MBTI resorting: INFJ to INTP to ENTP&Autism Talk
How I went from INFJ to INTP: another blog post here. Basically, when I took the MBTI test for the first time, I was with poor health and I don't think I portrayed myself accurately. It became a more relevant issue when I saw how my mother is a textbook INFJ and she does not entertain the thought of debating, at all. Which is my life. So, I saw there was a big problem going on; INFJ, really? I took another test and it said no.
The new diagnosis, INTP, did make sense. It ticked all the boxes. I saw a few Frank James videos AND other content creators from the internet poking fun at INTPs and I had to admit, it did strike a point. On the other hand, today, I stumbled upon a video that made me pause.
Am I extroverted or introverted?
I do have many symptoms of introversion, and yet.
Yet.
I'll hand you the video so you tell me, which one do you think I am?
Yes. Without a doubt, the person who can't stop talking. I've bothered my family too much doing this and they all agree with my point (edit: which was explained exactly as in this video... my bad). In the history of my life, I'm guessing this (me suffering because of another's endless talk) happened only twice, truly. The other times I was gathering information about people so I could pinpoint if we could make good friends. So I let myself suffer through their endless talking, but it had a good reason. So, I don't really think it counts as Introversion/the guy with the glasses.
Yes, it does make me sound like an odd person, but hear me out.
As you have of course concluded, I'm dangerously autistic. Autistic because I've formally been diagnosed as so. Dangerously because it makes this appear more dramatic and humorous, even though you'll probably not agree.
I was the six year old who only wanted to make friends. It literally was my only wish. I couldn't, because I just could never understand their social clues. It ended with me being an adult obsessed with social clues to a point that I became quite neurotic about myself and my relationships. I had to always beware the tiniest quirk of another's lips, trying to ascertain if I was on a tight spot with them due to anything I had just said or implied unknowingly. Maddening.
With autism acceptance came also acceptance of me not being perfect, and not needing to make everybody else feel good all the time. I think I've suceeded in throwing my previous people pleasing obsession out the window. But.
But this made me notice something I had not noticed about myself until now, until this very video. My six year old self was... extroverted. Sunny. Disturbingly so. I'd strike conversations with basically anyone. I lived for the debate, the pointing out of different ideas, the penetration into the depths of another persons' heart and mind. F cking mental, of course. I guess my major hyperfocus as an autistic specimen has been on the human mind, most specifically, on people's creeds.
Of course, that is f cking weird. My devotion was mistaken as psychopathy, my nonchalance as coldness, and my lack of self-awareness and lack of the right words made me say hurtful things to others that I honestly hadn't even imagined as such. Thus, me closing off to others. Thus, me only approaching people when I had something to say to them and that I was sure would not be taken badly. And of course, me being shunned and ignored did not contribute to increasing amounts of careless and mindless socialization (I = introverted conclusion began). I wish I could just do what everybody does with others, but I care too much about strangers to do that.
So. An autistic extrovert. Wow. Macabre. And beautiful, frankly. If only I'd just let it flourish out of myself again, this deep love of a human's 'soul', and not let it wither like I've been doing all my life. Decades. Decades taken by rot. I'm grabbing a cloth to clean it all up, and more Frank James' videos won't bother anyone, as well.
This Frank James' video is also me, I've actually thought/acted like 90% of this:
On another thought...
It makes what I've been feeling these past few months make sense. So, if you haven't read it before, I've been using tumblr as a way to show my journey in writing a historical gay romance I'm calling C&D at the moment. C. is INFJ, and D. is ESTP. I thought writing D. would be harder because, frankly, he's... extroverted. And 'I'm of course not one of those'. But the more I wrote, around the 50th chapter or so, I realized that the character I related the most was D., without a doubt. This was before me discovering I wasn't INFJ to start with, as well. I found that so peculiar... I thought, maybe I'm messing it all up and C=INFJ and D=ESTP isn't valid anymore?
Turns out, I was just relating more to the experience of being out and about as an extrovert, one that wasn't forced into their own insides with the pitchforks of another's hatred. Curious.
I always try to not make characters=me... but I did do a self-insert in the second book I wrote (which will never be formally published). My favorite approach is making every character a combination of me+something I learned with other people+something unique I saw in someone I love/loved+something special I saw in a book/inspiration/movie/art/music. So each character is a complex shawl of different emotions, colors and textures. And, frankly, I also learn about them while writing them. (Sometimes they even decide stuff I had never seen coming!)
Maybe this is why writing is such a healing hobby for me. It's like I finally have people that have to listen to my rants, theories and my harborings of opposite and lethal views, without fleeing or ghosting or anything. On the contrary, I can actually produce something that contributes to the world. That gives a new viewpoint, another gem through which the world shines brighter.
(I'm totally imagining it being another gem in Smaug's den, cue the Hobbit.)
Excuse all this talk, I'm old and hopeful, which appears to be the most lethal combination of myself as of yet.
More video candies:
The 2nd statement in this video is spot on, and something I was struggling with this very day. Like, I wish I'd make C&D WAAAY better. More historical tidbits, more scenes, seamless progression of feelings (it's a romance), and, well, perfect. But perfect it can never be. I'm realizing it now. I can launch it as the imperfect thing it's or I'll never lauch it. Just like my first book was bullsh... but at least I finished it.
One can never be enough. One can always be enough.
Two opposing thoughts that can mean the same and mean the world.
I should probably go back to the emotional scene I'm avoiding writing now, if you hadn't already intuited by the lenght of this post.
──★ ˙ ̟🐇 !!
(PS: who created a hashtag that's just #entp things???? That's so on brand)
