse a system', cool but what IS introverted thinking ? because I don't analyse a system 60% of the time I'm awake, sometimes I eat, right now I'm writing this post, I must be doing something with Ti right now if I have Ti, but definetly not analyzing a system, 'what is analyzing anyway ?', what are you actually looking for when you 'analyze' ? I ask this so I can know when I actually do analyze because I actually look for what I'm looking for.

At first I had a false understanding of the cognitive functions. I thought I knew what they are but as it turned out later I acutally had no idea what they are. 5 or 4 months back, I started to look again into MBTI, from the I'm an INTP final point I made, I started to type a lot more fequently as an INTJ. I noticed my behaviour has changed so I might really fit the INTJ and not the INTP this time, I noticed my behaviour always changes, I noticed everybody's behaviour always changes little by little, it's all about awareness, what you focus on you'll be drawn towards. And then I looked at INTJ profile and I was "Yeah, this makes sense" , but I also looked at the INTP profile and I was like "Yeah, this makes sense", and the INFJ profile made sense for me. The descriptions from The Personality Page

But then I looked into the cognitive functions, and when I tried to put Ti vs Te and Ni vs Ne to find out what my cognitive functions are, I found out I KNOW NOTHING, and my name isn't John Snow. All I knew was Ti is inductive, Te is deductive, Ni is deep, Ne is wide and so on. They're all metaphors. You can't explain something abstract with something abstract to make sense, people will think "I get it" but they don't really get it, they just agree to it. You need to explain something abstract with something concrete, something specific for it to actually make sense. Explaining something abstract without any reference to something concrete is like saying: "Be more or less specific", I'm sure you understood what I'm trying to say, if you didn't that's ok you can just say "Ohh, that makes sense, I just be more or less speicifc" without actually knowinw what I'm talking about, you don't even have to accept it, it happens unconsciously since this theory is abstract and you agree that things are supposed to be abstract, but their explainations shouldn't, or at least they should at least make theoretical sense and shouldn't be contradictory by case.

Anyway, long story-stort. The functions are complicated. Many people on this forum claim to know the functions, only to answer with "I don't know" when I ask them something about the functions, even people with MBTI blogs don't seem to completly grasp the functions. There's not much theory into the preferences alone, but there's a lot of inconsitencies in people's minds about the cognitive functions.

There's the preferences that make sense, what you naturally like not what you're necesarrly good at. Then there's the cognitive functions that I've described above. Then there's the stereotypes that comes from various descriptions and people's opinions. Not all descriptions say the same but some. For example, the INTX is supposed to dismiss Feelings at all, I prefer to be rational in my decision making but of course I have and use feelings in it, every human on the planet does. I like the "I have no feelings" fake brag of the INTX on the forum, so superficial. INTJs are supposed to be hardworking and orderly, naturally, I'm not, nor are the INTPs. INTPs aren't suppoed to be decisive and to know what they wan't, naturally; they just go with the flow, I don't go with the flow, nor do the INTJs.

I'm also goofy, it a big part of who I am, I don't really define myself by that but what I mean by this is that people see me as being goofy, and I am. But also philosophical at the same time, very philosophical, I don't show the philosophical part everyone but when I do people are always suprised of how much I comprehend, my philosophy isn't just vague words in the air, it actually looks to reach a solution, a conclusion. And I'm bad with deadlines. I just described a 1/2 INTP + 1/2 INTJ stereotype in myself, that can't either 100% INTP or 100% INTJ because that would make the other 50% invalid. And this is just a little part of myself, and I'm not the only one I bet. And this was only using stereotypes, if I've also used the cognitive functions everything would be more than chaos.

And I bet I'm not the only one being confrunted with these stereotypes. THE PROBLEM is that a lot of this can also be the ressult of life experience, one could know what he wants and be orderly due to life, so where the stereotypes come in this ? I like both being orderly and knowing what I want but I don't like cleaing and stuff, so I'm not orderly, not at all, I'm also a great procrastinator most of the time although I know I have to do the thing I want to do, INTPs are famous for procrastination skills often being refered as "The Lazy Rational". I'm exluding bygots stereotypes such as: INTJs are evil assholes, INTPs stink and so on but focusion on the stereotypes with a solid structure, the J - P dichotomy, the stereotypes which according to the preferences make sense.

Now I don't even know what I am anymore. INTJ, INTP, INFJ is out due preferences, it became clear to me after a while and evaluation from friends that I use Thinking over Feeling. Some people on the internet even said ISTJ, well I can't be an S, not because I don't want to but simply because I have problems noticing the enviroment, being described as being "With the head in the coulds" and "Unconventional" by others, but there's always the Si argument whose description varries from people to people. So what should I believe in ?

I don't know what type I am anymore, and I find this very frustrating. It makes sense, I spent a whole load of time into MBTI and not knowing even the supposedly basic thing as your type would be like everything *poof* and gone in an instant, everything I invested in. This is probably the must frustrating thing, the fact that I don't understand a theory, this theory, and since this theory was supped to help not confuse people, this isn't really a helpful sitation for me to be in. Kinda useless situation, not helpful for myself.

Here's a fact, if everybody knows the functions so well. Then why in every post on "What's my type" when people answer 20 questions telling pretty much about themselves (no, not only me but pretty much everybody who won't it the box) they get types as 4 different types by 5 different people ? I remember being typed as an ENFP once, I loled.

Any thoughts ?