being understood

Date: 05 February 2010 23:01:19

Just been out for a run. Feel a bit better.

INFPs tend to feel incomplete - we are known for our continual search for those who will understand us. Although I recognised long ago that being perfectly understood is a largely mythical goal, that doesn't save me from the feeling of incompleteness, because it's not something rational. And it probably won't matter what happens, I'll keep looking.

It's not as bad as it was in my teens. For one thing I don't have the pressure of testosterone driving me to find someone to bed (because I've found someone, thank you very much). I can't tell you how much that further confused an already baffling issue, although if you've experienced adolescence as a biological male I suspect you know what I'm talking about.

But it does get tangled up with depression and create a horrible snare into which I fall again and again. I end up pretending to be something I'm not, for all sorts of reasons of social awkwardness, and nobody can understand you if you're pretending to be something else. It's hopeless.

I mentioned in an earlier comment that I once dreamed I met my guardian angel, and she looked and behaved pretty much like Calamity Jane from the film - eager, excitable, encouraging, irrepressible and energetic. Well, I have been thinking about it, and not to put to fine a point on it, I think I misinterpreted the issue. This was a straightforward projection of my anima - she's not my guardian angel, she's me.

If I'm ever going to relax enough to find the right people, I'm going to have to confront her. I probably need to let her out. The way she behaved is very close to the way I behave when I'm entirely relaxed, which isn't often. Almost everybody gets presented with something else, I suspect only my family really ever see her. It. Me.

I have literally no idea where to go from here, and I would like to be understood and hugged. I cannot get both from the same people.

night night x