Suicidal Tendencies

[Flat Footed Frog]

I have a few friends that i am sure are the same type. They are such different people individually but show the same pattern of behaviour when things go wrong (and it doesnt even have to be majorly wrong!).

Basically it starts out like this...they get a boyfriend, everything in their life is happy and wonderful. They are way over the top with how they imagine this relationship to be, idealising it and holding it as the biggest romance of the last century. (how could anyone be in love as strongly and passionately as them? is how they see it in their heads.) But the thing is everyone can see their relationship is nothing like that. And it can happen so fast, with almost anyone when its obvious they dont actually click and the relationship is one-sided and all focused on how they feel about it. They dive full course into relationships in a sexual way and tell EVERYONE in detail about it. They claim their boyfriends like territory and tell everyone about it to show others that this man is 'theirs' and how much he loves them etc. The guy soon realises hes been claimed but sticks around a little longer for the sex...which they soon realisecomes with a high cost (non-stop texts, jealous accusations to the point of stalking their boyfriend, clingy behaviour etc).

Then the relationship starts to go sour, they cling to their boyfriend no matter what he does and start to self harm as a tool to try keep him around. They also start coming up with stories about being raped, becoming pregnant or going to hospital etc for various reasons. They starve themselves saying maybe he'll love me if im skinnier or realise how much i miss him and need him. In the end they start acting like those psycho ex-girlfriends you see on movies!!

I believe they are extraverted by just how much they NEED people around them and cry for attention with this behaviour. Does anyone have any idea what type people like this could be?

[EyeSeeCold]

I just wanted a pepsi.

[Creepy-male]

This sounds like a personality disorder, which is why it seems to be a type.

EDIT

IOW it is a type, just not a socionics type; it's a type of mental illness.

[Creepy-bg]

I thought that this thread was going to be about the band...

[Exodus]

This sounds like a personality disorder, which is why it seems to be a type.

EDIT

IOW it is a type, just not a socionics type; it's a type of mental illness.

Namely borderline disorder...

Borderline personality disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Creepy-male]

I was thinking that, but histrionic personality disorder also sprang to mind. Anyway, I'm not a qualified psychiatrist, so I was refraining from brandishing diagnoses about.

[silverchris9]

I was thinking that, but histrionic personality disorder also sprang to mind. Anyway, I'm not a qualified psychiatrist, so I was refraining from brandishing diagnoses about.

I think qualified psychiatrists should refrain from brandishing diagnoses about.

[Aleksei]

I think they're mentally disturbed IEIs. And in serious need of professional help.

[Flat Footed Frog]

yes, i thought it would be more likely a personality disorder but figured some types are more prone on the whole to tendencies of some of these disorders and because these people have so many similarities showing the same patterns it might be linked to a type. They seem to extraverted to be IEI's i was wondering if it were SEE's or SLE's. does anyone else have people showing similar patterns that they are definite on the typing for?

and lol never heard of the band suicidal tendencies.

[KeroZen]

I think they're mentally disturbed IEIs. And in serious need of professional help.

Holy crap you never miss an occasion to attack any particular type!

I think they're mentally disturbed regardless of their type. Nuance.

[Aleksei]

Holy crap you never miss an occasion to attack any particular type!

I didn't say IEIs are mentally disturbed by definition...

@Flatfoot- IEIs are actually fairly extroverted for introvert types -- particularly Fe subtypes.

[Creepy-male]

Basically it starts out like this...they get a boyfriend, everything in their life is happy and wonderful.

Alright...

They are way over the top with how they imagine this relationship to be, idealising it and holding it as the biggest romance of the last century. (how could anyone be in love as strongly and passionately as them? is how they see it in their heads.)

Yea well that's typical who doesn't want to over-idealize something, its nice, as long as you realize reality deals you the cards and not your imagination.

But the thing is everyone can see their relationship is nothing like that.

Yea once again reality, the problem is in distinguishing between fantasy and reality and not the fantasy.

People have the right to dream, only cynical 50 year old men that smoke while on oxygen tell people they don't, usually it involves something like "You want to have a perfect romance, well all I wanted was to walk the rest of my life, but after I got back from nam, I can't even do that"

And it can happen so fast, with almost anyone when its obvious they dont actually click and the relationship is one-sided and all focused on how they feel about it.

Welcome to the real world of relationships, men do that stuff to I'm sure, idealized romance is a nice idea, but in reality life is mostly a clusterfuck of people being assholes to each other.

They dive full course into relationships in a sexual way and tell EVERYONE in detail about it.

Lol where are these people.... god damn, no one ever has anything this interesting to tell me.

They claim their boyfriends like territory and tell everyone about it to show others that this man is 'theirs' and how much he loves them etc.

Yea the whole boy-toy thing.... lol, that's the male counterpart to men calling women whores.

The guy soon realises hes been claimed but sticks around a little longer for the sex...

Exactly, that's what any guy would do... I don't mean to sound cynical but I think men are attracted into relationships by sex... ideally one would hope there would be more to it, but the driving impetus that makes men interact with women is sex, and whenever men's ideals of romance fall short, sex is reverted to, sometimes men develop such cynicism against manipulative women that they just become chauvinistic assholes, MOB, Bros before bitchs, etc etc etc.

Then the relationship starts to go sour, they cling to their boyfriend no matter what he does and start to self harm as a tool to try keep him around.

This part in particular echoes the whole borderline thing others have mentioned. This is another problem they probably need to realize. Get a little self-respect, and learn to cut off bad relationships. I think the mentality is that they are afraid to be alone and don't want to be out of a relationship and find another so they'd rather stick with a bad one. Of course the worst among people know this and use it to manipulate others... and not just in relationships but in work. You can get a person to submit to you the more you convince them they are worthless and no opportunity exists for them, that's why its important to cultivate internal confidence. You have to be selective in the world about who has the right to judge you, they must earn your respect before they can be your teacher. Unfortunately on a global scale this is not how people are taught, they are taught to submit to authority without question, hence how borderline personality appears as an issue people have.

They also start coming up with stories about being raped, becoming pregnant or going to hospital etc for various reasons. They starve themselves saying maybe he'll love me if im skinnier or realise how much i miss him and need him. In the end they start acting like those psycho ex-girlfriends you see on movies!!

Yea this is bad

Does anyone have any idea what type people like this could be?

I can't really give any socionics based typing... I think its unfair to characterize any type to such unhealthy tendencies.

I think Thanks Arthur! was closest in saying borderline personality disorder...

I think what they need is a paradigm change in the way they see the world, I bet if you dug up their history they'd be the type of person who grew up with strict parents, was taught to submit to authority, and so forth. Their parents probably would bitch them out when they failed at something and would pay them with money whenever they succeeded, they learned that love is conditional or something and whenever something didn't meet their expectations in a relationship they probably tried to search for a condition to make it work.... its hard to say.

I've never had to encounter this with anyone I've ran across, but if I did, what I would do is wage total war against them, ruthlessly and directly point out how they are being pathetic, if they tried to play the victim I would punch through the bullshit in 0.0001 seconds and get down to the heart of the issue, at which point I'd tell them they need to have confidence and be more assertive, and most importantly that they are better than how they are acting.

Anyways I don't know if that would work, because I'm not an expert, but I just felt like interjecting my opinion... because that's what I do with virtually everything. I definitely wouldn't advise doing what I said I would do though, mainly because if you do it wrong, they will kill themselves extremely quick because they will just see you as another person victimizing them.

[Crispy]

@Flatfoot- IEIs are actually fairly extroverted for introvert types -- particularly Fe subtypes.

No introverted type is generally more extroverted than any other introverted type.
Fe subtype in 2 subtype system has absolutely nothing to do with introversion/extroversion. It applies only to rational/irrational dichotomy and makes Fe-INFps Regulated Irrationals.
Two mistakes in one short sentence... when will this end?

[KeroZen]

Two mistakes in one short sentence... when will this end?

Blam!

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Self-esteem is an illusion. Everybody is too much of a mixture of self-confident and insecure things for me to believe that 'just believing in yourself' is the answer. And frankly, you can be very successful in this world while still having all sorts of childish fears and delusions.

When somebody has problems, it's almost always they have the incorrect information about something. They just don't know. It's very rarely that there's a psychological issue behind it.

But people are idiots, they like to feel better than other people so they project and assume somebody is having low self-confidence when really, they're just having the wrong education.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

And also fuck you. =D

I'm IEI. I have my moments of doubt. I get insecure and down about myself like everybody else. I never wanted to kill myself though.

Just because I don't wear a business suit and walk around like the king of the jungle like fuckin straight boys that like hockey, and just because I'm not a prick to others, doesn't mean that I have low self-esteem. Just because I let people go their own way and don't try to control them like an alpha male douche bag... Confusing compassion and nonsociopathy with low self-esteem. fuckin dumb americans.

[Creepy-male]

Who are you referring to BnD?

All I know is that self-esteem is a tricky issue, there is internal and external self-esteem.

Internal self-esteem is between you and your inner observer, its what happens when you review something you've done and beat yourself up for being stupid and feeling insecure about you as an individual.

External self-esteem is between you and the world, its what happens when you feel low because of the way the world is treating receiving you. For example, you may feel bad because people call you worthless on the job and your boss treats you like shit.

They are honestly two different things.. just think

High Internal Self Esteem, Low External Self Esteem
--> Someone who feels victimized by the others, the media, comes across egocentric, artistic, involved inner world

Low Internal Self Esteem, High External Self Esteem
--> Someone who feels good when their image is good, narcissistic, hyper-competitive, dynamic, socially confident, charisma

True confidence lies between these two things, when your observations about your self match up to reality. When this remains out of balance, it causes imbalance, like shifting fault lines beneath an earthquake on the surface.

I personally am not saying anyone should act like a douchebag alpha male king of the jungle, all I am saying is that they should have balance between their inner-selves and the outer world, and when the outer world is treating some girl like shit and she begins to believe within herself that she deserves it, I see that as wrong, no person deserves to be treated like shit, and that requires building internal self esteem, which as you have said isn't because she is at fault but rather because of poor education.

[Satan]

And also fuck you. =D

I'm IEI. I have my moments of doubt. I get insecure and down about myself like everybody else. I never wanted to kill myself though.

Just because I don't wear a business suit and walk around like the king of the jungle like fuckin straight boys that like hockey, and just because I'm not a prick to others, doesn't mean that I have low self-esteem. Just because I let people go their own way and don't try to control them like an alpha male douche bag... Confusing compassion and nonsociopathy with low self-esteem. fuckin dumb americans.

you are a prick to others. not only that but you're a prick to yourself.

[Satan]

No introverted type is generally more extroverted than any other introverted type.
Fe subtype in 2 subtype system has absolutely nothing to do with introversion/extroversion. It applies only to rational/irrational dichotomy and makes Fe-INFps Regulated Irrationals.
Two mistakes in one short sentence... when will this end?

Bull-fucking-shit.

[Singu]

Self-esteem is always internal... it's never external. If you have low self-esteem then you will always doubt the external, and no amount of external changes will change that. It's the same if you have a healthy sense of self-esteem and self-respect. If you have a healthy sense of self-esteem then you can take things as they are, and learn to accept yourself as you are. Also, self-esteem is very real and very necessarily. You can not survive in this world without a healthy sense of self-esteem. You can not be strong, you can not grow, without having self-esteem.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

That's true, of course, but you misunderstood my point.

*sigh*

[KeroZen]

No what HaveLucidDreamz said makes sense. Think for instance in the context of Se pathetic hidden agenda.

I know for example a guy who appears very self confident and with very high self-esteem when you look at him from a distance (at least, it's clearly the image he's trying to put in front)

But anyone knowing him at a personal level can attest he's not self confident in the inside at all, it's a false facade.

He acts like he's tough and able to manage his life in an efficient way, trying to look emotionality cold and constrained, whereas he's just "feelings impaired" (having Fi in slot #5 in model A) and if he could express/output his feelings more easily, he would be happier overall (and yes we discussed this together so I can safely say he would agree with what I say)

If it's not implicit enough, I'm talking about a LIE/ENTj...

[KeroZen]

Glad to see that mercutio is fairly consistent with the tone of all his messages, regardless of the recipient...Being consistent is a quality.

At least I won't make the mistake of taking what he/she says any personally...

[Satan]

That's true, of course, but you misunderstood my point.

*sigh*

You need to get over that big ego of yours.

[Satan]

Glad to see that mercutio is fairly consistent with the tone of all his messages, regardless of the recipient...Being consistent is a quality.

At least I won't make the mistake of taking what he/she says any personally...

Such a self-satisfied boy.

[Singu]

That's true, of course, but you misunderstood my point.

*sigh*

Well actually I was more answering HaveLucidDreamz, but what point did I misunderstand?

No what HaveLucidDreamz said makes sense. Think for instance in the context of Se pathetic hidden agenda.

I know for example a guy who appears very self confident and with very high self-esteem when you look at him from a distance (at least, it's clearly the image he's trying to put in front)

But anyone knowing him at a personal level can attest he's not self confident in the inside at all, it's a false facade.

He acts like he's tough and able to manage his life in an efficient way, trying to look emotionality cold and constrained, whereas he's just "feelings impaired" (having Fi in slot #5 in model A) and if he could express/output his feelings more easily, he would be happier overall (and yes we discussed this together so I can safely say he would agree with what I say)

If it's not implicit enough, I'm talking about a LIE/ENTj...

Appearances can be deceptive. The only reason why he has such pretenses is because he has low self-esteem in the first place. He needs to exude the pretense of confidence. Not sure if that's what HaveLucidDreamz meant though.

[Aleksei]

No introverted type is generally more extroverted than any other introverted type.

By extroverted I mean more sociable and engaging, which some introverts (even within the same introvert type) can be than others. You're thinking of type in a manner far too rigid.

[Creepy-male]

...

I don't think its always internal... I think its entirely possible to generate artificial self-esteem in a person. Just take a child, contain them in a controlled environment and constantly give them positive feedback for the littlest things they do, and never tell them they messed up at anything, just remain indifferent to mistakes. What will develop is a kid who has a worldview, a life philosophy, a concept of reality if you will that is based solely on the idea that their interactions with people are always positive.

Now remove the controlled environment and place the child in the real world, where people receive negative feedback from multiple sources, and in which the sources of this negative feedback are inconsistent against each other so that there may not be a rationale explanation behind the negative feedback they are receiving.

The question is... how do you think the child will respond? Do you think they will be crushed by a harsher reality than they expected or do you think they will be resilient to it because they have developed a strong "internally-based" self-esteem concept.

I think they will be crushed at first.... and I think its because they never learned to cultivate any "internally-based" self-esteem because they had sufficient admiration from their environment and never required learning how to build a healthy self-concept of themselves. We can also imagine that this individual may immediately revert to performing the actions they were admired for in their previous world concept in order to adapt, and hence they would be emoting an "externally-based" self esteem, as instead of it being an honest expression of their self-concept it would be a defense mechanism in order to trigger the admiration they desire.

Sometimes a simple test to confirm such a thing can be performed by remaining indifferent to one's expression of self-confidence, if this causes them to break down in anger or tears, they are clearly desperate for admiration and can't stand on their own.

[Creepy-bg]

I don't think its always internal... I think its entirely possible to generate artificial self-esteem in a person. Just take a child, contain them in a controlled environment and constantly give them positive feedback for the littlest things they do, and never tell them they messed up at anything, just remain indifferent to mistakes. What will develop is a kid who has a worldview, a life philosophy, a concept of reality if you will that is based solely on the idea that their interactions with people are always positive.

Now remove the controlled environment and place the child in the real world, where people receive negative feedback from multiple sources, and in which the sources of this negative feedback are inconsistent against each other so that there may not be a rationale explanation behind the negative feedback they are receiving.

The question is... how do you think the child will respond? Do you think they will be crushed by a harsher reality than they expected or do you think they will be resilient to it because they have developed a strong "internally-based" self-esteem concept.

I think they will be crushed at first.... and I think its because they never learned to cultivate any "internally-based" self-esteem because they had sufficient admiration from their environment and never required learning how to build a healthy self-concept of themselves. We can also imagine that this individual may immediately revert to performing the actions they were admired for in their previous world concept in order to adapt, and hence they would be emoting an "externally-based" self esteem, as instead of it being an honest expression of their self-concept it would be a defense mechanism in order to trigger the admiration they desire.

/me looks into chinese baby adoption and promises to get back to this thread.

[Creepy-male]

/me looks into chinese baby adoption and promises to get back to this thread.

haha diabolical, this is one of those thought experiments like schroedinger's cat.

[Creepy-bg]

haha diabolical, this is one of those thought experiments like schroedinger's cat.

shit. too late. I just gave them my credit card number.

[Singu]

Ummm..... if I understand what you're saying correctly, then I don't necessarily disagree with you. But I guess it depends on what you exactly mean by internal vs. external self-esteem. I mean, what is self-esteem, other than anything that is from the within? If one receives admiration from the outside, he can either become receptive to it, or become suspicious of its genuineness, and thus brushing it aside. Only a person who has a realistic self-assessment of himself can accurately judge himself for what he is, and therefore having the ability to take things as they are. A "narcissistic" person who was constantly praised and admired as a child does not have the ability to accurately judge what is realistic about himself and what is not. He becomes the person who is the admired self and not the real, actual self, a person who is himself for what he is. So if an adult turns narcissistic, then all he had to do was return to being more like his actual, realistic self, and not his inflated, unrealistic, admired self, so that he can cultivate himself and develop his own self-esteem and his own needs and his own values based on who he really is and what he actually is in reality.

[Creepy-male]

Ummm..... if I understand what you're saying correctly, then I don't necessarily disagree with you. But I guess it depends on what you exactly mean by internal vs. external self-esteem. I mean, what is self-esteem, other than anything that is from the within? If one receives admiration from the outside, he can either become receptive to it, or become suspicious of its genuineness, and thus brushing it aside. Only a person who has a realistic self-assessment of himself can accurately judge himself for what he is, and therefore having the ability to take things as they are. A "narcissistic" person who was constantly praised and admired as a child does not have the ability to accurately judge what is realistic about himself and what is not. He becomes the person who is the admired self and not the real, actual self, a person who is himself for what he is. So if an adult turns narcissistic, then all he had to do was return to being more like his actual, realistic self, and not his inflated, unrealistic, admired self, so that he can cultivate himself and develop his own self-esteem and his own needs and his own values based on who he really is and what he actually is in reality.

Yea exactly, healthy self-esteem is internal I agree, and this is a good explanation of the classic idea in psychology of the ideal self vs the admired self.

What always confused me about this however was where fantasy fit into this theory, surely people in their development aspire to role models at the very least, but this would appear to be a fantasy self or vicarious living. Personally I've never found it unhealthy, but healthy in a character building way. Having some kind of standard to aspire to I think is good. Like realizing "I'm too shy, I wish I was more confident" then setting role models "This person is a great speaker, I wish I could speak like that" and then setting out to try to cultivate these attributes in a realistic way. I remember this quote "Do not follow the teacher but what the teacher is following". I think this echoes a certain truth, while role models are important aspects of social learning, ultimately its not about imitation but rather some deeper source.... like "why do people desire confidence at all?". The answer to that question is what drives people towards confidence and not simply social imitation or conformity. Once a person begins to cultivate a particular trait, there is no need to follow the teacher anymore and they can take the training wheels off and progress towards that deeper truth.

[Singu]

Well the idealized image/self is a much more comprehensive "solution" to a particular problem. It's a solution to a person who is lacking in real self-confidence, because of the crushing experience that he had to endure. Read this:

He does not feel weakened in a vacuum, but feels specifically less substantial, less well equipped for life than others. If he had a sense of belonging, his feeling inferior to others would not be so serious handicap. But living in a competitive society, and feeling at bottom—as he does—isolated and hostile, he can only develop an urgent need to lift himself above others.

Gradually and unconsciously, the imagination sets to work and creates in his mind an idealized image of himself. In this process he endows himself with unlimited powers and with exalted faculties: he becomes a hero, a genius, a supreme lover, a saint, a god.

Self-idealization always entails a general self-glorification and thereby gives the individual the much-needed feeling of significance and superiority over others. But it is by no means blind self-aggrandizement. Each person builds up his personal idealized image from the materials of his own special experiences, his earlier fantasies, his particular needs, and also his given faculties. If it were not for the personal character of the image, he would not attain a feeling of identity and unity. He idealizes, to begin with, his particular "solution" of his basic conflict: compliance becomes goodness; love, saintliness; aggressiveness becomes strength, leadership, heroism, omnipotence; aloofness becomes wisdom, self-sufficiency, independence. What—according to his particular solution—appear as shortcoming or flaws are always dimmed out or retouched.

[HERO]

Daniel Mackler:

Psychology Essays, Part 2 - Healing from Childhood Trauma

'So What the Hell Is Narcissism Anyway?

Everyone is born narcissistic – that is, full of intense need. This is healthy. If a child is lucky his parents will meet all of his needs and he will grows optimally, straight through to enlightenment, straight through his development with no traumas to bog him down. But when they fail – and where they fail – he has to bury his neglected needs in self-protection. These then become a fixed part of his unconscious personality, and he will go through the rest of his life in an unconscious desperation to heal. These unhealed parts of him become the kernel of his narcissism.

For a narcissist to heal he must take responsibility for his wounds. He must excavate them, feel their pain, trace their sources, place appropriate blame, confront perpetrators either interactionally or internally, and grieve their horror. This is a nearly impossible task, but not fully so. Enlightenment is possible for anyone.

But few heal. Most avoid healing their wounds and instead seek out objects to gratify these wounds – often in the most clever, charming, and even seductive ways. The world is full of heroes and rescuers and martyrs who are drawn like magnets to narcissists. They delude themselves into believing they can fix them. These rescuers of narcissists are closet narcissists themselves, disguising their mis-attempts to self-heal through attempting to gratify others. No one attempts to narcissistically gratify anyone else unless he is in denial of his own comparable wound.

But they always fail at deeply gratifying anyone. Gratification is contrary to healing. Healing requires boundaries and a depth of insight, qualities antithetical to closet narcissism. But failure is no great loss to them, because they carry a great ace up their sleeve: they can always blame their failure on the fact that they were the victim of yet another narcissist. But this is not true. The only narcissists that truly victimized them were their own parents.

In their relationship with their child narcissistic parents are like sheriffs dealing with outlaws in the dusty Wild West: “There’s only room for one of us in this town…” To make the analogy fit, the outlaw (i.e. the child) must lack weapons, strength, or skill. Whenever he tangles with the sheriff (i.e. the parents) he always loses and gets booted out of town (i.e. the needs of the parents win, and his get neglected).

What then happens is the outlaw, if he doesn’t die some destructive death, leaves town (i.e. buries his needs in his unconscious) and goes to find another weaker town in which he declares himself sheriff (i.e. starts his own family, often with exploitable kids of his own).

Thus the system perpetuates itself…unless its members find some way to heal.'

Psychology Essays, Part 2 - Healing from Childhood Trauma

'Borderline: The Hated Diagnosis

According to Herbert Strean, when therapists diagnose a patient as borderline what they’re really saying to the patient is this: “I hate you!” And while it might seem harsh for a therapist, that paragon of love and acceptance, to be so rejecting and callous, there’s often a good reason for it. This supposed “borderline” patient is the exact type that it’s easy to hate: they can drive even the best therapist literally nuts. A few years ago a Long Island therapist was asked by a local paper to define the borderline. His reply, which got him sued, probably as much because it was brilliant as because it was cynical and non-representative, was as follows: “A borderline is the patient who calls you up at three o’clock in the morning on your home phone threatening suicide, which you know he’ll never do – but you wish he really would.”

According to the DSM (the standard psychiatric diagnostic text) the patient with Borderline Personality Disorder (code 301.83, in case you’re wondering which numbers not to play in the lottery, if that happens to be your addiction of non-choice) is highly emotionally unstable, has a persistently shaky sense of self, is extremely impulsive, is prone to heavy substance abuse and acting out, is prone toward suicidal gesture (and occasionally worse), often feels chronically empty, tends toward extreme displays of anger, is generally intermittently highly depressed or anxious…and the list goes on.

But underneath it all, the borderline personality is just a specific type of wounded adult-child. Borderlines share extreme neediness with narcissists, except that borderlines are much less able to control their frustrated rage. Unlike the narcissist who woos you with charmed entreaties, the borderline sucks you in with a harpoon, or in milder cases with flypaper in your face. They’re not only pissed as hell over having had their developing needs neglected as kids, but more so for having been psychologically, if not outright physically or sexually, tortured. And they have every right to be furious.

Of course, if you’re not their parent their problems are not your fault at all, though that won’t stop them from making you feel that way. Often they idealize their parents and blame you instead, though even if they did direct their blame homeward and expect love from Mom and Dad it would be decades too late. As the healing saying goes, “they broke it, you fix it.”

Regardless, their rage spills out everywhere, contaminating all their present relationships so that few healthy people would dare want to be close to them. The borderline instills in others an extreme desire to abandon him, which, ironically, is what he fears most. As such his remaining relationships, even the therapeutic ones, are volatile. He unconsciously recreates in his dealings with others the same horrible tension of his early childhood relationships with his rejecting parents, and yet because his behavior is unconscious he fails to understand and thus acknowledge his part in it, and of course is never able to admit his deepest hope behind his sabotage: that those onto whom he projects his historical parents (his children included) will mature to the point of finally being able to love him, and thereby heal him, in spite of his nearly impossible behavior.

This is his fantasy, and it’s a rough one to have projected onto you. Sadly, though, the only one it’s rougher for (his children aside) is the borderline himself.'


While I don't think it's really type-related, if you want to stereotype I'd go with extremely traumatized/abused/repressed ENFj's (perhaps an ENFj-ESTp), ESTp-ENFj's, as well as IEI's and the occasional Delta NF (a Se-ENFp or Fe-ENFp for example). And I agree that an Introverted type with an Extraverted subtype is still more Introverted than a bonafide Extravert. For example if I'm Ni-INFp, there are two possible DCNH subtypes I can be: Creative or Harmonizing. If I'm the Creative subtype then that technically should make me more "Contact" and/or "Extraverted" than the Harmonizing subtype.

Nevertheless, stereotypically, the externalized extremes of such behavior are more common in Dominant/Choleric/Exploitative/Ej types and Creative/Sanguine/Ep types. First, although Introverts can and do act out and yield do unconscious repetition compulsions, Extraverts are the ones who are less retiring and if destructive/self-destructive may make bigger more concrete waves, as well as being able to concretely and consistently externalize (their secret/unconscious) dramas to a point that would probably tire Introverts (in the real world). An Extravert may take more risks, be more daring, more successful, more impressive. An Introvert is more insular, more in their own world (and/or socially challenged), and is less consistent than an Extrovert in realizing and/or manifesting things externally. They tire faster from excessive exposure...they need to retreat more often (especially when stressed).

Socionics :: Extraversion / Introversion

Extraverts are "often afraid of losing control of their inner world (feelings, reactions to external stimuli)." Introverts are "often afraid of being unnoticed and unneeded in outside world."


Even if I'm an Creative Ni-INFp (Ne-INFp), I'd still say I'm very Introverted, and in the real world I'm readily recognizable as an Introvert. Plus I have a tendency to isolate myself. An Fe-INFp would still be fairly Introverted compared to the average Ni-ENFj. And of course an Fe-INFp can also be a Normalizing subtype -- for example a Ti-INFp (e.g. INFp-ISTj). And they will usually be readily identified as an Introvert.

[twizzlestix]

Yea exactly, healthy self-esteem is internal I agree, and this is a good explanation of the classic idea in psychology of the ideal self vs the admired self.

What always confused me about this however was where fantasy fit into this theory, surely people in their development aspire to role models at the very least, but this would appear to be a fantasy self or vicarious living. Personally I've never found it unhealthy, but healthy in a character building way. Having some kind of standard to aspire to I think is good. Like realizing "I'm too shy, I wish I was more confident" then setting role models "This person is a great speaker, I wish I could speak like that" and then setting out to try to cultivate these attributes in a realistic way. I remember this quote "Do not follow the teacher but what the teacher is following". I think this echoes a certain truth, while role models are important aspects of social learning, ultimately its not about imitation but rather some deeper source.... like "why do people desire confidence at all?". The answer to that question is what drives people towards confidence and not simply social imitation or conformity. Once a person begins to cultivate a particular trait, there is no need to follow the teacher anymore and they can take the training wheels off and progress towards that deeper truth.

I like that.