Does such a thing exist?

Can an ENFP muster up hatred towards mankind, or apathy? What happens to the ENFP personality if it is abused from childhood?

 

I'm asking very tentatively, and please excuse if such things have been covered elsewhere, at a glance I saw nothing. I'm just very curious. I'm wondering if it's possible to be withdrawn, distrustful, suspicious, aloof... crave solitude... and yet be an ENFP.

Hi Love of Reason, good to have you back.

If an ENFP was abused or hurt from the world sure. If out Fi is violated to much, sure. But we enjoy people.

I don't know an ENFP abused in childhood so I don't know how they would react. I'm sure a traumatized ENFP would react cautiously as anyone one else

Heh, sorry for the double post, just wanted to edit the one above but hadn't noticed I'd hit the quote button instead of edit. >.>

Mods please delete at will!

Posted By loveofreason on 19 Feb 2010 10:28 PM

Ah... ty ^^

To, umm... probe deeper - what does it feel like?

Your inclination is to be open to others... to engage with them and trust them, and actualise their potential? ('k, I haven't studied my victims here in depth, so maybe I'll be inaccurate....) So what happens when that expansive drive is throttled by negative experience, trauma, social aversion?

Can an ENFP retain their humanitarian drive yet lose their personal enjoyment of humans? (Care to describe the term 'enjoy people'?)

What does an ENFP in such a state feel, how do they behave, what happens internally?

Maybe I should include depression in the range of experience, not just trauma, betrayal or abuse... anyone here experienced prolonged depression - if so, what happened to the psyche?

Did any of you, figuratively, forget how to breathe?

 

Hm.. that happened to me. As a child I considered everybody friend... then I lost trust in people, I dont remember what happened.... but I did.
I am still positive about people but once I become personally involved with them it gets harder
 

 

-nod- There are just moments when you suddenly feel like all of the people around you are against you, like they're either faking friendship or you somehow ruined things by just being yourself. Almost every sleepover I attended with more than 2 other girls ended with me crying in the bathroom. I wanted, craved approval....but I'd always end up throwing myself into crazy performances that I couldn't seem to stop. Then I'd get angry or upset and just want to be left alone. Eventually, I was contemptuous of anyone who didn't like me...I blamed them and snubbed them before they could do or say anything to hurt me. I was far more comfortable with those younger than me - and in turn, those younger than me enjoyed my company, which made me more fun to be around. No one in my class was in drama until senior year, so I wasn't forced to endure them and was more relaxed and had fun in plays and musicals....and I started taking Spanish class junior year so that I was in class with younger kids. Most of the classes I picked were the ones I wouldn't be stuck with my own age group....and if I was, they were the ones I could get along with.

Gonna toss in a random metaphor here....another one about ENFPs being puppies. The class that graduated the year before mine gave our history teacher a puppy at graduation since her dog had just died. It was this little fluffball with lots of energy, and she let him run around the classroom while she taught. Most of the kids were pretty nice to him, pet him as he walked by....some got up in his space and made faces and loud, annoying sounds...and some stomped at him and were almost abusive. My dog died that year...the day before my birthday....and history class was the last one I had. During class, the teacher let me hold the puppy on my lap and pet him....and he'd fall asleep. >.> That dog got soooooooooo crazy as he got older. He turned into the biggest spazz ever. His eyes were even all wide and insane. He'd wind his leash around anything and everything. He'd randomly bark at nothing. He'd sidle away from anyone who tried to touch him. >.> But he'd still fall asleep on my lap.

Point: enough bad experience made him mistrustful and antsy, sending his energy level up to the extreme....because he wanted attention, but he didn't want to be touched. However, good intentions and kindness still could be recognized and appreciated. ENFPs are the same way. It makes us uncomfortable and not ourselves to be anti-social....so we'll find a way to get the good kind of interaction we crave. We can recognize genuine kindness.

I'm not ENFP but ill try and relate what i observed in an ENFP who was sexually abused in middle school then forced to live in the home with her abuser.

She would run away, use controlled substances to an excess, and slept with many guys. I think she slept with so many guys because it made the abuse less important. She had a million friends but was afraid to trust any of them. The moment a guy showed any emotional interest in her she would hurt him and replace him. It took her until her mid twenties to learn to trust people again. I think though she will always hold doubts about everyone.

Belated thanks for the replies... though I admit I'm still ...umm... largely unenlightened?

Actually, no. The personal accounts were really very enlightening, in what they were and not what they said. I hope I'm not devalueing psychological/emotional pain or our responses to such by saying so - but they seem universal. Heh - you're all people smart - any one of you could prolly have told me to expect that. It was the approach to answering the question that showed me the difference between types.

I had thought there may have been a distinctly different pattern in the way misanthropy manifests - assuming that I am in fact an INTP... of course I can't assume anything from such a few accounts, but I can be a little more confident that I'm not in fact an ENFP gone wrong. My wandering mind anticipates theories based upon behaviour and conjecture/possibilities - personal stories give rise to discomfort.

Oddly, the same information packaged impersonally and non-specifically, can be a source of fascination.

lor!

I thought I saw you poking around here recently.

Is it by chance, an accident that this comes in the wake of the "not knowing what you're feeling" thread?

Yes. Definitely.

Misanthropic tendencies:

Ne paranoia, detachment, hopelessness, vigilante fantasies, secretive nature, ocd/anxiety, militant, black and white thinking, addictive personality, emotionally unavailable, distrustful of people (keeping them at arm's length).

 

I just came across this one. I will try and tell you how things are for me. I'm an ENFP according to tests. I also fall into the category of very early childhood trauma, about 2 or 3 years old.

I do see in terms of "black and white", or right and wrong. I do not see areas in between. I do try and understand why people act or do the things they do, in terms of black and white. I search for my answers internally in that framework. I think this is because of the trauma at such a early age. When you see the negatives that some people are capable of, that young. I think the brain changes. My brain doesnt as much believe true what people say, as it now seeks truth in what I can see around me, what is directly observable. I think for me this is also the reason I am keen as to what the persons meaning is underneath what they are saying. Although my connect-the-dots conclusion is not always correct.

Do I have anger or hatred towards my fellow Hominidae, absolutely not. Apathy, probably a little. But I think it stems from the fact that I see the world entirely different than the majority of society. Its sad for me how much humans have forgotten their true place in the circle of life. Its sad for me to see how much we are destroying this planet around us. - This doesn't make me angry towards people but you sit back sometimes and wish people could see things the way you do. The good thing about being an ENFP is I can relate that information to other people in an articulate and understandable form. My goal is to educate people in an intelligent way. People don't listen if you are always angry and yelling. They shut down.

I'm absolutely an extrovert. I have been since as long as I can remember. Granted I'm only 26. I like talking and interacting with people. When I was a little kid people used to get mad at me because I asked so many questions. I was a curious kid. I think Humans are still social beings. Whether we lock ourselves inside and ignore it, become depressed. I think that's dependent on the person.

Ahh, and were back to trust. For me there are different layers. It just depends how close I want to let people get. In general terms of society, or someone I would meet off the street. Talking to them doesn't require that I trust them. Normal chitchat with the average joe usually isn't heavily dependent on trust. For close friends it would be different and some level of trust is necessary. But complete trust is still not necessary except for maybe a very very close friend, or best friend. Even then, do your guys friends know everything about you? Your entire past? A lover is usually where complete trust is necessary, and this is where I have trouble. Someone said that once people get too close you push them away. I know this is somewhat true for me. I push away the ones I can trust, to replace with people that probably shouldn't be. Don't entirely know why, other than it is maybe a protection mechanism. If I keep pushing away the people I can trust, then I never have to worry about truly letting someone in. - This is the only rational reason I think I do it, but I really don't know why.

I hope this provides some insight.

Has anyone here ever sat back and thought about why humans are so unhappy as collective? Why such a huge percentage of the world population is on medication now for conditions that didn't even exist 20 years ago? Why cancer, strokes, heart attack rates have skyrocketed over the last 50 years?

Fact alert: The people in our US prison system. Whether what they did was right or wrong, as a group, have a higher average IQ than society in general.

There are some intelligent enfp people here. Think about for a little bit. See what connections you can come up with.

d'you have a source for any of that, by any chance? I've never heard any of that before. Well, medication for conditions that weren't recognized (I won't say 'didn't exist', but I do think we over-medicate) I would believe... but, for instance, about criminals being smarter on average?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20820997/Why-Intelligent-People-Tend-to-Be-Unhappy-full-version

You can probably find more than that.

wait... what? The second paragraph down says: "I will base the following speculation on both my personal and my professional experience as a sociologist. Not enough study exists to quote on the subject."

Also: I was most curious about prisoners having a higher average iq than the rest of society? The conditions that "didn't exist" is shaky because medicine is advancing. "It's a shame that person died" is now "luckily, penicillin cured that person's pneumonia so they didn't die." People may be over-medicated (in fact, I think they are), but it's also easy to argue that our awareness of diseases is just increasing. Likewise with cancer, strokes, and heart attacks increasing. Information travels faster now than it did 50 years ago, so it's quite possible that we just hear about every little natural disaster/heart attack/cancer/whatever-crisis-it-is more today than they would have before. As for people being unhappy, I'm pretty sure that's been true for a looooooong time.

The one that's very easily measurable, though, is the prisoner IQ. IQ can be found by a test, and tests can be given to lots of prisoners (iq tests are built so that 100 is the average always... so I guess giving it to society at large is unnecessary). That's easily measurable and I don't see an alternate explanation (though I'm not sure what you're getting at, with the claims you listed in that post?).

I dunno. I guess I was just curious where you were coming from and where you were going with all that, the add-on after your main post.

Posted By cryptonia on 28 Feb 2010 01:14 AM
lor!

I thought I saw you poking around here recently.

Is it by chance, an accident that this comes in the wake of the "not knowing what you're feeling" thread?

 

Accident? Chance, you say? Nay! Synchronicity!!!

(:phear: Where is this thread of which you speak?)

 

I'll return to the discussion - must sleep.

It was lurking in the section below this one.

http://www.enfpforum.com/Home/tabid/55/aff/1/aft/673/afv/topic/Default.aspx