[blueranger]

I'm and NTJ thro' and thro', but in my younger child hood <10 yrs old i was extravert, I made friends easily and was very outgoing and happy. That said I still enjoyed many solitary hobbies that would be typical of an introvert.

Then all the trouble kicked off for me and I began to regress into the introvert and protected myself from other people.

When it all got too much for me in my mid teens and I self harmed the survival mechanisim kicked in I buried the sensative side and all the internal pain.
The extravert side came out but the negative intravert tendenacies were exagerated.

To say I was bold and abbrasive would be an understatement! I have now faced upto my demons, i'm no where near as abrasive as I used to be, when meeting new people and in a proffesional capacity I present the 'likable extravert' but at home or amongst trusted friends the intravert comes through.

Had I not had my troubles I would be an ENTJ predominatly with some 'I' tendenacies. Where as now I'm the otherway, and 'E' at heart but an 'I' by mind.

my traumatic experiences changed the criteria by which I rationalised the world.
Where as before friends were a natural part of the journey of life with which to enjoy your common intrests, they are now a rarity which are nice to have when you find them.
I beleive that the vast majority of people to be self centred and will only associate with you to get some benefit and will drop you when it suits.

[Solaris]

I don't understand this justification of type through childhood experiences many are using (though not all of you). It's commonly known in MBTI that children are not solidly one type because they are still experimenting with their functions and creating an identity for themselves.

Those who understand that events and reactions to said events in childhood helped form them are grasping the application of theory better I think. Children settle on a preference based upon what brings them success (however that is defined by the child).

Yes, I understand that you can see traits of a future type in a child, but it's still fairly mutable. That's how there's a "magical" transformation.

[SelfMadeBum]

I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to chart your development.

[Solaris]

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	I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to chart your development.

Me either. In fact, it's quite helpful. What I saying I have a problem with is the "I've always been an INTJ and never displayed anything but" mentality. We all use all the functions, and children especially experiment with them.

For instance, my mother cursed my sister and I to have children just like us. So far, that worked on my sister. She has two children and one is like me and one is like her in personality (with slight differences). My nephew is like me, in personality, though more introverted and with ADD (legitimate ADD, not that annoyed parent/teacher kind). He shows a lot of INTJ traits. However, he also has shown a lot of SF traits during his childhood. The point is, he may turn out INTJ, but he tried out several versions of himself before.

I also understand that some people naturally arrived at those traits, and they were successful, so retained them after experimenting. Others were met with some traumatic event in childhood and INTJ traits were the result of how they coped.

[Nameless]

Of course there are differences.

Natural would be like being a dancer from birth and good with movement and such.
Forced would be like having no coordination but learning and then becoming a dancer.

In the end, one may not tell the difference between them, but the natural one would have dancer think, so be more of a "true" dancer IMO.

I am a forced INTJ. One of the types does stuff like askign "What if?" and for MANY years I was that person. It was like so natural for me to think of the consequences/results to something had part of it been changed, even if it was not necessary or realistic. Also I think I would be extroverted if I was not nervous around people. I mean I like talking to people or saying things if people will listen, but I don't necessarily like the people. Does that make sense? I know it contradicts the extroversion where people get energized from people. I'd just get energized from talking to others about things I like lol.