ISTP rant, trying to make sense of it all

[alonely]

This is probably going to sound like crazy talk for anyone who isn't into MBTI, but whatever, I'm trying to sort my thoughts out in a way that makes sense to me. If anyone has any thoughts on any of this it'd be very much appreciated, I'm so caught up in my own head.

So I'm an ISTP. Function stack Ti Se Ni Fe / shadow Te Si Ne Fi. Trying to figure out which fucking function or side of the mind has me stuck in this place where I literally cannot do anything for months on end.

I know that my Se parent is dead af right now. Completely refusing all sensory input. Won't do anything. And Se parent is supposed to protect Ni child so Ni child is definitely having a bad time. Ni child is supposed to be positive and figuring out the future and what it wants. And it makes sense that the end of my relationship killed all of Ni child's wants for the future -> kind of obvious why I'm so suicidal lately. Ni child is having a fucking bad time rn and everyone's looking at it like "so what are we gonna do" but its just a child and Se parent isn't protecting it. And it's looking at Ti hero for help and even Si critical parent and they're like, nope we dont know, everythings always been bad and logically nothing's gonna get better.

Fi demon has definitely been out, triggered by a hurt Fe inferior, in the sense of "well nobody's gonna help me or appreciate me or anything, so nothing matters, fuck all of you".

Te nemesis has been trying to help Ni child, in the sense of constantly searching the internet, but it's a double-edged sword of searching both for ctb but also for help and meaning. It has found some things that have helped a little, hell I wouldn't be on SaSu if it weren't for Te.

Ne trickster is just, irrelevant mostly. It let people take advantage of me for a long time. But now I guess it's not doing much.

So that's it, Ni child all alone trying to save everyone but just broken an no hope for the future. So I think I need to find a way to get parent Se to come back out and take over to protect Ni child so Ni child can be more safe to try to figure things out without so much weight on their shoulders. And lean on the not-completely-healthy Te for at least some support, even though it's weak and tired. At least that's a start. Then address what needs to happen to get the other functions back in place. I have no fucking idea at this point if I'm in ego, subconscious, unconscious, or superego.

How do I force Se parent back out? External sensory experiences. Eating new foods. Moving my body. Sex. Going out in the rain. Listening to music. Fuck, it's hard to do those things through extreme depression.

Will probably update in this thread as I figure out more...


Post-shower edit:
Yeah, no, this makes perfect sense. I'm in superego. Fi demon has a grip on Se parent's throat because Fi cannot take being hurt anymore, and so much of everything in the world is a trigger right now, so it won't let Se parent do anything. Prevent pain. So I'm like a very unhealthy INFP rn, with Fi having a hold on everything, Ne being weak as fuck trying to think of a million solutions paired with Te trying to search for solutions, but Ne and Te are both negative for an INFP. And Si also just trying to hide from the pain. So I need to sort out Fi's issues with being triggered. Ugh, great, weakest function. And we're a layer deeper.

 

[ApparentlyNot]

I wish I could help you, I am sorry that I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm into Jungian psychology and I dabble with the MBTI stuff too (INTP here), but I have no idea what you're talking about with the function stack stuff, I am not familar with all this Fi demon and Ni Child stuff, but it sounds very interesting. I hope that doesn't offend you, as I'm sure it's a little annoying for, after a long analysis of your psychological state and personality type, to respond with "sounds interesting." What is all this stuff.., if you don't want to answer though, I'll just use google.

 

[alonely]

I wish I could help you, I am sorry that I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm into Jungian psychology and I dabble with the MBTI stuff too (INTP here), but I have no idea what you're talking about with the function stack stuff, I am not familar with all this Fi demon and Ni Child stuff, but it sounds very interesting. I hope that doesn't offend you, as I'm sure it's a little annoying for, after a long analysis of your psychological state and personality type, to respond with "sounds interesting." What is all this stuff.., if you don't want to answer though, I'll just use google.

Thanks for showing interest at all :)

The basics of what I'm talking about are cognitive functions, which is just a different way of looking at the letter combination. There are 8 cognitive functions, and we use all of them, but 4 make up your main function stack.

The 8 functions are made up of 4 main ideas, each of which can be either the "introverted" or "extroverted" versions, which is the small letter:
Thinking, Ti and Te
Feeling, Fi and Fe
Sensing, Si and Se
Intuition, Ni and Ne

If you're an INTP, then your funtion stack in order is Ti Ne Si Fe

If youre interested I can find and link some of the basics, but yeah thats the general idea but it can also get wayyy in-depth

 

[ApparentlyNot]

Thanks for showing interest at all :)

The basics of what I'm talking about are cognitive functions, which is just a different way of looking at the letter combination. There are 8 cognitive functions, and we use all of them, but 4 make up your main function stack.

The 8 functions are made up of 4 main ideas, each of which can be either the "introverted" or "extroverted" versions, which is the small letter:
Thinking, Ti and Te
Feeling, Fi and Fe
Sensing, Si and Se
Intuition, Ni and Ne

If you're an INTP, then your funtion stack in order is Ti Ne Si Fe

If youre interested I can find and link some of the basics, but yeah thats the general idea but it can also get wayyy in-depth

Yeah, if you have any links that you find specifically useful, I'd love you to send em my way. I'm specifically interested in how it ties into all these archetypes you mentioned along with the 4 "categories" - for example: child, parent, hero, trickster, demon. I am also curious how the Function Stack differs from the MBTI dichotomies. In general, I think it's cool that you're actually using this stuff practically to help analyze your psychological state and potentially treat it. I could never lol!

 

[alonely]

Yeah, if you have any links that you find specifically useful, I'd love you to send em my way. I'm specifically interested in how it ties into all these archetypes you mentioned along with the 4 "categories" - for example: child, parent, hero, trickster, demon. I am also curious how the Function Stack differs from the MBTI dichotomies. In general, I think it's cool that you're actually using this stuff practically to help analyze your psychological state and potentially treat it. I could never lol!

This was the video that made the most sense to me when I started learning about the cognitive functions, I had to watch it about 10 times though lol. It also explains the connection between the traditional MBTI and the cognitive functions.

Each position in the stack has a name, and I am drawing my names mostly from how CS Joseph uses them - his content is very in-depth, wouldn't recommend to people until they have a good grasp on the ideas. But basically your 4 funtions in your main stack (in your "ego") are the Hero, Parent, Child, and Inferior - in order from your strongest to weakest functions. Then your 4 functions in your "shadow" (or "unconscious") are the remaining 4, in order again from strongest to weakest, Nemesis, Critical Parent, Trickster, and Demon. The name gives a bit of an idea of the role the function plays.

So for me for example, I have "introverted thinking (Ti) hero", "extroverted sensing (Se) parent", etc

It can be very useful and I definitely go deeper into the theory the more desperate I get to figure out my mind, prob a form of survival instinct for me.

 

[ApparentlyNot]

Well as much as I just told you that it was cool that you're using all this to work on yourself, I'll remind you that Carl Jung himself strongly advised introverted thinking types to not "overthink" things when trying to address psychological complexes and neuroses. Perhaps the best thing you can do is spend time out in the extroverted world, away from the same psyche that led you to this place. He essentially said "your psyche caused the issue, why are you looking to it for the solution" - but he said it much smarter than that I'm sure haha.

Thank you for the resources. I'm really interested in learning more about this topic.

 

[alonely]

Well as much as I just told you that it was cool that you're using all this to work on yourself, I'll remind you that Carl Jung himself strongly advised introverted thinking types to not "overthink" things when trying to address psychological complexes and neuroses. Perhaps the best thing you can do is spend time out in the extroverted world, away from the same psyche that led you to this place. He essentially said "your psyche caused the issue, why are you looking to it for the solution" - but he said it much smarter than that I'm sure haha.

Thank you for the resources. I'm really interested in learning more about this topic.

Very good point and thank you for the reminder. Interestingly I recently came across that same idea while reading about Frankl's work in Logotherapy, Dereflexion. (ironically somehow i got here from googling "whats the point of life" or something)

"Instinctive, automatic processes are impeded and hindered by exaggerated self-observation. By the same token, some mild and well-founded sensations of anxiousness or sadness will be increased and amplified by self-observation, making them more noticeable and engendering even more intense observation."

had to go through all of this mental turmoil just to realize all i needed to do was go outside and touch some grass smh lol

 

[ApparentlyNot]

had to go through all of this mental turmoil just to realize all i needed to do was go outside and touch some grass smh lol

Haha that genuinely made me laugh.

"We just gotta touch some grass man..." -Viktor Frankl