[searches89]

I'd like some insight on diagnosing a disorder/mentality. It seems to be a common thing among my intuitive, thinker friends. Okay, scratch that, not really "common" but I've started noticing patterns in a handful of NT friends, so I started compiling a list of similar patterns/symptoms I've noticed. If it helps, I know at least 2 are ENTPs, 1 is ENTJ, 2 are ENTJ, the others I'm not sure. They range from various ages from mid-twenties to middle-age. Warning, very long, but I definitely appreciate everyone's insight.

- Lack of passion. They each work in a very specific field, but not by their own picking. they somehow sort of ended up there, but they tell me they honestly don't know what they want with their life, or what they REALLY want to do.

- Very unhappy. Their major source of unhappiness is perceiving their life as a failure, mainly in the financial or professional sense. At the same time, they also seem to have a grandiose sense of their 'success' - what your ordinary person will consider typical, they consider it exceptional, beyond the norm, and even have this martyr-like attitude towards the work they produced.

- Slightly paranoid in that they come up with various conspiracy-based explanations for seemingly innocuous events that are according to them, allegedly part of a lager plot to bring them down in some way or another. It becomes an extremely "you are either with me or against me" / "us vs. them" / "me vs. them" mentality

- One thing that stands out to me the MOST is a vindictive streak they have. As mentioned above, once they believe there is a plot to bring them down, every action or word spoken becomes a "move" on a chessboard, and literally anything that is perceived as a "move" by the other person is considered an attack .They are particularly sensitive to the topic of "blame". They get extremely defensive if they think someone is trying to blame them (even if no one is blaming them), and they will go WAY out of their way to discredit the other person "attacking" them (even with false information, so they can't be hurt by accusations of blame).

- Ironically, they have someone to blame for everything that went wrong in their lives. I think there's a grain of truth in what they say, but there's a lot of resentment towards the people they blame, and they seem stuck in this cycle of resentment and feeling entitled to having perceived wrongs rectified by others

- The next thing stands out to me the most is the common concern they all exhibit, when it comes to investing their resources (time, energy, money). It's hard to describe, but their thinking exhibits this pattern: "I would like to do _, doing _ will lead me to the goal I want, _ is hard work and requires time/energy/money, will doing _ guarantee that I'll reach that goal? no, therefore I won't do _. I only want to do something if it will get me to my goal of happiness and success, if it does not guarantee this, why should I invest my time/energy/money when my investment won't pay off"

- Related to above, most of them do not have much intimacy with friends or family, and a few have explicitly told me they don't want to bother investing in other people. They will usually only approach dwindling source of relationships left if they need something from them (money, job reference, legal matters).

- All of them have been married at least once; they'd work hard to "get" someone, but once they attained what they thought was security (marriage), they'd drop efforts to maintain a relationship, and their husbands/wives left them. It's almost like they didn't even like that person, they just liked the idea of that person being there when they got home, but didn't want to put in the effort to interact with them (like having a pet..)

At first, I attributed all the above to melancholy, depression or just a low time in their life, but now I think it's more than that. I've gone through depression and after college, the aimless phase of trying to figure what I wanted. With the individuals above, it seems to have lasted for an extended period of time (10 years minimum), and they seem to have given up on their lives. I realize they have varying degrees of unhealthiness, so it's hard to really understand. I looked up a few psychological disorders but none exactly seem to fit or match the symptoms, so I'm hoping INTJfers will be able to help out. Thanks in advance

[plotthickens]

They sound like they're bored and lacking gratitude.

[searches89]

Now that you point it out, they do seem to lack gratitude in general for things in life and some of their resentment stems from a perceived failure of others to give them things they felt they deserved

I don't know how I feel about if they're bored though.. they do seem to have more time on their hand than others, but "boredom" doesn't seem quite right. If they are bored, what would you suggest in terms of solving that? I care a lot about some I mentioned above, but don't want to get involved/intervene (unless they ask for help), but it seems cruel to almost just watch and let them self-destruct. I thought I could maybe suggest positive things once in a while, hope that they pick it up as their own idea maybe. Or even just the process of analyzing or learning more about the problem on my own.

[plotthickens]

Originally Posted by searches89 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Now that you point it out, they do seem to lack gratitude in general for things in life and some of their resentment stems from a perceived failure of others to give them things they felt they deserved I don't know how I feel about if they're bored though.. they do seem to have more time on their hand than others, but "boredom" doesn't seem quite right. If they are bored, what would you suggest in terms of solving that? I care a lot about some I mentioned above, but don't want to get involved/intervene (unless they ask for help), but it seems cruel to almost just watch and let them self-destruct. I thought I could maybe suggest positive things once in a while, hope that they pick it up as their own idea maybe. Or even just the process of analyzing or learning more about the problem on my own.

Oh yeah they're bored. They picked up the paranoia and the conspiracy from modern media -- those things only happen to the Very Important Lead Characters. Therefore, if they want to be VILC, they are being watched and plotted against.

Less media and they wouldn't have this useless crap in their brains.

Drag them to a homeless shelter to help with something like serving dinner. That'll shut 'em up.

[mieu]

Your run-of-the-mill douchebaggery. Scapegoating, vindictive behavior, self-absorption and cliquishness/greed/xenophobia/gossip'ry. Terminally human.

[Shoshana]

There's too little information there to indicate disorder, however, all of us have traits that predispose us towards a specific disorder or two. For example, people either harbor paranoid tendencies, histrionic tendencies, narcissistic tendencies, obsessive tendencies etc All it takes is environment or chemical imbalance to push us in that direction.

So you are seeing negative traits that could be a pre-condition for a number of disorders. The only difference is that they're not extreme. If it were extreme you'd find it stressful, even terrifying to deal with.

[Polymath20]

Unsatisfied Ego

I didn't achieve what I wanted to, so I'll blame other people.

My life didn't go how I wanted to, so I'll blame other things.

I've been defeated too many times, effort is all futile.

[Terennnash]

Alot of that applies to me.

I go out of my way to blame no one but myself for anything, because even if something may appear to plausibly be someone elses fault, i take responsibility for at the very least failing to anticipate the manner in which someone else may have beaten me. It is a roundabout way to reverse ego projection, because the only enemy that ever really existed is in my head. It is because of this disposition that while i am not vindictive, i do not make efforts to reconcile either once a relationship has become that....lost.

The suspicion/everyone out to get me mentality stems from an over active search for tangents and new ways of approaching anything. Enough of a history of being burned by people, or someone close, plants the seed for this to happen. Suspicion takes over, but it is merely a distraction from being disatisfied with your current situation.

Lack of passion: i am exploring this now, and honestly have no answer of my own. My shrink tells me this comes from learning that, at some point in my life, i learned that what i wanted didnt mean shit. This is exactly how i wound up in my current line of work.

As that erroneous perception grows, passion dies, and you just kind of go along for the ride. This could possibly be the root cause of many of the things you described. It is the elimination of want and desire, of many things. Apply this to any potential choice you would have to make, anything you may have to pursue, and expending any effort becomes seemingly pointless, because its something you want, and what you want doesnt mean shit.

I would venture that for the people you know exhibiting this characteristic only really do things they have already been doing for a very long time, that require little effort on their part, and pose no risk of invalidating the person(food, books, video games, movies, music).

and back to work.

[drswitchoff]

	For example, people either harbor paranoid tendencies, histrionic tendencies, narcissistic tendencies, obsessive tendencies

I learned a bit about narcissism recently. It's not as simple as I thought but it fit's the description pretty well.

---------- Post added 05-02-2012 at 07:51 AM ----------

Bored and grateful might be mutually exclusive. Instead of looking for interesting distractions, could a guy work on being more grateful?

[plotthickens]

	Originally Posted by drswitchoff To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Bored and grateful might be mutually exclusive. Instead of looking for interesting distractions, could a guy work on being more grateful?

They are definitely mutually exclusive. Working with those less fortunate fixes both.

[Nordman]

Sounds like the run-of-the-mill martyr type person to me.
Zero accountability (since everything that goes wrong is always someone elses fault).
Do indeed "just end up" in jobs, houses, relationships ... since they avoid making descisions themselves. Easier to be a victim that way.

Victim mentality, as far as I know, is not possible to cure in someone else.

[CakeZ]

Originally Posted by searches89 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I'd like some insight on diagnosing a disorder/mentality. It seems to be a common thing among my intuitive, thinker friends. Okay, scratch that, not really "common" but I've started noticing patterns in a handful of NT friends, so I started compiling a list of similar patterns/symptoms I've noticed. If it helps, I know at least 2 are ENTPs, 1 is ENTJ, 2 are ENTJ, the others I'm not sure. They range from various ages from mid-twenties to middle-age. Warning, very long, but I definitely appreciate everyone's insight. - Lack of passion. They each work in a very specific field, but not by their own picking. they somehow sort of ended up there, but they tell me they honestly don't know what they want with their life, or what they REALLY want to do. - Very unhappy. Their major source of unhappiness is perceiving their life as a failure, mainly in the financial or professional sense. At the same time, they also seem to have a grandiose sense of their 'success' - what your ordinary person will consider typical, they consider it exceptional, beyond the norm, and even have this martyr-like attitude towards the work they produced. - Slightly paranoid in that they come up with various conspiracy-based explanations for seemingly innocuous events that are according to them, allegedly part of a lager plot to bring them down in some way or another. It becomes an extremely "you are either with me or against me" / "us vs. them" / "me vs. them" mentality - One thing that stands out to me the MOST is a vindictive streak they have. As mentioned above, once they believe there is a plot to bring them down, every action or word spoken becomes a "move" on a chessboard, and literally anything that is perceived as a "move" by the other person is considered an attack .They are particularly sensitive to the topic of "blame". They get extremely defensive if they think someone is trying to blame them (even if no one is blaming them), and they will go WAY out of their way to discredit the other person "attacking" them (even with false information, so they can't be hurt by accusations of blame). - Ironically, they have someone to blame for everything that went wrong in their lives. I think there's a grain of truth in what they say, but there's a lot of resentment towards the people they blame, and they seem stuck in this cycle of resentment and feeling entitled to having perceived wrongs rectified by others - The next thing stands out to me the most is the common concern they all exhibit, when it comes to investing their resources (time, energy, money). It's hard to describe, but their thinking exhibits this pattern: "I would like to do _, doing _ will lead me to the goal I want, _ is hard work and requires time/energy/money, will doing _ guarantee that I'll reach that goal? no, therefore I won't do _. I only want to do something if it will get me to my goal of happiness and success, if it does not guarantee this, why should I invest my time/energy/money when my investment won't pay off" - Related to above, most of them do not have much intimacy with friends or family, and a few have explicitly told me they don't want to bother investing in other people. They will usually only approach dwindling source of relationships left if they need something from them (money, job reference, legal matters). - All of them have been married at least once; they'd work hard to "get" someone, but once they attained what they thought was security (marriage), they'd drop efforts to maintain a relationship, and their husbands/wives left them. It's almost like they didn't even like that person, they just liked the idea of that person being there when they got home, but didn't want to put in the effort to interact with them (like having a pet..) At first, I attributed all the above to melancholy, depression or just a low time in their life, but now I think it's more than that. I've gone through depression and after college, the aimless phase of trying to figure what I wanted. With the individuals above, it seems to have lasted for an extended period of time (10 years minimum), and they seem to have given up on their lives. I realize they have varying degrees of unhealthiness, so it's hard to really understand. I looked up a few psychological disorders but none exactly seem to fit or match the symptoms, so I'm hoping INTJfers will be able to help out. Thanks in advance

Sounds like a past version of myself. I was over-medicated on Concerta (methylphenidate). It would seem that I also had paranoid delusions of such things, and, that, paired with an anxiety disorder, ADHD, and slight depression, brought me about that position. I didn't exactly blame others for my inabilities, however. I felt that all that occurred to hurt others and myself was of my fault and blame. Sorry, just felt the need to note this, as it resembles my behavior in the past.

[FruitLoop]

NPD ?