Your parent's types

[Beautiful sky]

It would be difficult to be raised by a Conflictor and a Supervisor. You have my sympathies.

I can see why your parents fought. My own mother is ESTJ, and I have a really hard time being around her. She was always "Do what I said or GTFO". No explanations, and no questioning her allowed, Basically, Hell on Earth. The only "'good" part was that the family ran smoothly as long as she got her way in everything. That meant, never criticize her in the slightest, and never question her actions, even when she was hitting you in the face.

I still have a hard time working with ESTJ's. I can appreciate their talent for perfecting things, but I will never allow another one to dictate any part of my life again.

hence my signature "do this disciple how you feel" and "you are this I don't care what you say"

My response. "No I'm not and you're blind"

[Beautiful sky]

Now that you mention it, I don't believe the two perceived it as a power struggle as much as I did. At least it's how I interpreted my parent's situation.

Anyways, I feel that ENTj fits my Father well. He is future thinking, always emphasizing to me the importance of my future and to learn from the mistakes of my past. The man cannot relax or stay still for even a minute, which is why he is a heavy chain smoker. If anything could be the epitome of si-polr, it is my Father. He does not understand the concept of just relaxing. "Time is money" - That's what he'd always tell me. And oh yeah, going to the doctor's? Nope, no way. My father had no concept of that. He would wheeze and cough to death, being such a heavy smoker. Going to the Doctor's, though? Nah, that was just a waste of time and effort. He held no value to his health, he'd rather spend the time focusing on work. It still amazes me.

My Mother (ESTj) is more health conscious. She rarely eats, but she is a great and innovative chef. She visits the Doctor's regularly. She could be considered anorexic, though. The woman barely eats. She can barely ever relax too, but not to the extent of my Father. Both are extremely extroverted and active people.

I sometimes wonder if this is why I struggled to understand my type. I always felt so alien and helpless compared to my parents. Both were extreme control freaks who would control every aspect of my life. My Mother is that type of Mother who tries to handle all of my finances/planning in my life (Controlling Ej temperament). My Father sacrifices his time to work to raise as much money for my family to express his love.

I have picked up habits from the both of them though. I tend to work as much as I can, I have a need for control and planning, I have difficulties relaxing (Because of how looked down upon it was in my household), and although I have a great love for food, if I am too focused on work, I'll survive on 4 hours of sleep, vitamins, and water only. I don't know if it's engrained in me or if it was a learned behaviour, maybe both. Also, although my parents were successful, they did not care for material goods. They would often wear the same clothes everyday. I also wear the same thing everyday, all black. It's just easier that way. That is why I never understood my type, as now I'm away from my parents, I'm learning that without having them around to control me, I am a pretty controlling person myself.

all that you've described speak of both types and i can see the difficulties

[Diana]

Mother - ESE
Father - LSE
Me - SLI

[falsehope]

I am fron conflicting family:

Father: SLE
Mother: EII
Sister: ESI
Me: ILE

Conflict is the main theme in my family. Parents were showing up to the kids how the conflict works so we have been well trained. Also, everyone is from different quadra.

[para]

Mother - XII
Father - XLE

[Shytan]

My dad's SLI and my mom's IEE.

[Chae]

Mom - ESI-Se 1w2 63 SP/SX
Dad - SLI-Si 6w7 93 SP/SO

Also part of the family:

Brother - LSE-Te 8 47 SX/SP
Grandma - SEI-Si 7w6 49 SO/SP




Please somebody send help

I'm the only intuitive type and SP last

[Exodus]

http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin...-mother-s-type

Classic thread

Someone made a typing thread about their "ESE mother" on another forum. It turned out she was more likely LSI.

Why thank you hun, you're a beauty yourself.

About their relationship - I'll tell you all about it.

My parents relationship together was both extremely successful and an extreme failure, all at the same time. By success and failure, I am talking extremes on both spectrums.
They were EXTREMELY successful economically. My parents came to the country that I was born in pretty much penniless. They were forced out of their home country due to chaos and war. Everything back home was destroyed, their only hope was to move to another country to start a better life.

My Mother did not know a word of English. Luckily, my father was an academic and was ranked top in his English classes in his home country.
They both worked very high labour, low paid jobs. Working every single day of the week, multiple jobs, the two were both money making machines. They both were very entrepreneurial, business minded. (Both my Mother and Father come from affluent entrepreneurial families). My Mother picked up English very quickly, which gave her an advantage in this country. She educated herself, did a lot of business planning, budgeting and research.

Both parents are spectacularly good with money, budgeting, and planning. Before I go on and bore you about my parent's multiple business ventures.. Together, their undying hard work, great budgeting skills made them a power couple. ENTj and ESTj, both being so ambitious, strong, skilled, and hard working, were a great business team.

Now for the extreme failure.. Both would also let their business ventures seep into their love lives. Constant arguing, bickering, and fighting at home is all I can really recall from the two of them.. Not to directly relate this to socionics and their type, because there are a lot of outside factors for their dysfunctional relationship.. Such as mental illness caused from stress and overwork, exhaustion, etc. So I guess you could say, what made them so monetarily successful, in itself destroyed the relationship.

Both the ENTj and ESTj generally in Socionics are stereotyped as leaders and entrepreneurs. With two being in a relationship, there could only be ONE leader. My mother is the farthest thing from the stereotypical "submissive" Asian woman. She is much more a leader and powerful than a lot of Men that I've known. There was a power struggle between the two and that gnawed away at the relationship.

My Mother ended up having an affair, and my Father was devastated. Of course, they are divorced.

My Mother is holding a grudge against my Father, she's still bitter. She does not want to engage in another relationship with a man. My Father remarried and is still working 7 days a week. Lol.

Sorry, this was quite long! I hope it gave you a good insight on the type of dynamic that I've experienced in my life having ESTj and ENTj parents.

Your mother and my mother are so similar in that aspect. They are never wrong. Their way, or the highway. ESTj mom would also cut off everyone in conversation, nothing was more important than the valuable input that she could give in conversation. Anyways, again, the similarities are pretty eerie.

This is a great example of how "work" (and money) in a certain sense has more to do with Se than Te.

[KrishnaRen]

My dad is ESE 2w3 so/sx and my mom is ESI 8w9 sp/so

[Hermit Soul]

My dad is an ILI and my mom is an ESI.

[maniac]

Mom - ESI-Se 1w2 63 SP/SX
Dad - SLI-Si 6w7 93 SP/SO

Also part of the family:

Brother - LSE-Te 8 47 SX/SP
Grandma - SEI-Si 7w6 49 SO/SP




Please somebody send help

I'm the only intuitive type and SP last

Im the only social last + only one with 4 in tritype haha i feel you

My sister has literally told me I'm the black sheep - tell me something I don't know huh


dont know socionics-wise but:

mom: sp/so 2w1 261/268
dad: sp/so 9w1 962
sister: so/sx 6w7 639

grandma: so/sx 1w2
grandpa: so/sp something

cousin 1: sp/so 6w7
cousin 2: so/sx 7w6

[ooo]

I wish I could type my grannies (

my granny was the harshest/grumpiest woman Ive ever met, a total nerd, used to read a book a day and complain about everythiiiiing. I hated her, but I was her fav and I actually adored her...

my other grandma was a ray of sunshine always singing and telling dirty jokes and acting like a kid and she was the opposite of other grandma, never read a book in her life, but went everyday to church, she was really an egomaniac too, always blaming someone else for things happening to her..

both were overly organized and fulfilling all of their duties... hmm

any ideas?

[noaydi]

Mother : ESTJ
Father : INFJ

Me INFJ brother ESTJ or ENFP (always make you relativising, good with Ne, and he's with a ISTp gf, but this is in the process of breaking, and he had INFJ-Ne gf in the past) other brother INFJ

Advice to Delta quadra parent : don't use always moral, ameliorate your act and the way you are acting compared to your moral, or this is a never ending flow of self righteousness. It work from 0 to 18 year, but at the end, child become annoyed with that

[Chae]

Im the only social last + only one with 4 in tritype haha i feel you

My sister has literally told me I'm the black sheep - tell me something I don't know huh


dont know socionics-wise but:

mom: sp/so 2w1 261/268
dad: sp/so 9w1 962
sister: so/sx 6w7 639

grandma: so/sx 1w2
grandpa: so/sp something

cousin 1: sp/so 6w7
cousin 2: so/sx 7w6

Good to know we ain't alone. This is how heart types are made

SO entirely unbalanced, and so much 6 influence, oh my. How do you keep up? It's like me getting spoiled from all sides with SP and I don't want it

[Myst]

Myst (ISTJ) - INTP,

wat?

My dad: LIE-Ni, my mom: ESI-Se.

Though I first thought ILI for my dad, I don't remember if I mentioned that on here a long time ago

[Sol]

My dad: LIE-Ni, my mom: ESI-Se.

duality. such pairs are rare, so mb it's other there
I'll input your current opinions.

[Myst]

duality. such pairs are rare, so mb it's other there
I'll input your current opinions.

Yeah it's duality. I'm not going to change my opinion on their types though, I determined them a while ago and it's quite solid conclusions (and not based on presuming duality, I typed them independently of that).

[Guillaine]

Mum- LSI 3w2 so/sx N
Dad- IEI 9w8 (sx/sp/?) H
Me- IEE 4w5 C sx/so
sister EII 2w3 H sp/sx
Brother SEE 7w6 D so/sx

Maternal grandfather SLI, Grandmother LSE
Paternal Grandmother ESI 2w3 Grandfather unknown.

I was scapegoat, easily ostracized and ignored. I feel like there was a lot of unspoken tension in my parents marriage which was perhaps not a problem for them but really ate away at me and my sister who tried everything to translate for them to create some kind of harmony, which was not wanted by them. Tensions eased as my brother grew up and commanded the room, by then I moved out.

My sister and paternal grandmother get on well. Paternal grandmother absolutely smothered my father hence 9w8.

Edit: new gen my son- SEE 7w8 sp/sx C
His father my ex SEI 9w1 sp/sx H. Funny I fell for a partner who like my father had ESI 2w3 smothering mother, who ensured he remained hopeless and childlike.

[Sol]

I'm not going to change my opinion on their types though

I changed some opinions after years.
if to offer them tests this may show alternatives. I tortured my relatives by tests.
father got LSI, mother SEE (I later have decided to ESE. while SEE was her sister for the comparision and they do not like each other much as should, irritate by minor issues. that sister has IEI husband and IEE daughter). tests were useful

[Vespertine]

I type my mom as SLE, my father as possibly EII, and my sister as likely SEE.
My patents would fight all the time, I never understood why they were together.

I also have three half brothers and one half sister on my father's side that I barely ever saw. My sister and I being the kids he ran away from his first family for doesn't make things super friendly.

[photon]

My father is probably SLI and my mother is either LSE or ESE. These are only guesses though, not very confident with typing people.

[Enkidu]

My parents have all taken the MBTI, but I suspect only my step-dad is at least vaguely familiar with Socionics.
Under MBTI: my mom (ENFJ), step-dad (ISTP), dad (INTJ), step-mom (ISFJ)
Converting MBTI to sociotypes seem like dosage calculations in my mind and I feel as though I'm missing something, besides their input.
So, possibly ENFJ=ENFj, ISTP=?, INTJ=INTp, ISFJ=ISFp
Is this correct?

[Not A Communist Shill]

@Sol I believe my father to be LSI

[WVBRY]

My parents have all taken the MBTI, but I suspect only my step-dad is at least vaguely familiar with Socionics.
Under MBTI: my mom (ENFJ), step-dad (ISTP), dad (INTJ), step-mom (ISFJ)
Converting MBTI to sociotypes seem like dosage calculations in my mind and I feel as though I'm missing something, besides their input.
So, possibly ENFJ=ENFj, ISTP=?, INTJ=INTp, ISFJ=ISFp
Is this correct?

Not exactly.

Conversion works pretty well for extraverts but not for introverts. A person who scores as J on MBTI does so for behavioral reasons, not because of functions, therefore, saying ISFJ correlates to ISFp is shaky. ISFJ in MBTI can be either SEI or ESI.

I want to get more into this, but it's past midnight here, and my brain is not working optimally, just know that while there is no exact conversion between MBTI and socionics, this is mainly due to the fact MBTI is usually determined by a test, whereas socionics types are determined by various other methods, tests being only one method but considered rather unreliable. If you say that ISFJ is Si and Fe, then it might make sense to convert this into SEI, but only if you are more sure of the functions themselves than the four letter acronym. The acronym assumes the functions are ordered in a certain manner but if you look at only the acronym, you will miss out on functions.

Another issue is that the functions themselves are not described in the exact same manner, at least some of them. Sensing and feeling functions are described fairly differently, as is Ni. Ne, Te, and Ti are pretty much the same though.

That said, I'm off to bed enough late night thinking here! Good luck!

[Eliza Thomason]

My parents have all taken the MBTI, but I suspect only my step-dad is at least vaguely familiar with Socionics.
Under MBTI: my mom (ENFJ), step-dad (ISTP), dad (INTJ), step-mom (ISFJ)
Converting MBTI to sociotypes seem like dosage calculations in my mind and I feel as though I'm missing something, besides their input.
So, possibly ENFJ=ENFj, ISTP=?, INTJ=INTp, ISFJ=ISFp
Is this correct?

[As to if they convert - MBTI to Socionics - in each case, yes, maybe start examining the introverts first since they can be be more tricky (though personally, for me, they always are the same, from MBTI to Socionics. But I see how introverts convert less well than extroverts).

All of the following will mean little if you have guessed their types wrong. I usually use this relationship chart when i am trying to determine relationship types. Here are your parents:

1. Your Mom and Dad's original relationship: Semi-Duality

2. Your Dad and his new wife: --------------- SuperEgo

3. Your Mom and her new husband: --------- Conflict The worst. (But I have seen two conflict relation marriages tough it out long-term for the sake of their kids, grown or not.)

For fun (and to help you check if you guessed their types right), and provided you are NiFe like you said elsewhere, here is how you get along with parents/stepparents in order of best to worst.o is supposed to be easier for you to get along with:
1. You and Mom: Mirror - the best, by far!
2. You and Dad: You are Benefactor to him, so he gets the short end of the stick in this relation. But it could be worse!
3. You and Step-Mom: She is your Benefactor, so you might feel invalidated and unappreciated at times (Just remember, you can make your Dad feel the same way!)
4. You and Step Dad: SuperEgo - there is mutual respect, but occasionally there can be surprising conflict seemingly out of the blue.

Again, provided these are all guessed right, speaking strictly from a Socionics Relationship viewpoint, it looks like your Mom would have been better off with your Dad -that's Semi-duality and the best relationship of the three referred to. But, of course, marriages even between duals can dissolve because there are other factors in there, like lack of common value and goals. And Your Mom is in a conflictor-relationship now - must be tense at times at your house. I have not seen that particular conflict-pairing, but I can imagine how it would stress an ISTp. (And theoretically it would stress the ENFj as well. At least there is equality.) The SuperEgo relation of new wife and your Dad is in is more favorable than Mom's new pairing. [the fact that your parent's second relationships are not considered as favorable as their first might help them get along as ex's now, having realized they weren't so bad after all].

I sort of agree with this list of best to worst, but they lump the Benefits and Supervisions as one, and I think they should be separated, and half of the pairs moved up the list, because it's much better for one than the other in those relationships...

Here is a thread from this our site that includes other lists of best to worst - so all the lists are opinion-oriented! http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin...type-Relations

__________________

In reply to the OP, I am ENFp, my Dad ISTp and Mom ISFj

[para]

Pretty sure my mother is LII, father is SLE.

[Enkidu]

Not exactly.

Conversion works pretty well for extraverts but not for introverts. A person who scores as J on MBTI does so for behavioral reasons, not because of functions, therefore, saying ISFJ correlates to ISFp is shaky. ISFJ in MBTI can be either SEI or ESI.

I want to get more into this, but it's past midnight here, and my brain is not working optimally, just know that while there is no exact conversion between MBTI and socionics, this is mainly due to the fact MBTI is usually determined by a test, whereas socionics types are determined by various other methods, tests being only one method but considered rather unreliable. If you say that ISFJ is Si and Fe, then it might make sense to convert this into SEI, but only if you are more sure of the functions themselves than the four letter acronym. The acronym assumes the functions are ordered in a certain manner but if you look at only the acronym, you will miss out on functions.

Thank you, this was both helpful and encouraging. Not a problem, I understand. I was similarly tired last night and didn't have the wherewithal to reciprocate and write a coherent reply. So Myers-Briggs typology is further apart from sociotype than I originally assumed. This is actually reassuring as my ongoing frustration with MBTI/cognitive functions was rooted in this sense that it was primarily conceptual or like personality simplified for the sake of a clean theory (to use the terminology: Jung's concepts = Ti vs Socionics = Te) - and why Socionics seems so attractive by comparison. Attempting this was infernally confusing and I may have to shelve my preconceptions of functions and start from scratch. @crAck went into greater detail about this than I could currently follow, but I was nonetheless impressed and appreciate the input.

Another issue is that the functions themselves are not described in the exact same manner, at least some of them. Sensing and feeling functions are described fairly differently, as is Ni. Ne, Te, and Ti are pretty much the same though.

That said, I'm off to bed enough late night thinking here! Good luck!

For the sake of learning and reference, are there any accurate type conversion charts or ways of tracking what MBTI/cognitive function *may* correlate with what socionics type or function?

[WVBRY]

Thank you, this was both helpful and encouraging. Not a problem, I understand. I was similarly tired last night and didn't have the wherewithal to reciprocate and write a coherent reply. So Myers-Briggs typology is further apart from sociotype than I originally assumed. This is actually reassuring as my ongoing frustration with MBTI/cognitive functions was rooted in this sense that it was primarily conceptual or like personality simplified for the sake of a clean theory (to use the terminology: Jung's concepts = Ti vs Socionics = Te) - and why Socionics seems so attractive by comparison. Attempting this was infernally confusing and I may have to shelve my preconceptions of functions and start from scratch. @crAck went into greater detail about this than I could currently follow, but I was nonetheless impressed and appreciate the input.

You're welcome.

Yeah, I think's best you "shelve your preconceptions and start from scratch" as you say. Based upon what you are writing, you seem to be finding out for yourself the inconsistencies between converting between the two systems, especially because MBTI type is usually determined thorugh testing (granted, their test if professional, I'm not saying it's garbage at all but the test results are only as accurate as is the person's self-knowledge, so I find testing in general limited as a method). Now MBTI type can be determined through other methods too (if you consider the MBTI type be Jungian and not just a four letter acronym), but noone in the MBTI community seems to be working on those methods too much. You could try to determine MBTI type not so much through tests but through functional analysis, but my personal opinion is that MBTI was not conceived to be used in this manner, anyways so you're better off using socionics if you wanna determine Jungian types through other methods than testing.

Keep in mind as a Te ego type, methods of obatining knowledge are as important to me as the knowledge itself, I don't mean to trip you up by apporaching socionics in an overly Te way if you value Ti. My approach strongly emphasises methods, but not everyone will have the same approach. But my advice is: think about what I said here, talk to others on this forum, and read what you can on the subject.

For the sake of learning and reference, are there any accurate type conversion charts or ways of tracking what MBTI/cognitive function *may* correlate with what socionics type or function?

Not to my knowledge.

But I do think that socionics emphasises both which functions you value and which functions are strong, and in socionics a function being strong means you can both use the information for yourself and influence others with the information (information pertaining to the function) whereas a function being weak means you cannot influence others with it, but you can use it for yourself. This is something Aushra Augusta said in an article I once I read but I can't find it anymore. I'll try and look for it on Wikisocion as it seems important. The reason I mention this is because this seems different than the way in which functions are understood in MBTI. In MBTI the strong functions reflect personal aptitudes, whereas in socionics it's how you impact society. Granted, if something is an aptitude, you can usually use it to impact society, so the two things are not unrelated, but slightly different still...

[Enkidu]

All of the following will mean little if you have guessed their types wrong. I usually use this relationship chart when i am trying to determine relationship types. Here are your parents:

1. Your Mom and Dad's original relationship: Semi-Duality

2. Your Dad and his new wife: --------------- SuperEgo

3. Your Mom and her new husband: --------- Conflict The worst. (But I have seen two conflict relation marriages tough it out long-term for the sake of their kids, grown or not.)

Interesting analysis! I'm shocked at how accurate this is. These relationship terms were mystifying to me, but that useful chart is enlightening. My birth parents clashed exactly according to Semi-dual relationship write-up, as with my dad and step-mom, uncannily so. My mom and step-dad however, are realistic about their differences and relationship expectations - especially my step-dad - and the quid pro quo of their romance is patience and tolerance.

For fun (and to help you check if you guessed their types right), and provided you are NiFe like you said elsewhere, here is how you get along with parents/stepparents in order of best to worst.o is supposed to be easier for you to get along with:
1. You and Mom: Mirror - the best, by far!
2. You and Dad: You are Benefactor to him, so he gets the short end of the stick in this relation. But it could be worse!
3. You and Step-Mom: She is your Benefactor, so you might feel invalidated and unappreciated at times (Just remember, you can make your Dad feel the same way!)
4. You and Step Dad: SuperEgo - there is mutual respect, but occasionally there can be surprising conflict seemingly out of the blue.

Again, the accuracy is spot on. Thank you for this chart!

[Starvish]

Delta duality I think, with my dad as NF and my mom as ST.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

tbh, I find it kinda creepy that you kept a log on our parents' types but yeah, my mom is very obviously a ESFj and my dad very obviously a INTj. They were dual couple, very ideal and happy. I don't meet many couples nowadays that had their level of content and happiness with each other.

[Eliza Thomason]

I am fron conflicting family:

Father: SLE
Mother: EII
Sister: ESI
Me: ILE

Conflict is the main theme in my family. Parents were showing up to the kids how the conflict works so we have been well trained. Also, everyone is from different quadra.

My very close friend is EII and married (and as-if married) a long time to SLE. And I have been her principle confident through years of rocky times with that. He has sometimes behaved badly and she sure lets him know! Mild-mannered as she is, she can holler when he has offended (often in the way he talks to her, taking her for granted and it comes out in a statement or action and wow she will blow up and not let this go). It's been a rocky road, but clearly they both have always wanted stay together and be an intact family/couple, and they have. They learned to avoid conflict as much as possible, and part of it is the strong boundaries they make for themselves and time separate and firm routines and expectations of each other. Also, annual family vacations - they do vacations and meals out well. The last few years have had surprisingly few conflicts. One help is she just started a professional career that she studied much for over a couple years, and he is relieved to have another income and gives her a bit more space and respect, it seems.

I have to say I am proud that even though I was her confidant and faithful sympathetic listener (because people truly NEED that validating listening) all those years, I never once put him down (only agreed his actions/words were at times atrocious) and never suggested in anyway he was not a worthy husband. Between that and always praying for them as a couple, I feel a sense of having a stake in their being together still. Small, but important to me.

My first marriage (I met her during this) I was Benefactee, and there certainly is inequality in that relation. So her marriage was so different from mine, in that even though there were terrible fights, I admired that she could be stable and confident enough to say her mind, where as I was always hesitant, as putting my best and most thoughtful efforts to be heard never seemed to have impact anyway (akin to throwing pearls to swine).

Also I wanted to say that it's interesting that your parents were "showing up to the kids how the conflict works so we have been well trained". So interesting! My parents so rarely conflicted. But I kept explanations of conflict with my husband away from my son. Because he was a kid, and needed to be one. Then after the divorce (he was 8) I went with the advice(there was much advice written and much of it conflicting) that I should not expose him to my feelings/reactions/bad things about his father, that my son would eventually figure out for himself how his dad actually is, and for now he just needed a dad in his life. I think that was right but it was not easy bec. his Dad had no qualms about putting me down, it seems, I don't know how often but I would get a whiff of that from time to time, and it seemed very unjust.

My EII friend, however, THOROUGHLY explained to her kids why she was angry - because their dad was a LIAR, etc. She felt it important they know what was happening in their world, and that they also know how to resolve conflict. I think it worked (they are teens now).

Very interesting that you are ALL from a different Quadra! You have then all learned good lessons in getting along with all types of people! That adds a certain fairness, as no one has a quadra-refuge person. My growing up seemed fairly easy. My parents stayed together, and two of my brothers and my Dad and I were all Delta (LSE, SLI,, and me IEE and my Dad SLI). It was a Delta-majority family! Makes me especially loyal to Delta-values, I think. My Mom was ESI* and my youngest brother LSI. As three of us are bunched close in age and LSI brother came along 4 years later, besides being the odd-Beta, it's possible he felt odd-one-out sometimes (not that I noticed it growing up, excepting the time my SLI brother was pretty unkind, IMO, about not wanting him tagging along). But he was the only one nursed, so he got that. (I take that back; my oldest brother was nursed). And he was blessed with a EIE wife. Truly blessed in that way).

None of you, I believe, are the easy-crossover person of your Quadra. In Alpha, I think it's ESFj. Not totally sure of the others (though in Delta i's ENFp)...

[Eliza Thomason]

Yes, it's long, and it's a personal story about my motherl. So if you hate length and you hate such stores, you will hate this.

This started as a P.S. to my previous post, then as it began to take on length I realized I better separate it out because a lot of people hate long posts. It is very personal, and contains a lot of personal details, so i probably won't keep it up all that long. Or I will go in an snip a lot. But I had to write, because it helps me reflect.
_______________

My ESI Mom was also an odd-one-out, being the only Gamma. One time when I was home from college, she had given me a little booklet thing to read she had around [around our tidy house - she saved few things] about loneliness, as I was achingly lonely, having just broken up with my boyfriend. This would have been one of the very few sympathetic things she ever did (I was often frustrated with her lack of empathy, but I now think it was due to what I explain below). There was a bookmark/poem in it about loneliness and it was clearly important to her. She had written on it or something. I showed her, and said, "Mom! You've been lonely?" Perhaps that sounds weird but she rarely shared her feelings and I wanted to relate (I craved relating to her, and was often frustrated in my go-nowhere attempts). She got annoyed/defensive an shut down, and there was no conversation on that again.

I think she bore a certain loneliness, for a long time, I think. My Dad was the solace of her life, a wonderful devoted husband to her. They were happy, very much, though at times I know she wished he were more chatty. But she grew up with a nagging feeling that her Mom loved her older sis better (Sis was five years older and a big help around the house to their mom, while my mom was active in clubs and organized school activities and excelling in school). She had VERY few childhood memories - literally, a handful. Her Mom died tragically when she was in college - a mistake at the hospital in a routine operation (in the days before you sued for that!). And her Dad, who was always distant, was a month from retiring, which he so looked forward to, when he, too, died suddenly and tragically. For the first time in her life her father was just becoming interested and involved in her life, enjoying being Granddad to us little ones, but he was killed suddenly.l He was on his way to our house for Sunday dinner, stopping to buy us a box of chocolate, and was stuck by a car, and killed, the driver being off-medication and in a seizure. Then she moved away from all she loved, especially her sis, to another state, encouraging my Dad to take this faraway job, probably because my Dad, an "only", had a mother (my dear grandmother) who not only loved to drop in announced from her slightly distant town, but REALLY did NOT like her, and was very unkind to her. She understandably felt a greater need to be away from her that to stay near what she loved.

I remember when I was only four, and her coming into my room at naptime to lie with me, which was very unusual, because she was not cuddly. (I was a student who went to kindergarten at four, and never clung to mom or looked back; I just wasn't attached, apparently, which I think is tragic. So I parented differently) She came in to lie with me, holding me, or at least close, and not only was that astonishingly different, but something was weird. I watched her for a long time, and then realized, and said, "Mom, are you crying?" Certainly I had never seen this! She explained the neighbor had yelled at her, and been mean and cruel. I reflected much later in life how she had so recently lost both her parents, fleeing from a critical and unkind mother-in-law, was new in a strange city, too far to visit her home state, in a strange new home, likely without Dad because my Dad traveled two weeks out of every month, and in the relently responsibility of caring for her children alone. She likely knew no one. And you did not make "long-distance" calls in those days! And this neighbor yells at her. It had to have been hard. And lonely. [Later, this neighbor yelled and ranted at us neighborhood kids, too, as we waited in line for the morning bus, all of us frozen in stillness, staring round-eyed at her visage, because this land belongs to the Indians! And we white people came and stole it from them!]


It wasn't till after college, when I had already started my career, and was visiting her sister, that my aunt surprised me, when I asked her why she only ever had one child, telling me the unheard-of news that for a time, she raised the three of us - two babies and a toddler - along with her own toddler son, when my Mom was hospitalized for postpartum... and in those days, that was shock treatment.* : ( Both of these pieces of news stunned me. But it finally explained for me the emotional unavailability and lack of empathy from her that increasingly frustrated me as I grew. And also that lack of stories of her life and childhood, that I always begged for, and would be disappointed to hear just the same ones, over and again.


And this fact often came to my mind, and anger at the brutality of that post-partum treatment, that no wonder she had Alzheimer's. Who wouldn't, after that?, when I began my long and consuming stretch (of years) of caring for her when her Alzheimer's set in and then progressed, progressed.

Last year, I read an excellent true saga of a family, "The Big House", and a matriarch of that family, once wise, smart, beautiful, vivacious, active and a much sought-after debutant, got postpartum after her 4th child, and was sent off and got the same "postpartum" treatment. And I read a description of that treatment for the first time. How brutal, how sickening. No wonder my mother was like this. This mom in this story, after a very-extended stay there (a year? Could have been more!) did come home, to her now-older children. And a daughter from the story, the eldest, who remembered her once loving, vivacious, attentive mother, now suffered not only from her mother's sudden disappearance in her life, but now from her just as suddenly returned-mother's strangeness, her detached way of being. It was betrayal on top of betrayal that wounded her and she was unable to make truce with until well into her adult years. The mother in this story was still a functioning adult, just - detached. Alone. Isolated. And after the kids were grown, she, too, exhibited strange behaviors, increasingly odd things, before finally getting diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And I read, and saw - she acted just like mine, the relentless progression, the obsessing, the not-eating, the sad, sad ending.

So there was that frustration growing up of not-connecting with her, which magnified in high school, but stayed stuffed inside as a longing and a loneliness and a loss in regards to her through college and into young adulthood. That my mother just could not/would not be a friend, that she just could not relate, could not "get" me. I wanted it so much, and tried so hard. I eventually realized that she just couldn't, but that she did give me all the love she had to give. In her way. But in recent years I discovered Socionics, and found I am her Supervisor! The worst close-relationship position for her. So there had to be that element, too. That I did not know the right way to be her friend. The problem, the result of shock treatment, loomed large, like the mom in "Big House". But perhaps in my life, unknowingly, just by being me, I had wounded her further by "Supervising" her.

It was "principle" that made me take on her care, and I was firm in that, and sure, and that made me stick with the commitment (and the help of my wonderful husband when I remarried 4 years ago). My mom was not any kind of easy Alzheimer's patient, if there is one. And some of her unclean habits made her care extra difficult. So, I loved her, but she was hard to love those years.

Well, she died on Valentine's Day [not this; the year before]. And that was, and is, so beautiful to me, to die on that day. It seemed God was telling me: "We will shower her with love here; she will never be lonely again."





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*[I have been researching food and nutrition recently, and my husband and I are on a whole new path with that. From what I am reading, a low fat diet is a strong cause of Alzheimer's, My mother had been YEARS into strict low-fat diet before the symptoms appeared. She was completely tow-the-line on this, including no butter, not bacon, only lowfat fake-butter, hydrogenated oil-in-a-tub versions. (She had confidence in what was advertised on the news hour - and low-fat diets were pushed on the news then - and would only the "smart" butter, or whatever they called it, that they advertised). So when I see that memory loss is associated with low-fat high-carb diets (our food pyramid!) and that after only a short time on such a diet one experiences memory lapses, that continue to worsen, I think how her decline could have been at least easier, at least. She was strong-willed though, and set in her ways and not open to trying new things. You see I had read about certain such diets good for Alzheimer's at the time, lots of wild-caught salmon, i.e., but it seemed way too much for me to try. Especially because she so typically refused things, but also my life was so full, as I had to arrange ever-changing caregivers in order to be able to go to work, and I was a single mom, and had to take my son to practices or to friends, and after school she was sundowning (means: very difficult behaviors!)...

[marooned]

Holy eff you knew how I typed a parent. I typed my mom as ese and dad as sli btw.

I feel like ese mom typings get a lot of push back, but she really is ese and I can't find any alternative typing.

Honestly, my typing of my dad is more uncertain than that of my mom. He was an ST e8 introvert sort. I guess LSI would be the alternative. But I've been careful abt this. He wouldn't have interacted w my mom so badly were he lsi. Fe was just not his thing.

Were he lsi he would have tried to help her, not destroy her in self-defense.

[thegreenfaerie]

Honestly have no idea anymore. Just going to say-
Dad- EIE or SEE
Mom- EII probably

[chriscorey]

My mom is ESE and my dad is IEI

[Rusal]

I don't know my father's type. My mom is IEI and has been married to an SLE for decades now.

[Aster]

I’d say my dad is probably SLI-N. My mom is a little harder to pin down. I think she might be IEE-D.

[Tallmo]

Father: LSI -N
Mother: ESI -D

Business relation

[Aramas]

Mom: IEI
Dad: EIE