How to deal with Family?

[RedMarquee]

Well there I have it. I dug and dug into this system and now I understand why I'm so distant with my family. The truth really can make you sad sometimes. As an ILE I explore and express myself with and a general lets have fun vibe. I'm always stuck in possibilities and systems. Yet every single one of my family members, apart from my Step mother and to some extent, my father (but I don't live with them) wants noting to do with these functions. Everyone at home is completely out of sync with me. My mom is an EII, my step father a SEE, and my step brother is actually an ESI.

Essentially every single member of my family falls into this really horrible spot where no matter what I try, I can't meaningfully connect with any of them. Everyone is pretty much oblivious, or repelled by . What ends up happening is I try and be myself, and express myself as I normally do, I pull out facts and observations and systems and try to talk about things they care about, but in the end I get either ignored, shut down, or they completely change topic to their lead function. And in my mother and step brother's case, I get a hit right in the Vulnerable function, 4x super effective. Instant jarring annoyance and repulsion.

Everyone used to wonder why I'd just hide in my room all day and not interact with them, even I did. But now I realize, I did it subconsciously because I love them and interacting pushes us further apart and into stress, and I don't want that... It couldn't be true so I spent an entire day with my mom, just trying to have fun and reconnect with her. What did I get? One word answers, total ignoring, or segways straight into . So in addition to getting non stop annoyance, I have the overarching theme of not being appreciated and being utterly ignored. You know, that little thing that I not so secretly really want? That ?

So I realized today how really unhealthy my family is for me. What do you do when this is an ongoing theme for your entire life, you finally realize it but it's outside of everyone's very soul to reconcile it? Where even trying to explain the dynamics falls on deaf ears because you fundamentally can't connect? Why is it that the only people I'm forced to be around and expected to love can't comprehend me and vice versa, while all of my friends who I get to chose to bring into my life are amazing and awesome and can listen?

What's my next move?

I hate when I figure out systems that are limiting me...

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

You're going about it the wrong way. Your Fi polr is showing here.

I've had similar problems. I thought I could connect to people talking about how much I liked Buffy, Gay Porn , or whatever my own narcissistic interests were. Guess what? That's not how you connect with anybody. I know it feels like this little boy part of you wants somebody else to delve deep into those things with you, but that's a fantasy. You want your ego stroked, it's okay we all do. But we always end up getting what we need, not what we want.

Connection happens when both of you can relate to something that has nothing to do with *both* of your egos. The awkwardness is happening to them as much as it's happening to you. So you live your life more and just try the best you can. And if both of you fall down on a swingset , you both know what that's like. It's something physical, outside of yourself. Your mental ideals and stuff are brilliant, I'm sure. But nobody cares. Nobody can care. It's so introverted, so self-involved. So they connect to you on stuff you feel is boring/one-word. Look at how empathetic dirt is. Nobody really appreciates it, it's dirt, but it holds up the entire world.

Also yeah, I believe in found families. Not blood families. I think most people feel that way about their family, idk. But it's kinda assholeish to publically announce that on a forum, what if they read that? But you do have Fi polr. lol I have an entp friend and he's the same way as you. When he gets mad he gets all passive aggressive and acts like a narcissistic little prince. I want to set him straight, then he tries to argue with me. He has all these defense mechanisms in his mind. It's annoying, but that's what 'being yourself' always gets anybody. tbh I think you just need to be fucked. Damn infantiles.

((Seriously though you're just being too hard on yourself and others because it's really the same thing you know. Let Fi's inner healing light heal you. It's nothing special. Just the clear headed feeling of love.))

[IBTL]

It seems like you're in a pretty difficult situation at home, so let's see what intertype relationships you are in exactly.

EII mother is your supervisor, and that's probably not so bad considering that she's your parent and not the other way around. With enough distance between the two of you, it should work well enough.
SEE stepdad is your super-ego, so that's going to be difficult if you can't make yourself vulnerable by openly disclosing your intentions and by not showing your confident side while trying to defend yourself.
ESI step brother is your conflict, so you'll probably need to interact superficially and keep some distance in order to keep it peaceful between the both of you.

What I find to be interesting is that your mother supervises you while your stepdad supervises her. The best relationship out of all of the people involved is between your stepdad and your step brother, which is going to be a mirror relationship. An ILI or LIE would have been the best scenario for your stepdad and step brother in order to complement their mirror relationship with a corresponding activity and dual partner, but life doesn't always work out that way.

So what can you do? Well... first, you can verify that all of these people are in fact the types that you indicated. I think that's the most important starting point! Then, you can either have a relationship with each person individually as it plays out in intertype relations to minimize bad situations and harm or you can try to adjust to meet their needs in order to gain that you so "secretly" desire. (I'm sure there are other options, but I'll let you think of them on your own or wait for other users to provide their input instead of writing off into oblivion!)

[RedMarquee]

@truck: Yeah I said in my post that I tried to talk about things they are interested in not my personal interests. I guess it could be seen as assholish to want to connect better with my family. But as you say it's awkward and difficult on both sides and has been for the past 20 years, I figure they want the same thing as I do though. My mom just wants to connect with me like when I was younger, but it's extremely grating on me that I can't even have a discussion. My step father wants me to stop being me and be like him instead and my step brother wants nothing to do with me. It's ridiculous that I can walk up to someone on the street, say hello and connect with them better than anyone in my family. I really see this going down the road of only seeing them on expected occasions like holiday dinners. If that happens it happens, but I really want to prevent it or try and rebuild it.

[Esaman]

Connection happens when both of you can relate to something that has nothing to do with *both* of your egos.

That is patently wrong unless you use some irrelevantly tight definition of ego as egotism.

The awkwardness is happening to them as much as it's happening to you. So you live your life more and just try the best you can. And if both of you fall down on a swingset , you both know what that's like. It's something physical, outside of yourself.

You are feeding yourself Se..
Rallies to taste a swingset hitting your face are not that motivating outside of Beta.

@RedMarquee
Now that you know don't dwell on it. Accept the relationships as difficult and "to be managed". With correctly adjusted expectations you will be better able to appreciate the successes and goodwill that are there.

[Skepsis]

I have gone through a similar experience as you RM. When I was younger, I was much closer to my siblings, but couldn't relate to my mom, who was kind of smothering in a lot of ways and babied all of us, and my step dad, who had a drinking problem and was a very aggressive and intimidating person. I mostly kept to myself, locked the door to my room so I could have some space to myself. I would listen music, draw/paint, hang out with my friends, do my homework in my room. When I wasn't in my room I was outside, away from the family drama. I just couldn't stand my parents for many years.

Now that I'm much older, I've tried numerous times to reconnect with them, but I can't really do it. I love them, but we don't share many interests. I would like it if we could just go and do some things together, but they just like to sit in front of the TV all day and its frustrating. I'm the only one in my household to have finished college and I think going to college changes you in a way that is hard to describe, which further makes it difficult to relate. No matter how hard I try, nothing seemed to improve, so I just learned to let them go and I just do my own thing now that I have my own family to look after.