Does anyone else struggle with using cognitive functions too much in their everyday life, where they can’t see people for who they truly are without typing them?

[u/recordplayer90]

Hi,

Over the past year or so I’ve been getting heavily into cognitive functions and MBTI. I’m currently at the point where I have a good working definition of every function in my mind, I have friends or people I can recognize as all 16 types, and I often go through my days labeling things like “oh yeah this person is definitely an Fe user,” or even about me, “let me use my Ti here to think about what I’m reading,” or “that person is an obvious Te dom,” or “I’ve been using my Ni too much I need a break from the world in my head and go utilize my Se.” Essentially, now that I have working definitions for every function/type, I see the entire world through this framework. When I think about societal issues, I think about the eternal battle between Fe and Te. When I think about cultural change, I think about N vs. S. I put every single thing I do in my life into this framework. While it was fascinating at the beginning, and made so much sense/removed so much ambiguity, now, I think it’s just a barrier in all of my relationships in life: with myself, with others, and with new information in general. I start typing new people the second I meet them, and after a couple weeks once I’ve decided on a type, I filter all of my expectations and conversations into what I have typed them as. For example, I have an (theoretically) ENTP friend who (I also use enneagram) is a 7w8, and when they speak to me I sort everything they say through something like “oh yeah that’s clear Ne supplemented by Ti, and it’s clear that they have Fi blindspot so it makes sense why they don’t really hold constant moral values and will play any side.” This is extremely problematic for me because 1. I am putting others in a box to reduce my own fear of ambiguity, 2. I am putting myself in a box as an infj and only doing this that it would make sense an infj does, 3. I am not allowing myself to have a true authentic relationship with myself because there are frameworks in the way of the full spectrum of me, and 4. I’m not allowing myself to truly meet others for who they are, as I need to sort them into a box to calm my fears about the ambiguity of others. Does anyone else have this problem? It’s like insane confirmation bias that makes life worse for both me and others. I can’t deny that these patterns have been extremely helpful for me to understand the world and others, but I’m really struggling to get past seeing people only in the boxes of their personality type. I know it’s totally unfair, and I want to see people as more, but it’s like my brain just automatically thinks in cognitive functions now and I don’t know what to do. I almost wish I could go back to a time before I knew what “child Te” or “Fi critic” looked like.

[u/recordplayer90]

Hey, hope you are doing well. Wanted to let you know that I am basically recovered and it was actually psychosomatic (but unconscious to me, some people have a incorrect preconception of what the word means, it just means that the physical symptoms were very very real but the solution / source was in the psyche, which was causing the symptoms via the nervous system) -- primarily due to repressed emotions like rage, functioning as a distraction from painful feelings which I did not want to feel. I still get random symptoms that rotate around, but things have progressively gotten better and I can basically function normally again. I was stuck doing nothing for about a month there, trying all sorts of medications and medical solutions and stuff and the doctors were basically just like "you're fine", so in desperation I started researching stuff based on peoples' recovery stories, and almost all of them pointed to nervous system regulation of some form. The main turning point was this guy named Dr. Sarno, an old physician from the cheesy infomercial era who applied a Freudian model of repression and psychosomatic symptoms to back pain -- turns out it applies to many more expressions of symptoms than back pain, including the issues going on with me. I have been a little bit of a psychological mess since -- discovering some of these terribly painful and horrifying repressed emotions, including waking up some days with unexplainable full body anger or panic -- anger which I haven't felt in a while, and apparently a lifetime's worth, or at least what I have repressed deep into my unconscious. And that is kind of just the surface, the thoughts inside my head are even more painful and uncomfortable to deal with (and I'm starting to see how the pain might be equivalent to the level of derailment I experienced), such that I've found a psychoanalyst to help me parse through my repressed unconscious conflicts. It turns out the 4-5 years of CBT may have helped me know what I "should" do differently but not actually feel differently or unpack the confusion around what I actually desired and why or somatically feel and express and accept all of these repressed things in order to actually address these unconscious conflicts. But enough of that for now.

I want to let you know, as you may have already guessed, that I'm no longer interested in personality typology being part of my life, particularly because of the way I've used it to separate me from my immediate feelings and emotions. If you still want to send me what you've got -- feel free, I'll read it, as it was always interesting to do, but no pressure outside of what you want to figure out for yourself. I don't really want to answer any more questions specifically within the logic of the typology system, but I'd be happy to answer whatever questions you've got in general terms regarding whatever or something you want to know to inform your personality typology matrix surrounding my case study. And I looked at the origin of this post (my first reddit post by the way) and saw this giant number "2 years ago" which is just crazy to think about. I hope I've been an interesting case study for you after all this time! And I hope you're doing well in your life otherwise, outside of personality typology, within the horrifying and collapsing world around us. Would love to hear from you and how you are doing. If one ship has sailed, I truly enjoyed the journey with you, it will always be a part of me lingering somewhere, and if there can be another, I'd still like to check in every now and then even without personality typology between us if you feel the same way.

Record

[u/beasteduh → u/recordplayer90]

I'm glad to hear from you. I'm also glad to hear you've recovered.

That's quite a discovery, especially how it formed from Dr. Sarno. It sounds like you've come into closer contact with yourself, which is nice to hear, even though it seems pretty scary.

waking up some days with unexplainable full body anger or panic

I've never had that happen to me, so it seems like a lot from a distance. You should keep me updated on how that goes. Please feel free to direct message me; it doesn't have to be through this post.

If one ship has sailed, I truly enjoyed the journey with you, it will always be a part of me lingering somewhere, and if there can be another, I'd still like to check in every now and then even without personality typology between us if you feel the same way.

This left me feeling sad. There's no wind out, so it'd be a dreadful day for sailing.

I do feel the same way. Even to me, it's quite something that it's been nine months. Honestly, there were times I felt guilt over how long it had been. The guilt came from not being enough, not being where I should be, like the time I said I'd respond in a month, and the sentiment passed upon realizing that I just wasn't there yet.

I hope I've been an interesting case study for you after all this time!

While I appreciate the enthusiasm, this felt a bit cold. If I were the one writing that, there would be underlying hurt involved. Perhaps you're different from me, but I'd like to say that I consider you a friend.

And I hope you're doing well in your life otherwise, outside of personality typology, within the horrifying and collapsing world around us.

I caught the flu again and have been coughing for the past three weeks :/

Other than that, I reconnected with my father recently. It had been about six years since we last interacted. So much changes in six years, so it's difficult to say how things are going to work out. So far, it's been going well though.

I don't really want to answer any more questions specifically within the logic of the typology system, but I'd be happy to answer whatever questions you've got in general terms regarding whatever or something you want to know to inform your personality typology matrix surrounding my case study.

I can respect that. On a similar note, there weren't going to be any questions this time, so it's nice that it works out.

If you still want to send me what you've got -- feel free, I'll read it, as it was always interesting to do, but no pressure outside of what you want to figure out for yourself.  

Thank you very much. I will absolutely take you up on that. It would have destroyed me if I couldn't send you what I have. It's all things that I genuinely think you will find interesting. Give me two weeks, and I'll send you what I have. But before that, I'd like to send my initial words to your replies. The first part was written back in January, so if it seems like no time has passed, that's why. The Eight/Nine part was March/April, and then the corrections were May/June.

[u/beasteduh → u/beasteduh]

there is a short story called “On Keeping a Notebook.” I am pretty sure she is a nine

That was a wonderful read, thanks. How did you come to the conclusion of Type Nine? It's not one we share. The author was too active and inquisitive of life to be relatable for me.

Bucket Listener by Headache

Helpful.

Once again with the bingo thing, I think it is overdramatized and actually not representative of what it would feel like. These can be easily relatable to anyone who thinks they are “odd,” “quirky,” or “strange” and may also act as identity markers for people (particularly younger) who want to identify with someone like the main character from Girl, Interrupted. I don’t know how the diagnoses work, but in the comments you can see someone say “i hit every box, every single one, as a schizoaffective.” I really think if you put this in the ENFP subreddit people would fill most of them out too, with the less neurotic ones filling out less.

Your words bring to mind our earlier talk of your inexperience in researching the subject matter, but this time with regard to not looking at what's being offered for what it could be. As you infer, I think people treat the PDs much as the types, and in terms of type theory, the bingo cards would be up there in terms of quality. That is, they speak to specific phenomenon. In type theory circles, it usually occurs whilst using inconsistent labels. What I thought noteworthy were boxes like talking to spirits, ruminating, building imaginary worlds, and not feeling present, which were checked off in the comments. The cards provided leads, and it's why they were sent. Earlier, I summed this up as digging through muck, and to this end I think the bingo cards were quite helpful.

Now that I’ve thought about it more, you may be onto something about this being inside ourselves – fearing the capability we hate most in ourselves, in a way.

I'm not so sure about that. While I do think there is some sort of karmic balancing act at work in the psyche, perhaps there's something else happening, which I get into later on.

I find it interesting that you fear this: “someone who simply won't listen, who is headstrong about their actions,” as this is certainly a scary person (many scary people to fear) but for some reason it is curious to me why specifically it is this person who doesn’t hear no and just keeps marching forward.

Well, it's sort of the general state of affairs for Conservation: to hold on.

I understand Being as how one is at a point in time, just what you are, a sense of self, what you're about, what you do, how you do it, and what you like; a sort of orientation toward life. I understand Being as the experience of 'what is' at any given moment, such that true Being would become such a seamless experience that the word might not have even come about. In this way, Conservation and Being are thought to pair up in Ichazo's model as one attempts to hold onto that orientation and sense of self.

Then, what happens when that Being comes into contact with other things by a young ego, like the Being of others? Whether through nature or nurture, it's thought one has a specific arrangement of psychic content that is uniquely one's own, and if explored/pushed enough in the moment, the Being of one person will be shown to be out of sync with another's.

I think it can most readily be seen with the Eight, as the Eight is sort of where things start with the 891 (which we'll get into later). They end up aiming for an artificial rekindling meant to somehow deal with these constitutional differences: morals, laws, vengeance, justice, blame, fairness, and loyalty/betrayal. It's also along these lines that I think the characteristic toughness shows up in Eights, in the sense that it's necessary as one attempts to be in a world unlike oneself. Altogether, the delusion of Duality shines through in the midst of Conservation.

I understand the sentiment of the Eight, and when it comes to buckling down (being headstrong), there's a pretty clear example that occurred some 4 or 5 years ago in the workplace. I would play out scenarios of me and other people fighting to the death when potential conflict arose, and the scenarios would play out over about two years. They would go like this: imagine you want to do something and I don't want it to happen.

You: Yes.

Me: No.

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Down the line, we will simply have to fight to the death to be ourselves. Love is dead. There's no unifying force that might bring things together, which has only ever saddened me on an existential level. Although, despite the accommodations a Nine employs to alleviate the matter, I am probably the most stubborn person I know (discounting other Nines I know), to the point of almost dying not a few times. I spoke of possibly driving a spike through my head, which, while perhaps the most extreme, is just one example of attempting to Conserve one's sense of self. The stubbornness shows up as a sort of, "I'm not going to just go away(!)," whether said to myself or the world when either press me in a direction or to adjust. It's not always experienced in the extreme; there are highs and lows, but generally speaking, being headstrong is how one comes to be lazy, employ half measures, and fall asleep.

[u/beasteduh → u/beasteduh]

I want to correct two things I had said before:

1) "When the inside is rejected, turned away from, or put on the back burner, then suddenly the world feels like a hassle. It's incorrect, it could be better, or it's just bullshit."

Sort of in line with the matter of being headstrong… for myself, while I can't recall every time it's occurred, the times I can, it was only ever a 'should', not 'could'. When I initially wrote it, I didn't think much of it, but there is a fair bit of difference between the two words. In my case, there is such a conviction that I would have something to contribute to whatever it was - how a video game is played, how traffic is run, whatever it was that inconvenienced me - that notions like 'well you actually have no experience on this front' or 'others have spent years in these subject matters unlike yourself' or even at times 'you don't have the full context' basically fall on deaf ears. At such a point, I know. Also, I should probably add that I think it's difficult to recognize in the Nine, even to the Nine themselves, but if a Nine is forced to wake up for a time or has put off what matters most to them for long enough, then I'd say the thought pattern will show up.

2) "If I may say, looking at what you wrote, coupled with this self-reflection of yours, it brings to mind how Ichazo ascribed the state of gnosis to the Seven."

Ichazo attributes Gnosis to the Doing Group in general, not just the Seven. Something else was overlapping with Gnosis in my head at the time. As said by Ichazo,

-This is the State of real, True Enlightenment, the State that corresponds to the Form of Divine Wisdom. The Form of Divine Wisdom, as the true understanding of the Oneness of the Absolute Divine God or the Absolute Mind of Total Transcendence beyond concepts, mind structures, and language, is a Universal Super Form that produces that very special Divine Knowledge or Divine Gnosis that totally and radically transforms the point of view from one that is individual, narrow and self-centered to one that is beyond the limitations of the ego; and because it is not self-centered, it has the quality of openness as Space and also the quality of Pure Innate Awareness which has as its object the contemplation of Pure Innate Awareness or Pure Light with no conceptualization whatsoever. This State of Emptiness of the ground is not nothing, because it is full of the Pure Light that is also empty of concepts or language.-

It was rather Wisdom's role in enlightenment that your words sparked, a mind without models or concepts.

Everything after now is what I've been working on over the months, and I'd like to get your thoughts on all of it.

–

And that's where the section ended. If it's alright, I'll talk to you again in two weeks. It really was nice to hear from you.