INFJ Unraveled

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Deep and Deadly: INFJ feelings

Internet stereotypes of INFJ empathy and emotions are so often sophomoric and inaccurate or self-aggrandizing.  INFJs are often quite poor at dealing with and understanding our own emotions, but that’s not how we’re often stereotyped. Internet: INFJs are empathetic and deeply in touch with emotions. They have all the feels. Me: OH DEAR GOD, YOU IDIOTS. INFJs have Extroverted Feeling as their second. This means they are constantly aware of the feelings of others and incessantly running background diagnostics of the level of happiness and harmony of any group in which they find themselves. It's fucking exhausting, unconscious, and instinctive. We know how you feel, and how you might feel in 5 minutes depending on how we intervene. We are constantly reading the people and dynamics around us and running Introverted Thinking strategy to try to keep everyone happy and having a good time together. It’s instinctive to read and nurture the feelings of others. BUT We have NO DAMNED CLUE how WE feel 90% of the time.  Introverted Feeling isn't even on our primary function stack. That means that handling our own feelings is hard. When we have feels, they are usually undisciplined, dangerous, and overwhelming. Usually, we ignore them or don't talk about them because they're too murky and powerful to put out where other people might not understand them and hurt us. Our feelings are often quite unsophisticated, or at least so personal that we have problems articulating them. As intellectuals who value communication, control, and understanding, the level of vulnerability represented by those powerful, personal emotions is terrifying and uncomfortable. When those emotions do come out, they're usually loud and childish or powerful and brutal. If we show them, we either trust you enough to make ourselves vulnerable and show you the things burning at our core, or we're so damn freaked out we don't care if you hate us for exploding...may the odds be ever in your favor. I get so mad when the internet talks about INFJs like they're INFPs.  We're not. We know how y'all feel, and we'll kill ourselves to keep you happy. Just don't assume we can handle our own feels - we may not even be sure we have feels...or we may try to spare you the trauma when we do. --Wendy Neeld

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The Things I Hold Dearest

My silences tell you more about what is important to me than my words.  I love many things. I am passionate about a variety of topics.  But the things that are most dear to me, the things that are sacrosanct, placed on the altar of my inner cathedral of identity and order?  Those things are not ones I often talk about - they are far too precious.  

INFJs crave connection.  We want nothing more than to find common ground, to dive into the depths of an idea or a dream with someone who understands our need to explore the deep rather than skimming the surface.  We tire quickly of the day to day sensory conversations that permeate our world.  Statistics tell us that over 75% of Americans identify as Sensors, and while we appreciate them, they exhaust us as much as we confuse and tire them.  We want something deep and profound, something that makes us feel we are not alone.

Yet even in those moments, there are some things that are too precious to share, too hard to explain and defend.  Those are the things about which we are silent.

For me, those are the things that define me. I do not talk about them because there is no benefit in discussing them, nothing but frustration in having them challenged. While it is easy for me to understand and respond to the feelings of others around me as an INFJ, it is often hard for me to know my own feelings, to understand why something is so important to me. Often, talking about something, putting it into spoken or written word clarifies it.  When I am upset, I need to talk through why - the emotion strained through the rational filter of the word, mirrored by an audience becomes clear by externalizing it. I hold it up to the light of the outside world, and it becomes clear.

But some things are too important for that.  And in my internal world, there are things that I have vetted, gone over and over again until they have become so integrated into my view of the world that they are a part of me in a way that is ineffable and inexplicable.  Those things are not up for discussion.  They are a part of who I am.  And I feel no need to discuss them.  Speaking about them will not make them clearer or help me understand them in a new way. I have already struggled with them. And they are dear because I have wrestled with them until we have become part of each other. 

For me, my faith, my One True Love, my love of certain stories - those are things I do not talk about. I hold them close because I know them to be True in a way that I can never explain. When those around me talk about those topics or argue about them, I remain silent.  There is no need to expose something so deeply a part of who I am to casual debate or derision. They wouldn’t understand anyway. They would treat the strings that hold my heart together like any casual topic of discussion, and I am too wise to allow that. Instead, I hold my silence, and I hold those things that are most dear in the depths of my soul.  What I do not say speaks volumes about what is most dear. 

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Putting Out the Fleece

We don’t trust easily. We don’t trust easily at all.  No matter where you grew up or what your family was like, you wanted it to be perfect, the way you felt it should be; the way you saw it in your head.  It never was.  And every time you dreamed up perfection and lived through disappointment, the sorrow wove a dark crease through the next dream.  You never lost hope.  We never do... ...but you lost trust in the people around you.

INFJs are often called “walking contradictions,” idealists with the core of a cynic, counselors and empaths with a dark streak of potential cruelty.  And it’s true. But the source of that dichotomy comes from the glory of our internal world coming into contact with the sad inadequacy of the external one. It’s like putting a hot glass into ice water - the opposites tear each other apart. Yet hope is an inherent part of the INFJ. We are people drawn toward the future, oriented toward a holistic view of the world, it’s in our nature. We believe in the future, and with our Extroverted Feeling, we believe that future is built on people. We want people to care about each other, to be as considerate as we try to be.  We want people to notice each other’s needs and care for one another.  And we want people to notice our needs and care.  

But they usually don’t.  We know that.  So we learn not to trust.  We begin testing. We disappear - to see if anyone notices our absence. We don’t eat - to see if anyone notices and takes care of us. We stop talking - just to see if anyone was listening.  It’s not a healthy behavior; testing the people who say they care about you isn’t nice or necessarily wise.  But we do it.

When we test the people around us, we’re calling out into the void, pulling on the threads that bind us to one another.  We’re asking whether we really matter - who we are, not just what we do for you.  We are asking you to affirm our value in your life by noticing us, by Seeing us, even when we do not openly ask you to.  

See us, pass that test, and we will learn to trust, slowly and painfully.  We will come to believe that you really do value us for who we are, not just what we do. If that trust is built, if it goes beyond the Extroverted Feeling of the moment and passes the constant questioning and doubt of Introverted Thinking, then it becomes cemented as part of our Introverted Intuition - a part of how we view the world.  It becomes a part of that dream we’re always spinning for tomorrow.  

Fail to see us, fail the test, and we will step back, knowing that while we may love you, you are likely to disappoint us.

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Logos

I have always loved words. They drew me in from my fourth year on this earth, seducing me with the magic of infinity caged within simple black lines.  I have always been fascinated with their ineffable, inexpressible power – symbols so simple to learn, so easy to write.  Yet each one of them is a gateway to the dark underbelly of the universe, a realm full of meaning and implication.  Words are a way of knowing the unknowable for a brief, shimmering instant. They provide a means of glimpsing something so much greater than ourselves which is nonetheless infinitely familiar.  Words are logos, and there is something achingly right about them, because we ourselves are logos – the unchanging yet ever-changing universe made manifest in the particular. Words resonate with me, they remind me of the beauty that lies within; they open the cap of a well of strangely mingled darkness and light that defined most of my youth.  

That’s why I avoid them sometimes these days.  They make me ache with wonder and swirl around me – the particular and universal in intoxicating contradictory perfection.  Often, now, I cannot afford that.  I cannot afford to be made vulnerable by the wonder of words, to delve into that dark, rich nascent realm of creation.  I have to remain on the surface to fulfill my duties, to be who the world needs me to be, to remain accessible.  Sometimes that doesn’t bother me; I make myself forget.  Sometimes, when I am reminded by a particularly beautiful bit of language…then it aches like an old wound that will not be lost to memory.

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INFJ: Finding Harmony

It is the dissonance that hurts us.  As INFJs we come into this world with a sense of how things should be, an innate knowledge of how an encounter or a moment should play out.  Our inner world is rich and nuanced; it vibrates with a music that moves us and lets our imagination dance through wonders.  But reality does not move to that same rhythm.  It does not operate on how things should be; it operates on how they are.  For an INFJ, it is the difference between the inner and outer world, the constant dissonance between the music of our soul and the chords of reality that hurts us and makes us feel like aliens lost in a world that has no place for us.  

I cannot remember a time when I did not feel that disconnect.  My earliest memories are of the desperate longing to be in the company of others, to find the special connection I had read about in books, to find the deep bond I longed for and imagined made real.  But the actuality was nothing like what I had dreamed of. I found myself far more comfortable with imaginary friends than with other children. I cried frequently, much to the disgust of many adults around me. They didn’t understand, and neither did I.

Now I do.  The Introverted Intuition [N(i)] that provides the INFJ’s primary means of dealing with the world instinctively creates a network of meaning, a system of order built from the building blocks of our Extroverted Sensing taking in the world.  Details, observations, facts are vetted by the gatekeeper of Introverted Thinking that asks “does this make sense to me?”, and then fitted into the beautiful order of N(i). We face the world around us with a deep seated, instinctive belief that there is an order to things, that they make sense.  But our second function, the Extroverted Feeling, creates in us a deep desire to share that order, to share our beautiful world with others.  

And, of course, the beauty we see, the music we hear, the order and ‘right-ness’ that is so vital to how we define ourselves, is utterly anathema to most of the people around us. Either their internal world is sparse and undefined, or it is crafted utterly differently than our own.  Our world is different from theirs; too different to connect in the way we wish.  And, because we care too much, because we long for human connection, we are hurt.

But there are those moments. Those precious instants when the internal world and the external one are in harmony.  When how it should be is the way that it is. Those moments lie scattered across our lives like priceless gems, moments that give us a sense of peace and harmony beyond the power of words.  As we grow older, as we understand ourselves better, we learn to recognize those moments and to lose ourselves in their precious harmony.  It is only in those breaths of wonder that we truly feel a part of this strange world and genuinely feel that we are understood.  The dissonance fades into harmony, and we are not alone.  We treasure those, cherish them, so that when we feel infinitely alone, we can remember that sometimes the world does know the steps of the dance of our hearts.

By Wendy Neeld

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INFJ: The Small

And sometimes, I ask myself...”is there value in the little things?”  Around me, the world clamors for the epic, the moment of saving the world, the bigger explosion, the master scheme, and I find myself at a loss.  I dance in the moonlight, bathe in the song of a small brown wren, find joy in an hour of conversation.  Am I then so boring, so insignificant? 

As an INFJ, I see the needs of those around me in a way that I cannot ignore.  They tug at the edges of my vision, the edges of my heart, the seams of my soul.  I see them, and I know that I can meet those needs, so I do.  And with every motion, I hope and pray that someone will see me, someone will find beauty in that service, someone will think of me as the beam of moonlight.  But those hopes and prayers often whisper away in the breeze.  

I am rarely grand and epic.  I see the greater picture, but I see it as a web of needs, of beautiful individuals mired in need and pain.  I am overwhelmed with so much, so I begin to meet the needs of those around me, those I can.  It is not epic; it is small and simple.  But I dream that there is beauty in it nonetheless, that perhaps  someone, someday will see it and value me. 

Until then, the wren and I will still sing, the moonlight and I will still dance, and I will still speak, even if I speak to myself alone. 

by Wendy Neeld

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INFJ: Do You See Me?

As an INFJ, the greatest gift you can give me is your awareness.  Do not hear me incorrectly – I do not just mean your time.  Time is precious, and I value the gift of it above most others, but it is not the greatest treasure.  Your true attention, your awareness of the little things about me, the nuances that most people will never pay attention to is richer than gold. Your effort to notice the things I do not say, the minute details that truly comprise me tell me that you care, that I am worth going reaching beyond, doing more, and that is the best gift of all.

I am a walking contradiction.  All INFJs are, in one degree or another.  I do not need to be the center of attention, yet I love to perform.  I love solitude, yet I need human connection more than food or drink.  I seem confident, and I am – yet I am utterly unsure of myself, and I need to feel that someone believes in me.  I am constantly testing, constantly trying out minor changes, little things, to see if anyone notices.  You can say it’s manipulative; you can say it’s unhealthy.  I say it’s true.  If you really cared, you would notice without me telling you.  If you really knew me, you would see what I’m doing.  If…

People bustle through their lives, so overwhelmed with their own concerns, their own worries, their own cell phone screens that they have little time to pay attention to the people around them.  Certainly, the demands of responsibility - spouses that expect, children that demand, jobs that require – draw their attention.  But in the end, we are all inevitably tied to ourselves. We don’t truly see the people around us.  INFJs are no different, no matter if they’re called “HSP” or “Empath.”  We are still stuck in our heads, selfish and limited. But we are also impossibly connected. When we interact with someone, no matter how casually, we pick up every nuance.  Our awareness is engaged in a way beyond that of most others.  We see.  We notice. We connect, whether we want to or not.

And somehow, no matter how certainly we know it is unfair, we want someone to do the same for us. We want someone to notice the fact that our smile doesn’t touch our eyes and know that we’re tired.  We want someone to notice that we haven’t eaten in 2 days and to care.  We want someone to see the tension in the way we hold our shoulders and know we have a headache.  We want someone to see the wonder in our face and take the responsibility we carry so that we can go forget the world.  

It is rare that anyone does those things.  An intrinsic part of being an INFJ is moving through a world of people who are all sure they know you.  Sure they know what you want or think or like.  Most of them see their own reflection in your mirroring skills. They see a better version of themselves, not you.  That makes them like their perception of you, but means their confidence is misplaced. They don’t really know anything about you.  We grow tired of that, yet we learn to accept it.  We treasure the gift of time, and appreciate the affirmation of others’ image of who we are.  

But that affirmation does not reach deep because it is not truly an acknowledgement of who we are. That takes more.  That takes the effort, the attention.  It takes the power of conversation without distraction. It takes the ability to read the subtle things, the things I will never tell you, and know what they mean.  It takes the willingness to know me, and the intuition to read between the lines that have been redacted by my fear, shame, and self doubt.  That care is the greatest gift of all, the treasure without price.  

-by Wendy Neeld

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Passion for Tomorrow: INFJ

By Wendy Neeld

It is the future that calls to me, not the past.  That’s hard for many people to understand.  So many people cling to the idea that the past has made them who they are, so it must be cherished and enshrined to ensure the future.  I don’t see my life that way.

For me, the past is the thing that shaped my present.  It does hold the influences, the wounds, the glories that produced what I am.  But I have ruminated upon those influences and judged their validity.  Those wounds have healed into scars.  Those glories are tarnished with age.  I do not repudiate the past; I simply refuse to consider it of utmost importance.  For me, the past is a stepping stone to the future. I do not want to be bounded by how I got here or who I was.  I want to think about where I’m going and who I might yet be.  

As an INFJ, I have spent a lifetime curating a view of the world that is infinitely nuanced and complex. My extroverted sensing is constantly feeding me new information that enriches that system of ideas.  My joy, my wonder, is in looking forward, thinking about all of the things I do not yet know and running toward them with wonder, anticipating what they may teach me and how they may make me better, wiser, and stronger.  

Because I focus on today and tomorrow rather than yesterday, I tend not to judge people merely on who they have been in my life.  I am always considering them in the moment, reaching out to them with extroverted feeling F(e) and then critiquing what I find with my introverted thinking T(i), evaluating the nature of our relationship, figuring out how they fit into the worldview that forms the lens through which I can bind the universe into some semblance of sense.  I am delighted beyond words, comforted, when an old friend turns out to still be a friend – to still have the qualities and interests that bind us together.  I am saddened when an old friend turns out to have moved on in their life, having divested themselves of the shared passions that had connected us.  Bonds of past experience and blood do not suffice.  The past cannot guarantee the future. My energy, my emotional output is limited.  I choose to spend it on the friendships, the bonds that carry me forward.  I want wonders to rise from firm foundations rather than try to repair those structures that have crumbled past usability.  

For some, that focus is harsh or even incomprehensible.  “We’ve known each other for years.  Of course we’re friends.”  The past guarantees the present.  Anything else is cold and cruel.  I don’t believe that.  As an INFJ, I think of good relationships as complex things built on shared ideas, passions, and stories.  Good relationships are partnerships, bonds of trust in which two individuals share something so profound that it pulls them forward, side by side.  To hold on to something that fails to do that is destructive. Who I was is only a step on the way to who I will become.  If you cannot stride forward with your eyes on the same light as mine, I may love you, but I cannot walk with you.

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INFJ and Identity: Inner Landscapes

It is only in time alone that an INFJ can remember who they are.  In the normal bustle of life there are thousands of us, shattered pieces of a mirror, each reflecting a slightly different image in someone’s eyes.  We are parents, friends, mentors, customers, and unlike other types, each one of those roles is an instant identity, a full-fledged person of a moment.  Sometimes, we get lost in the myriad of people we feel required to be in our lives. We lose track of who we are because we are too busy being who everyone else needs.  It’s instinctive. We do it without thought.  And it leaves us feeling broken, hollow, alone, and strangely undefined.

Only in the silence, when we are allowed to explore our rich inner landscapes, can we truly remember who we are, not who others expect us to be. That is not an indication of shallowness. That is not a lack of a strong sense of identity or of defining principles.  That is an instinctive tendency to put aside the things we deem as merely about ourselves in favor of what see as the needs of others – and, in some cases, our survival.  We lose ourselves in the cacophony of expectations and needs, but we are never gone. An INFJ has an infinitely deep, complex sense of self.  Our inner world is often far richer than the so-called reality in which we operate. It is merely that few other people have the consideration or understanding to respect our need to spend time in that inner world, and we lack the selfish common sense to demand that time.

Perhaps the hardest thing is to preserve the time to find ourselves, to stretch out in silence and remember, without guilt, who we are and what things make us feel alive, only to be called back to who we are supposed to be.  As a teacher, I have the luxury of breaks between the semesters, and in those moments, I am able to relax, safe in the company of the spouse who completes me, and be myself.  I feel alive, whole.  And then I find myself facing a return to my job.  It is not that I do not enjoy my profession – I love it.  But I stand on the brink of a new semester and shudder, because I have gotten the chance to be me, and I know that I must put that away. I piece together the mirror and smile at myself, and then I step out before the crowd and it shatters again.  - Credit: Wendy Neeld

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Loneliness

There is an unspeakable sense of loneliness in disconnection.  It is not solitude, not being alone that makes our souls ache.  It is knowing that if we cry out, no one will hear us; if we weep, no one will wipe away our tears; if we laugh, no one will want to share our joy.  That sense of being cut off, of being invisible taps into our past, tears open the wounds we thought had healed, and suddenly we find ourselves lonely, looking at our own outstretched hand, and realizing how pitiful we must be, for there is no one there to hold it. 

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INFJs and Art

INFJs are often described as creative people, and I would argue that, at the very least, we are passionate lovers of art.  For us, art is more than just something to see or hear or touch.  It is an experience, something we feel in ways that are hard to put into words.  

Part of it, IMHO, is because we INFJs "mirror." What others see as empathy is the instinctive ability to give others the responses they want/need. I have been told so many times, "oh, we're so much alike" or "you remind me of myself when I was younger." It's what makes us successful, but it's exhausting because we are always mirroring others, and we can become lost in the process. Art mirrors us. It lets us truly study humanity and find ourselves without the pressure of mirroring someone else. That is why I find myself moved so deeply before a work - be it a statue, a poem, a painting, or a song. Art lets me find myself - unexpectedly and without expectation.

Art, at its best, is a pure expression of the raw human spirit.  It speaks to the big stuff - the things that make us human and let us connect with one another.  It is emotion formed into aesthetics.  As INFJs, that’s something we long for.  But when we get it from another person, we are often too overwhelmed or too concerned with the other individual’s well being to really appreciate it.  Art lets us revel in it.  It asks us to understand ourselves and our connection to the human race rather than asking us to understand someone else’s needs or to understand social norms.  Because of that, we love art with an intensity that may be impossible to explain to other personality types, leaving us with tears in our eyes and the explanation of “it’s just...special to me.”  

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INFJ Mirroring (pt 2)

Perhaps the worst part about mirroring is that it’s difficult for an INFJ to keep track of who they are and what they really want.  They’re too busy with the feedback loop of intuition and feeling.  We’re busy doing what you want, and in the moment of reflection – INFJ mirroring – we want what you want.  It’s not a lie; it’s not fake.  We just lose track of our opinions in the wash of everyone else’s. Later, we may resent doing what someone else wanted, but at the time, we’re too busy mirroring and worrying about maintaining the social environment to really think clearly about our own opinions.

That’s part of the reason it’s so important for an INFJ to have alone time – quiet time with no one else around.  It is in that time, those moments where we can’t worry about anyone else’s well being that we have a chance to find our own.  It is in those moments that we are able to discover – or re-discover – who we really are. That can be hard to understand for other personality types. People who love INFJs sometimes get frustrated.  They don’t WANT us to yield decisions to them or try to please them.  They love us no matter what…can’t we understand that?  Yeah, we understand.  But it’s really hard for us to not be aware of their needs and wants and mirror the things that make them happy.  

In order to do that, to really know an INFJ, takes a huge amount of time and patience.  It requires building the trust that lets an INFJ not mirror you.  That’s hard…and even with that trust, instinct often prevails.

If you read online descriptions of the INFJ personality type, you’ll hear that INFJs are strongly principled, and that we will defend those ideals, even if it offends.  That’s true – because we know what we believe. Sometimes we lose track of who we are or what we want.  Those things are laden with sensory details that often stream by us or get lost in the noise of expectation and action.  But beliefs?  Those are ideals, something that remains monolithic in the flow of interactions. In a moment of interaction, we may not be able to express who we are or what we want, but, damnit.  We know what we believe.  Those beliefs, with their certainty, are often what we cling to as a way to define ourselves.  We know they’re ours.  They’re not mirrored; they’re determined by gut intuition and refined by self-critical, questioning Introverted Thinking.  We know our beliefs, and in a way we associate them with our identity.  If you challenge those beliefs…you’ve challenged us, who we are, what we know, and you will meet resistance.

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INFJ Mirroring (pt 1)

I hate the image of INFJs that is frequently presented online.  If one was to read personality site descriptions, the general impression is that the INFJ is a psychic empath with the power to change the world who walks on water and understands the mysteries of the universe while maintaining a breathtaking balance of strength and fragility that defies understanding.

Um.  *cough* Bullshit.  

That drivel is written either by people who don’t understand INFJs or by INFJs who need their ego stroked. I wish they’d go found a cult or something because they really give the wrong impression…and they fuel the tidal wave of people who took a quick online test, came out (incorrectly) INFJ, and now think they’re Jesus on a luck dragon.  

In a way, I understand where the myth comes from, but it’s really misunderstood.  Empaths?  Hell. No. INFJs are just really good at knowing what people want to see, need to see, and showing exactly that.  There’s a term for it – it’s called INFJ Mirroring.

In order to understand what’s really going on, you have to understand the IN*J function stack.  For an IN*J the instinctive, easiest way of dealing with the world is through Introverted Intuition.  So we make intuitive leaps…we just “get” stuff.  But that’s not all there is to it. The thing that makes IN*Js look “magical” to others is the fact that our last function is Extroverted Sensing.  We are constantly taking in the world around us, picking up details, stimuli…we just don’t realize we’re doing it.  When you feed that stream of sensory data into the world filter of Introverted Intuition, we use all of that info to fuel those leaps.  We look as if we’re telepathic.  Really, we’re just oblivious to the massive amounts of data our brain is using to “get” stuff through deduction.  

For INFJs, that ability to just seem to get stuff is compounded by the Extroverted Feeling that’s our secondary function – the second most important part of dealing with our world.  We make those intuitive leaps…and we apply them to emotional and social contexts.  That means that when we’re talking to you – whether “you” is an individual or an audience – we intuitively sense what you want and expect…and we give it to you.

That’s mirroring. It’s this subconscious feedback loop that picks up on all the little social cues in an interaction, matches them to what we know about social norms and contexts, and then responds in the way the audience wants.  It comes out as warmth, social connection, empathy.  

Most often, it’s not. Yeah, I know…I just pissed of a lot of INFJs.  But really, we’re not always that empathetic, especially as we mature.  INFJs tend to be very private and very intense.  We have a surface connection, a basic empathy, sure.  But most of that is the result of mirroring what you need. We protect the really sensitive, emotional core of connection, reserving it for the few people we let in. The rest of it is a lot of instinct and a little emotion.

That ability to mirror is powerful, and it can be used.  When you have a knack for showing people what they want to see, everyone has a different image of who you are – an image that frequently resembles their idea of themselves. Year in and year out, I have students and administrators who think they’re my dear friends.  They tell me that we’re “just alike.” Or, my favorite among older faculty and administrators, that I remind them “of a younger version of myself.”  Actually, they’re just seeing me instinctively mirror them; they see surprisingly little of me.  Do I let them remain under the impression that they know me?  Of course.  

INFJs aren’t psychic or empathic.  They’re just good at mirroring.  And, of course, depending on upbringing and environmental factors, they can be really…really…really good at mirroring.  Yes, mirroring is exhausting, even when you’re doing it instinctively.  It contributes to social burnout and makes the INFJ need to escape from interactions with others.  But when you’re in the midst of it?  In the moment?  You know how to create the needed connections; you get caught up in the reflection, and quite frequently, you totally empathize.  Until the mirror falls empty again.

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The Door Slam (INFJ)

There’s this thing called the “INFJ Door Slam.”  People talk about it.  Other personality types trash it, but few people try to explain it in simple terms.  It’s different for everyone, no doubt, but in simple terms...

The INFJ door slam is what happens when we are burned out by unresolved emotions, so we resolve the issue by deciding that the relationship is over.

INFJs are deeply emotional creatures.  We don’t feel as much as it looks like we do (that’s mirroring, which is a whole other topic), but when we feel...we feel deeply and fully.  That means that we burn out.  If we are emotionally toyed with, abused, or overloaded, and there is no end to the emotional assault in sight, we have to do something.  Unlike some other types, we cannot simply live with or ignore that emotional onslaught.  We crave resolution.  If we cannot get it - whether it is denied or the situation is just ignored - we resolve it ourselves.  Frequently, we resolve it by ending the emotional ties that overloaded us in the first place.  The INFJ door slam is not some abusive act of anger.  It is not an act of revenge.  It is an act of self preservation, and once those emotional ties are severed, it is almost impossible to re-attach them.  

If your INFJ is angry or crying, things can be repaired.  If they’re cool-ly friendly and ambivalent...you may have a door slam problem. 

--Wendy Neeld (Please credit if you re-post)