Today on: INFP or ADHD?
Perspective taking
I get weekly bonus traits from Genomelink, and this week's trait is as follows:
I find this to be accurate to me. I can see things from others' viewpoints, but that's a skill I had to learn. It does not come naturally to me. So I have to consciously remind myself to slow down and listen, and try to understand where the other person is coming from.
Believe it or not, that is an Fi thing (ftr, I call it "eff-aye," not "fie" or "fee").
Or possibly a neurodivergent thing.
Let me explain...
Fi is kind of self-centered.
Introverted Feeling (Fi) is an analytical function, but what it analyzes are emotions and emotional experiences. Especially in the user. It is the idealism function and has its own idea of how the world should be. It is the moral core function. It is the function that makes the user adhere firmly and stubbornly to their own identity. It does not like compromise, especially on what it perceives to be a moral issue. The Fi-dom in particular has their worldview set in stone by a certain age and they'll be darned if they so much as entertain someone else's. This is why we're kind of easy to offend. Pick on us directly and we'll take it because we value harmony and being able to control our own emotions (we save them for when we want to write you as a character in our stories and then brutally kill that character off). But attack some person, ideal or issue near and dear to our hearts and we'll fly off the handle. And often it does not matter whether that attack is coming from pain or how calm and respectful your argument is. All we see is the attack itself and we lash out. We have to learn not to do this.
Contrast Ti, which is analytical on all fronts and will take an interest in other perspectives purely because they exist. Or Fe, which hears out the other side because it literally cannot do anything else. As the empath function, it feels what the other person is feeling the moment the user is in close proximity to the other person. And it seeks to know more about the source of that feeling so that it can manipulate it to its advantage (Fe can be devious). So for Fe/Ti users, perspective taking comes as naturally as breathing.
So the fact that perspective taking is not an inborn skill for me is definitely the result of my dominant Fi. Unless it's actually the result of ADHD. Because...
ADHD has rejection and anger management issues.
People with ADHD tend to have short tempers compared to neurotypicals. This is because the ADHD brain can be overwhelmed with too much information due to limited working memory (the RAM of the brain) and a deficit in the hormone dopamine which is required to motivate the brain to get to work processing information. This causes the individual to lash out in an attempt to get the flow of information to slow down, organize itself or cease altogether. People with ADHD also internalize all kinds of negative messages about themselves, and that can cause outbursts of anger. When you're angry and overwhelmed with information that you physically cannot process properly, you tend not to listen to people around you. Even if you could focus on what they're saying, you're not going to really hear them when your working memory is overloaded.
ADHD also causes rejection sensitivity. This can create problems in an argument. A person with ADHD can do just fine in a civilized debate. But if the debate becomes a heated argument, ADHD starts to get in the way. The opponent starts to take offense and go on the attack, and that's a clear case of rejection of the other person's viewpoint. This can cause the person with ADHD to either respond in kind and escalate the conflict, or shut down altogether and walk away. Neither response allows the person to hear their opponent's perspective. And it can permanently damage the relationship, as the person with ADHD will often try to avoid the person who rejected their viewpoint so as to avoid a similar conflict.
Undiagnosed neurodivergent people can sometimes be clued into their condition by their inability to consistently practice perception taking. Even if it's a skill they've worked hard to learn, the fact that they still fail at it sometimes can indicate that there's something going on upstairs that's a little more beyond their control than they realize. There may be an underlying cause to your inability to see through another's eyes, and it's not because of some personality flaw.
What do you think? INFP or ADHD?
For my part, I think both my dominant Fi and my ADHD are contributing factors in having to learn and actively practice perspective taking rather than coming by it naturally. I have learned how to do it, and yet I still struggle sometimes to do it when I'm blinded by anger. It's a trap anyone can fall into, but it's definitely something I think the Fi user with ADHD is the most prone to.
