Do our pasts give us the title 'INTP'?

[SleepyDayzzz]

I'm actually doing a project on the development of analyst's personality types. I am an INTP (obviously, since I'm here) but I want to know if our pasts have similarities that might make us into INTPs.
When I was young my mom became sick and people targeted her for her medicine, which I think is why I developed trust issues. I forced myself to grow up too quickly as a child so I could take care of my little brother, and because of my nature I was bullied quite a bit and called heartless.

What is your past like? Why do you think you're an INTP?

Letting me know would really help me with my research.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

Interesting thread.

I have had a theory bouncing around in my head that I might have developed into a different (slightly?) MBTI if my mother hadn't abused me physically and mentally.

There is some evidence that I may have become more extroverted than I am now (very much an introvert). For example, when I was a 2 year old being fed in a high chair my father came home and found me having been beaten stuck in the high chair...yet I wasn't crying. Apparently the crying had been beaten out of me and I was just sitting there in the high chair with a perplexed/ dissociated look on my face...even though I had just suffered another beating delivered by my mother because first she was frustrated with how much time and patience it took to feed me + when she first started beating me I started to cry + I had stopped crying once I realized that I was being beaten because I was crying.

Today I'm working on letting go of this but still struggling with resentment. My memories of my childhood are blurry. I suppose it was self protection in the dissociation The memories I do have of specific events that have nothing to do with my mother are very very detailed and clear, i.e. I'm confident I've always had a sharp memory bank available for recording memories. Up through about 12 years old though most everything is rather foggy.

Note: I'd like to vote in the poll but I can't accurately choose any of the given choices.

"I did have a hard childhood and it did affect my personality." is the closest but in order to choose it I'd have to qualify it to:
"I did have a hard childhood and it probably did affect my personality." (because I don't know for certain). Then I would feel its accurate enough to select as my choice.

 

[Urakro]

Something made me think the same thing. Reading posts from INTP's who say they have alexithymic qualities, repressed emotions, etc. The behavioural description (awkward, rebellious, socially inept) doesn't seem to align with people with wonderful and supportive childhoods.

 

[Jennywocky]

I wouldn't say it "changed" my MBTI, but it did color my personality and drive me to certain extremities that I had to later deal with. Stuff that like impacts feelings of security and wariness, trust, attachment, and whatever else.

 

[Sir Eus Lee]

I can't exactly pick an option. My childhood wasn't really difficult, but I still wasn't particularly satisfied, I guess. I probably have been raised fairly averagely in terms of difficult/not so difficult. But "affected our personality" is a hard thing because everything affects your personality. Even if something didn't change your personality because it wasn't there, would it have if it was?

I think my childhood did affect my personality, in fact, why wouldn't it have? But perhaps if the measurement scale is based on an average of some sort, then I would say probably not that much.

Perhaps a better question is, what was your childhood like and how did it change your personality?

I didn't vote because my childhood wasn't exactly difficult per se but it wasn't easy either. Life is always a battle. My parents had issues, just like everybody else's probably did, but I didn't see them too much. Too many loose threads to say for sure that any particular thing had any particular effect.

 

[Cheeseumpuffs]

I would agree with Eus. My childhood wasn't "hard" by a longshot but I still was very rarely happy or satisfied with it.

And duh, of course my childhood affected my personality.

 

[emmabobary]

I had a dreamlike childhood. Best time of my life. It affected the way I am ^^
I'm a physical grown version of that cheerful girl

 

[Sinny91]

My childhood was full of emotional and partly physical neglect.
I'm part of a large family that harbors a dark and traumatic past.
I could 'extrovert' easily, but always found solace alone. From a young age up until (?), I demonstrated largely sociopathic tendencies. I was a suspicious, resentful and angry teen who's sociopathic games were a coping mechanism for dealing with demons.

At some level I suppose I am still all those things, but I just smoke a lot weed and try to keep myself out of trouble.

I've always felt that if I had just come from a loving background, and not had to experience trust/abandonment issues I would be a much more 'feeling' sort of person. I rarely experience emotional connections on a personal level, and that makes me feel isolated. Maybe things would have been different if my circumstances were different. I can't imagine how my circumstances would have affected my s/n or j/p.

 

[Haim]

I was me since "me" remember me(which is about 4 years old)
Many years I thought my parents had an influence on my social behavior(i do not think badly of them) especially because in 1st grade I was in special class and took Ritalin,which made me feel like a zombiefied robot.I had the mostly false conclusion that because I was not with normal kids in 1st and partly/mostly 2st grade and was on the influence of Ritalin trough 1-3st grade that i did not learn to be social and missed the chance to form social connections in 1st grade.The Ritalin forced me to focus on the current moment and situation(which then was total friendless).
Now I know it wrong,I have intp way of thinking,I do not care for the everyday life(small talk),I am different(people like the same people as them and it is hard to understand me,even the smart ones) and,in my core,I don't really care for many social things,wanting friends is not enough,you need to train,notice the people,not sure what words to describe what to train,waste of time things like small talk and greetings.
It took me more years to develop these social things like social tact,greetings,hand shake,auto smile.More recent years,people understanding,feature prediction(Intuition) and the use of manipulation,had no use before and I don't like using it,too much easy and overusing it can make it worthless.
I don't like to exploit the games I play.

I have a suspicion that my programming had some influence,I have developer way of thinking,where I am looking for problems and than fix them or just complain,the cause is the me/intp way of thinking or the programming experience?I have a suspicion that the cause of my intuition is programming.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

I don't think childhood issues have to do with personality. If you were molested, beaten, had an over controlling parent or what have you, it makes you an INTP (or whatever you identify with) with whatever disorder developed as a result of trauma. Two children with differing personality types coming from the same family with similar treatment don't change so their personality is the same however they both may develop some similar dysfunction but even then there is no direct correlation. I'd say some personality types are more susceptible to difficult treatment in the sense that one child could develop a more severe dysfunction over another but as for changing (such as an ESTJ into an INTP), that would be highly unlikely. My assumption is that personality type as inborn, basically unchangable and fairly stable across our lifespan.

 

[Sinny91]

I don't think childhood issues have to do with personality. If you were molested, beaten, had an over controlling parent or what have you, it makes you an INTP (or whatever you identify with) with whatever disorder developed as a result of trauma. Two children with differing personality types coming from the same family with similar treatment don't change so their personality is the same however they both may develop some similar dysfunction but even then there is no direct correlation. I'd say some personality types are more susceptible to difficult treatment in the sense that one child could develop a more severe dysfunction over another but as for changing (such as an ESTJ into an INTP), that would be highly unlikely. My assumption is that personality type as inborn, basically unchangable and fairly stable across our lifespan.

This is interesting, I also grew up with a younger brother who I believe is ISXP.

Buffy crossed my mind. In BtBS Buffy prior to slayage was a happy go lucky, cheerleading sensor type, perhaps an ESFP. But when she became the slayer she had to assume more fitting behaviors. Behaviours suitable for a lone mission requiring structure, intuition and thinking over feeling, more like an IXTP. Buffy's whole character arc was about her coming to terms with who she had to be, who she wanted to be, and who she actually was.

Over the course of her experiences she ended up becoming and remaining more like the IXTP she had unconsciously trained her self to be.

Makes me think of the implications of being in a forced circumstance and having to adapt out of necessity.

 

[sandy]

Although I did not have a hard childhood (I actually got everything I wanted), I faced a lot of criticism from my mother and schoolmates throughout my childhood, due to which I became an introvert, I even stopped sharing my thoughts for the fear of being laughed at. ( It is the same story even now.)

 

[Kafkaesque]

I've always been a thinking type over a feeling type and I think the same goes for intuition. I was very bad at being sensitive to others feelings when I was a kid and that was something I had to learn. My dad is really bad at dealing with and showing emotions and is very logical. (He once said personality doesn't exist and that he doesn't have one because our behaviour are just electronic impulses in our brain that can be manipulated with technology.) Either I've gotten this trait from him biologically or through learning. (I don't share his view on personality.)

I didn't like rules that lacked good arguments because I couldn't understand their purpose. My questioning of rules might've come from the fact that my parents did not inforce many rules on me. If they did, they were reasonable and not very strict about it, so I could always discuss the rule with them or ignore it without them punishing me to much.

If they'd been more strict with me and punished me when I broke rules/alternatively taught me that rules should always be respected and that facts are facts, I might've turned out differently. But they were not very conservative people and I think that influenced me to accept my "rebellious" side.

One very INTIP thing is to see the underlying theories instead of only the factual details, and if you grow up in an enviroment that doesn't value complex and innovative thinking but factual knowledge for things like good grades instead of deeper undestandings of the world, you might not become as good as abstract thinking, and be less of an N type.

When it comes to J vs P, I think a lot of it can have to do with our past. We might become more organized if it was expected from us in our upbringing. Organization is very much a habit, and if you were taught to make you bed every day as a kid you'll problaby keep that habit in adult life.

I think I'll lean much more towards judging in the future, as my mental health gets better and I get more energy and motivation to finish tasks quicker, follow a schedule and get more organized. My mental health issues have definitely made me more introverted and less organized.

I'll still always lean towards percieving, because I'll problaby always want to consider more possibilites over just choosing one, and I'll problaby always feel more comfortable making decisions after thinking it over for as long as possible.

Certain parts of what makes us INTP are parts that we can work on and change - we can get better with out emotions if we learn to balance our inferiour function FE with our very critical TI, for example.

But some of it is definitely things we are "prone" to, our inherited biological strenghts transforms into very deep parts of our personality.