INTJ – Self Control and Emotional Infliction

As a fellow INTJ, I highly value my self-control and willpower. On the scale of 1 (no control) – 10 (complete control); I would rank myself a 9 out of 10.

Self-control is needed all the time, to name a few:

• Control of their life – this is a very important example, if we lose control of our life then the following examples spirals out of control;
• Control their impulsiveness- buying products without consulting our brain and bank account regarding whether we ‘Need’ or ‘Want’ that item;
• Restrain from addiction – addicting to chocolate, coffee, tea, nicotine, helium, drugs;
• Restrain from bad habits – binge eating, binge drinking;
• Psychological control – rationality, morality.

An INTJ without control – especially over their own life; can overtime render them lethargic, uninspired, suffocated, confused and pissed off. When INTJs get pissed off, they would hate themselves for not being able to contain their emotions. An INTJ without control makes them feel powerless; thus they would end up questioning their life and everything about themselves too.

When we lack directions in our life, we find it hard to distinguish what we really want out of life and who we are, who we should be verses who we want to be – what am I doing? where am I going? what are my hobbies? interests? passion? where is my social life? where are my friends? why am I alone? why do no one understand me?

Without control of our life, our self-control are out of the window – we end up wanting to just disappear.

Many INTJs have their weaknesses when it comes to being in control of their actions, no matter how great their willpower are – we are all humans after all…sadly (put your hand up if you want to be a weak weak human! :D “…not me”).

 

From this point on, I can only talk subjectively.

I take pride in containing my impulses and addiction free lifestyle. People find me weird for not being addicted to any beverages (mainly coffee) – in my mind, I do not get addicted; but I will purposely drink, for example, Green Tea or lemon tea constantly if I am either breaking out in acne, if I ate too much junk or if I am feeling bloated (TMI?…meh). I know that I am not addicted because I do not crave these beverages and I am very aware of what I am doing – I am not on auto pilot every 30 minutes to grab that so called ‘quick fix’ as I have ulterior motives for doing what I am doing.

However, these 2 years I do binge eat or eat unhealthily now and again if my emotions are unstable. As for Psychological control – I rate myself a strong 9.

You may think that these self-control have their perks, and they do; you can be your logical self at all times, but there is a major down side. Since our self control is so high, we cannot be as spontaneous as we want to be and we do not experience things that we want to.

If ever you see an INTJs bucket list, it could look like they have a split personality; my temporary bucket list ranges from seeing the Aurora Borealis to Sky diving.

Which brings us to our self-induced emotional infliction. Yes, we do not like drama, but we voluntarily impose psychological drama on ourselves, that is, if we ever allow ourselves to do so.

Since our self-control is near perfect, there are times where we want to ‘test our limit’ – to feel human. I am not talking about thoughts of suicide or inflicting physical pain on ourselves; as stated before, it is along the lines of psychological infliction.

Personally, as examples; there are times where I want to take up smoking just to see how hard it really is to quit, it takes 30 days to make a habit and to break a habit (so I have heard). I want to conduct this ‘experiment’ to  see how strong I am – “how hard can it be to quit smoking?”. Yes, I understand that the longer you smoke the harder it is to stop – this is just a mini experiment, I am not trying to kill my brain and livers.

There are times where I want to drink myself into obliteration when I fall into some problems/ feelings etc – I wanted to be intoxicated and to be able to let go…but I could not. My self-control, my consciousness and self-respect would not let me go, my restraint is too vocal.

There are times where I have a mental ‘hit list’ where I would gladly carry out, having watched so many CSI and having studied Criminology and Law in university, I can make someones’ death look like a accident – I do not mind shaving my fingerprints off.

It makes you think though, how screwed up we would be as an individual if our self-control were nonexistent.

So, with such high control, there must be some sort of emotional infliction to counteract ourselves – with the aim to feel more human; ironic, since we pride ourselves on our robot-ism and purposely drama free life. INTJs are quite the contradiction.

If you are an INTJ, do you get any thoughts whereby you want to do something to feel human or to test just how good your self-control are?

Non-INTJs, do you ever get these thoughts?

Let me know in the comments below – Geomeun Goyangi

***Please note that these blogs should NOT influence you to generalize that all INTJs, as a niche group, are all the same – because we are not; a lot of other factors shapes and individualizes a person.***