fourwingfries

[fourwingfries]

A thing to clarify on behalf of what i posted: you do not owe a constructive honest communication “to everyone” by some universal default mode of whatever.  It is only a necessary part of an interaction that you have already decided is worth putting effort and mental, emotional and physical resources in. Honest communication is a secondary tool that can only be used for good if it’s first decided that someone actually wants to keep a connection. You do not owe emotional honesty to random people in the street, or people who you have decided are not worth your time. It is often a given assumption however, that parents and children want to preserve and strengthen their bond because of the glorification around parental bond, how it’s the first intimate bond you know, etc. But it’s an assumption, and i think you already answered yourself by stating how an annoying abusive parent is not worth your time and effort. PS: i’m curious why did you assume it’s the child that has to step up and communicate honestly. Quite the contrary in fact - children and young adults are often not equipped with the emotional grace and knowledge it takes to navigate conflicts in which there’s a clear power imbalance. Parents hold a lot of non-negotiable power over their children and nobody is to question  it - therefore it’s actually them who has the full responsibility of cultivating and reinforcing a safe space for honesty, constructive criticism and healthy communication. The child in this comic actually has no responsibility in protecting the adult from their emotions, or be the brave one who brings up the vulnerable discussion.

[fourwingfries]

Protecting people from the real consequences of their actions infantalizes them and gives them the wrong idea about how the world works. It doesn't matter who these people are, your parents, your sisters and brothers, your coworkers, your friends - we actually owe it to our loved ones and the people close us honest feedback that gives them a choice to adjust, no matter how much it might hurt to recieve that feedback right now. We also are owed honest feedback when we dont get something right and have to face the consequences of it. Society is not made of children, we're fucking adults regardless of getting to live a fulfilling childhood or not. And part of adulthood is understanding that your actions have consequences and you're the one paying for them.

Stop cultivating a culture of shallow short-term comforts thar hurt you the same way in your 70s as they did in your 20s. You're gonna regret not being honest when you're 70 and you want to create intimacy and belong but it feels too late to bring up such heavy subjects and start to feel the guilt and shame set in. Your short term forgivenesses wont look good in 20 years.

[fourwingfries]

x

[fourwingfries]

Some things to clarify here:

-SX is naturally attracted to extreme contrast, not just contrast. If the SX user is rough, they dont crave a soft partner, they crave an extremely soft partner. Everyday Sx-blinds are not extreme people often, if there's an extreme they might become it's "extremely unhealthy", because everything good about sx-blinds happens in balance. Everyday sx-blinds are not "extremely" anything, and they dont find it comfortable to be that either. Meanwhile, SX variants have the capacity to be in control in their extremism. A SX variant can become incredibly soft, incredibly rough, borderline dangerous, etc and still be in control of the dynamic. It's not that SX variants are not attracted to softness, fuck yes some are. It's that sx-blinds are not even that soft, they're somewhere in the middle most of the time. And middle is comfortable and lovely but it's not exhilarating or exciting.

- SX is an extremely fluid experience, it can even change within minutes, and sx-blinds generally are far more rooted and still in their emotional equilibrium to be able to keep up with the constant shifts of a sx variant's emotional landscape. One moment you need your partner to be the ultimate sappy soft love bird and the next you need them to choke you into the mattress like they dont plan on seeing your face ever again, the emotional needs and wants of a SX variant are constantly changing, it requires an extreme level of adaptability to keep up with this. And sx-blinds often find this kind of adaptability very exhausting.

can SX users have crushes on people who are SX-blind? i know that sounds stupid but lots of SX-users on here have said that they’ve never vibed with or felt a strong connection with an SX-blind lmao

and

that would imply the respective sx-user is smart and rational and does not want to feel pain

unfortunately sx-users are usually both sadist and masochist at the same time.

like i said, it's not like those “sx-user+sx-blind” constellations -never- happen. but sx needs drama and adrenaline to survive and it needs to be provided by something in their life, be it a relationship or their job or whatever.

[fourwingfries]

To be honest it REALLY starts to show when the SX variants, specifically SX-doms get stressed or hit some sort of crisis. SX variants start doubling down on "MAKE ME THE ONLY PRIORITY" and sx-blinds only have two sets of priority: in the larger framework it's societal ideals and aspirations (or at least a form of reaction to those, even if it's defiance) and in the smaller framework it's everything that concerns self. They have no option for "i have a focused priority but it's someone else". And that will feel like death to a SX variant.

Also SX variants look for radically different things in relationships than SX blinds. Sx blinds cultivate comfort and balance. SX variants look for relationships as a step for transcendence and altering experiences.

That anon asking about sx relationships, idk in my personal experience it’s just sx-blind doesn’t ‘sting’ the way I want it to. It should hurt so good. Two of my best friends are married sp/so and so/sp, and their relationship is sweet, healthy and solid, but there’s a settled nature about it that I’m super weary of for myself. There’s no bite in their bark, no sting in their kiss. Idk how to describe it.

yes!! [sx voice] if it’s not feeling like a wolf is closing its teeth around your neck it’s not true love.

absolutely valid points. sx is possessive by nature and the most effective way to offend it is not prioritizing the sx-user and being equally nice to everyone.

to be fair i’ve seen a few wholesome relationships of that kind because instincts are just one part of the equation. but -if- there are issues then you know what the culprit is

[fourwingfries]

Image description: screenshot of a Tweet saying -

“High functioning” is used to deny support.

“Low functioning” is used to deny agency.

[fourwingfries]

Sleeping in the closet with your monster is a power move.

[fourwingfries]

Something really, really important to remember is that you don't get healthier, you don't integrate, by rejecting yourself.

By that I mean, mbti/enneagram health comes from embracing the healthy side of yourself. Let's put this into more easy terms: you make yourself more unhealthy by rejecting the aspects of your core while trying to embrace your integration line. As a 9, rejecting peace, acceptance, etc, always trying to be assertive, ends up backfiring, and might actually make you disintegrate. If I want to integrate, I have to embrace my healthy 9 qualities -- acceptance of situations, in "this is what is happening right now -- what can I do here?"-- that is integration behavior. It simultaneously embraces the 9's strength of acceptance and peace with what is, while combating gut-based resistance to reality.

This can apply to any type. If 8 wishes to be a protector, ideally, they will be kind to those they're protecting -> int to 2. 4s, "This is what I'm feeling, how can I act on it?) -> 4 goes to 1. 2s, if they want to keep taking care of people, must take time for themselves and realize they don't have to work so hard to be special to people -> 2 goes to 4. And so on.

TL;DR: you don't get healthier by trying to reject your core or fixes -- you get healthier by embracing the healthy parts of them. By becoming yourself.

[fourwingfries]

from “ask polly: why should i keep going?”

[fourwingfries]

Notes about self-typing.

I don't see enough people talking about this, but these points have been crucial in my own journey of self-typing and typing others, so here we go. Before you type yourself, consider:

The degree of stress you're under right now: Stress greatly influences how you view yourself, or if you have enough objective self knowledge to have an honest assessment of your own type. While a normal amount of stress brings people into their strengths, continued stress actually pushes you into the worse parts of your personality, and this experience can last anywhere from a few hours to (in borderline-traumatic cases) decades. And it's not an objective assessment of your type if it is only decided based on how you are at your worst. your type is a mixture of your general thought process, your worse tendencies, AND your better choices.

Possible general or trauma-induced dissociation: A lot of people have a general tendency to dissociate for internal or environmental reasons. it's WAY more common than we think, and it happens in varying degrees of "this trait upsets me so i pretend i don't have it/this trait makes me happy so i own it as a defining part of my personality" to "i do things that enrage and/or surprise me, i don't know where these thoughts and behaviors come from, and i'm helpless in controlling them so in my good days i pretend that they don't exist and get shocked/upset when people point them out to me" cases, counting out DID since that one is the obvious case. People tend to have more dissociation towards the parts of their psyche that resides in the [MBTI] tertiary and inferior functions, or the [instinctual variants] blindspot, oooor [in an enneagram sense] the parts of us that keep us from achieving the ideal image we aspire to have, but this isn't always the case. And to have an honest view of yourself, you have to keep in mind that at all times you're a little, or a lot, dissociating from parts of you that is unpleasant/scary/sad to think about, and that it's not only okay, but necessary to be open to feedback, new experiences and new insights regarding yourself. Fear is an inseparable part of self discovery, so before trying to type yourself, you have to learn to be comfortable with fear and be able to sit with it and learn from it. You don't have to 'accept' whatever comes your way and whatever new thing you discover, but you have to be able to entertain possibilities and get comfortable with the uncertainty and complexity that comes with being a human.

Mental illness: this one kinda goes without saying, but mental illnesses of all kinds (or generally being stuck in fear responses) narrows your focus on a very limited number of mental tools you have learnt since childhood for dealing with a shit life. They make it very hard to be present to your whole personality, not what you constantly resort to in times of (perceived or real) crisis. It's not impossible to type yourself when you have mental illnesses, but it makes the process longer, and you need to have more patience and compassion towards yourself.

Your gender: It actually really fucking matters, how you're raised based on your actual or perceived gender, or even the gender your caretakers proffered you to be like. Your own personality and preferences are only a small part of the choices you make throughout your life, and another part of that process is how others react to you and the choices you might make. In some cases, even though your preferences are right there, you may make different choices because there's more reward and acceptance for that choice, even though it's not your actual preference. Or you may make choices because the consequences you'll face for not making them are so high and dont seem like they're worth it. A lot of women don't entertain the possibility of being a thinker because as women they're conditioned to think that they suck at rational decisionmaking and have a natural knack for emotions and dealing with them. As a byproduct of that conditioning, many thinker women have higher emotional awareness and are more in touch with their emotional side than men of the same type - simply because there is a lot of social shaming and pressure on women to be sympathetic and considerate and to be able to emote. A lot of feeler men actually have less healthy thought frameworks and tools around emotions then women of the same type, as society does not expect men or train them for emotional intelligence and thought frameworks generally associated with femininity and women stuff. SO blind women are often more accommodating and mindful of how they're perceived than SO blind men, SP blind men often have more attention to SP and develop more tools in dealing with SP-related works, etc etc, the list goes on forever. The thing to keep in mind is, toss out the stereotypes. Don't dismiss different possibilities simply because "you're not as emotional as the feeling type descriptions suggest" or "you're not as edgy as the SO blinds you've seen" or “you have some hobbies you love dearly so you must be a SX variant”. Different descriptions are written with the majority of that type in mind. They're ripe with stereotypes, and for a good reason. But you don't have to fit with stereotypes to be a type, you just have to share the thought process and the inherent preferences that create its mindset.

With all that said, what is the best approach to self-typing?

Observe yourself when you're in flow state. When you're content, happy, feel safe, and are surrounded with people who accept you and love you for who you are, no matter what it looks like. If you cannot find a context in which you feel like that, imagine yourself 5 years from now, in a context that gives you those feelings. What would you look like if you were surrounded by accepting, loving, sincere people who accept you no matter what and find you enough in and of yourself? imagine that scenario in full details and make note of the choices you would make in that context.

Make notes of what you have generally thought most of your life, before you had mental illness. Be open to any and all thoughts that might come up.

Learn to love yourself before you try to self-type. It's hard to type yourself correctly if you're consciously or subconsciously fighting against parts of you that you consider weak/unacceptable/not enough/boring/problematic/wrong. Be open to your own thoughts and other's feedback and before you try to decide what type you are, decide that whatever comes up is okay, is cool, is enough, and there's nothing wrong with it. Shame and judgement is the enemy of objectivity. consciously decide to accept and offer compassion  to yourself. If you cannot seem to do that, imagine an anxious dear friend of yours, and write down how you would treat them and what you would tell them. Now do those stuff for yourself to the best of your abilities, and tell those things to yourself.

Move beyond typing. Ask yourself why do you want to type yourself, what does it offer you, what purpose do you have in trying out these labels. Do not self type when you feel insecure, sad, depressed, isolated, rejected. Labels are not what you need in those moments, it's kindness and acceptance of who you are.