INTP shit you did as a child

[Marshmallow Moo]

I was a real troublemaker when I was a kid. Extremely rebellious and headstrong. I would never do what anyone told me. My mother signed me up for tap dance when I was 4 and I got kicked out because I never paid attention. I just went off my made my own dance haha. Basically I wanted to do what I wanted to do and unless someone gave me a good reason to NOT do something, I would do it goddammit! I never really had any friends because I didn't know how to act around people. I was mean and I didn't realize it. People made fun of me because I was "weird." I was extremely lonely.

But being headstrong, when people were mean to me, I was mean right back. If they hurt someone I cared deeply about, I would make sure they would suffer. In 2nd grade I once beat up a boy a year older than me because he said girls were weak. I climbed trees and did really dangerous, daring stuff just to prove I could. My mother eventually took me to a psychologist because I was so obstinate and uncooperative. I was diagnosed with Oppositional-Defiant Disorder, which I guess my mom realized was a bullshit disorder and stopped me from seeing her.

Basically I never followed the rules unless I wanted to or saw them to be useful. This got me in a lot of trouble with school and my parents especially, who are extreme Sensing "rule-followers." I had a very difficult family life until very recently, when I was diagnosed with ADHD-PI and prescribed medication that helped me control my emotions and help me keep my mouth shut when my parents say something extremely Sensing in nature. :P

(EDIT: I read something someone said earlier and I had to comment--I always said stupid stuff to people that often got misinterpreted. I think someone else had a similar experience but I remember asking a very obese woman why she was so fat. My Feeling sister was very embarrassed but I couldn't see why! All I wanted to know was why she was fat. She told me she ate a watermelon seed and it grew inside of her. I was afraid to eat watermelons for a few years hahah.)

 

[Zionoxis]

In preschool, I established a small group of kids and set up a system where at specific times of the day, there was a rotation point for each person to go steal candy from under the teacher's desk and bring it back to the rest of us. While on the playground, I would ask to go to the bathroom, during naptime (in which I NEVER slept), a friend would ask to go to the bathroom and instead, go to the teacher's room. There were a few other people involved during other activities, but I cannot remember which ones.

 

[Korjo]

At about 7 or 8 I began to try to think up the best possible government system for all mankind. In the car with my dad one day I told him, "What do you think of...(proceeded to describe pretty much anarcho-communism)...? Then I got that lecture about how what America has right now is the best way to do things, the Russians tried it and they failed, lazy people do not deserve shit, etc. I know a few other INTPs who did exactly the same thing with their teachers at young ages.

In high school right now, like others in this forum who were told by others that they have strange accents, people say i sound polish or other eastern european though i was born deep in the ozarks of missouri, moved to california where i lived with african american and korean families in foster care, then moved to chicago. I guess Missouri+black+korean=polish?

Starting at five i began counting numbers of letters in words and then scrambling them by switching each pair of letters with each other. example: The fox is orange, hTf exo si ronaeg. Still do this constantly in my head and can speak it, i told one friend about it and now there are people i do not know asking me to "Say Dustin is a cocksucker all backwards fucked up!"

 

[Peeps999]

Is it possible to have your personality type repressed by certain outside factors? Basically all rebellious attitudes were forced out of me due to strict parents and catholic school, but now I definitely meet the INTP type description. What could be the cause of the this? Mistyping of INTP or something else?

 

[ransomNote]

(around 5-10 years old)
i stole many insignificant things. like a fake phone in my super brain course, a diary, my friends doll.
i collected rocks.
i swam naked at my school pool.
i like to talk to my self, when i walked home i will speak my thoughts out loud.
i like to burn plastic(still do)
i laughed when my friend fell from the slide and bleed in kindergarten
i was excited when my friend got 4 stitches on his chin because of an accident, and made a cartoon of it
i like to be inside the closet. i would close the door and be inside for hours.thinking
in kindergarten i refused to go to school because one of the teacher said that im dumb. i took a test and it said that i have a high iq. my mom wasnt convince.
so i was put in an average class till now
its hell, because of that i develop OCD, paranoia,anxiety, my mom took me back and forth to therapists but nothing seems to work.

does iq decreases? i googled it and one of the sites said iq can decrease because of brain damage. but what about tardive dyskinesia? i was given a lot of meds for my diagnosed personality disorder

 

[slacking]

In my high school (public high school btw), one of the english classes offered was biblical literature (yes, it was in the south) and it was widely known to be a blow off ez class so I took it. I was an avowed atheist even then and could have cared less about the teachers ramblings but at the end of the school year she informed us that we would have to write and deliver a 10 minute sermon on some biblical topic to pass the class (again this is PUBLIC school, separation of church and state didn't apply apparently). I was about ready to say fuck it rather than have to spend 10 minutes spouting platitudes I didn't believe in when I remembered somewhere in the bible god said to be fruitful and multiply.

I poured through the bible searching for any and all references to sex that would support my thesis that what god actually wanted was for us all to have as much pre-marital sex as possible. I thought it would play well to anyone in the class with a sense of humor while also irritating the teacher as much as possible but alas, my pearls were cast before the swine with nary a titter. A few of the cute girls in class made a real point of avoiding me after this, not that they ever really paid much attention to me anyway. The inflammatory subject matter didn't even get the desired rise out of my poor ol' teacher, she just said "that was interesting...you may sit down now."

 

[Amy Winehouse]

Masterbated to a lot of Japanese cartoon porn when I hit puberty at 10 1/2 yrs old.

 

[areilla10]

In my high school (public high school btw), one of the english classes offered was biblical literature (yes, it was in the south) and it was widely known to be a blow off ez class so I took it. I was an avowed atheist even then and could have cared less about the teachers ramblings but at the end of the school year she informed us that we would have to write and deliver a 10 minute sermon on some biblical topic to pass the class (again this is PUBLIC school, separation of church and state didn't apply apparently). I was about ready to say fuck it rather than have to spend 10 minutes spouting platitudes I didn't believe in when I remembered somewhere in the bible god said to be fruitful and multiply.

I poured through the bible searching for any and all references to sex that would support my thesis that what god actually wanted was for us all to have as much pre-marital sex as possible. I thought it would play well to anyone in the class with a sense of humor while also irritating the teacher as much as possible but alas, my pearls were cast before the swine with nary a titter. A few of the cute girls in class made a real point of avoiding me after this, not that they ever really paid much attention to me anyway. The inflammatory subject matter didn't even get the desired rise out of my poor ol' teacher, she just said "that was interesting...you may sit down now."

Just goes to show the how rare are INTPs compared with the rest of the world. Not a single one of them in the class apparently...other than you. I'm surprised that there weren't more of us there. I think we're natural trolls and a class like that just begs to be trolled. That's frigging hilarious. Sorry to hear your sermon went unappreciated, but ain't that the way? It's too bad the whole class hadn't been endowed (at least for the day anyhow) with an INTP's sense of humour.

 

[areilla10]

Is it possible to have your personality type repressed by certain outside factors? Basically all rebellious attitudes were forced out of me due to strict parents and catholic school, but now I definitely meet the INTP type description. What could be the cause of the this? Mistyping of INTP or something else?

Yup. It just goes underground. And then when it emerges in adulthood, you feel sick that you swallowed the bullshit they fed you. All those wasted years of doubting yourself and being told it was wrong to think (and be) that way. Just think of the shit you could've disturbed! Still, looking back on my teenage years I feel better that I hadn't totally bought it. My attitude toward sex wasn't nearly as aligned with my upbringing as my parents would've liked. It just seemed silly.

 

[MizKodomo]

I could never sleep without my air purifier on- not because I had breathing problems, but because it kept CHUCKY the demonic puppet away.

I don't like sleeping in a bed with a frame, either. I prefer mattress on the floor.

I was 5 or 6, a child about my own age may or may not have 'accidentally' spit on me; I open hand slapped him in the face. I remember the resounding 'clap' and how it felt like the most natural thing to do given the situation. My teachers did not agree.

In 7th grade, I wrote a rather condescending letter to my honors world history teacher during detention, stating how I should not 'be here' on the grounds that 'I lied to her' about something rather trivial. In the grand scheme of things I concluded (not quite as elegantly), everybody lies, and it is only those who think otherwise or get caught that get screwed in the end. We were not on friendly speaking terms until after I left the school.

For my senior year of high school, my AP Lit class got to say 'good-bye to high school' in anyway they deemed appropriate. While most of the class was having a 'pity party- growing up is tough' essays, I wrote a very marijuana induced poem about how much I hated high school, with a sigle-digit salute to my entire class.

It was a far more eloquent 'hate letter' than the one I wrote in 7th grade I can tell you that.

 

[MsAnthropy_Indefatigably]

When I was young and living in New York (The Bronx, to be more exact for the story's purposes), I would play outside in the PS 79 lot (that's the school I went to) next to our building. The lot had two entrances on the East and West side. I would always skate around in the lot and take the West Entrance and just skate to the furthest part of town I was not familiar with. Just to see if I could get lost. I never could. Only went to show that I was great with directions and taking care of myself.

 

[Wormwood]

I remember being tempted to cause physical harm to a kid at my daycare (was 7 or so) because I could not convince him that 10 + 10 did not = 30.

I was fluent in English before I could walk (learned how to walk at 18 months), and I was actively trying to come up with a way to crawl faster than people could walk, while conserving my energy.

 

[snafupants]

Throughout elementary school I was sort of isolationist and nerdy, I had a petite cadre of friends, I sometimes played basketball and field hockey, I mostly read and played video games and just lazily hung out, I participated in snide practical jokes intent on making the teacher look foolish and generally subverting authority. I remember one day on the playground, perhaps in third grade before I (non-volitionally) transferred schools (parents), I beat the snot out of this superbly obnoxious kid who spit on me, to the Judas-like cheers of his erstwhile friends. That was exhilarating. Skip ahead to seventh grade (new school) and I basically continued to focus on outside reading over what was shoveled on my academic plate. In high school I was on friendly terms with my entire and small graduating class of approximately forty students, I was the starting center for the varsity basketball team (brag alert: I won our district's dunk contest by boldly/moronically vaulting over a chair and, in a separate portion of the event, doing a little pump three sixty number) and I was the varsity golf team captain. Let's see, other high school stuff might include: being school treasurer at one point, stereotypically losing virginity to eventual prom date, haplessly participating in two car accidents, losing one of my friends to suicide, continuing outside reading while doing decent enough in classes and traveling quite a bit around the world.

 

[ista]

Washed kittens in a garbage can one by one, and tied twistex around their tails so I'd know which ones I had washed (because wet cats are so subtle).

 

[ista]

Dragged a friend across the floor by her hair to stop her from being mean to another friend. Floor was really slippery. I don't think it would have hurt that_much (at least that's what I told myself).

 

[angelika]

hahahaha she is retarded. that is awesome. and a good idea to do too! shes all giving you a bad grade and its like OMG. no. YOU dont get it. thank you.
idk about me...lots of stuff but nothing that particularly comes to mind. just doodling or making up songs or daydreaming while in class. always. or when it comes to math, i made this "discovery" that whenever you subtract, you actually "TAKE AWAY" part of something. I totally sucked at math and idk, i wanted to "understand" what it actually describes or whatever and would literally sit in my room and think about stuff like 5-3 and be like "but what does it mean" and try to apply it to some bigger picture or connect some dots with it all.

 

[angelika]

oh, also, in elementary school...i was such a weirdo. i would literally walk around the playground talking to myself...being dramatic--but not too dramatic, just using lots of hand gestures with myself...and hoping/imagining that other kids around the playground would notice how i was like solving some crazy problem and being all genius-like. it would probably hurt my feelings what they were really thinking but then again who cares lol

 

[Teohrn]

I can identify with a lot of what's written here.

When I was about 6 years old, I pondered on existence and death... I came to the conclusion that if there's no afterlife, then death will be something like an infinite, heavy, dreamless sleep. The thought of not being able to exist forever scared me to the point of panic. Still, while it scared me, I couldn't believe that I could continue to exist, so I accepted that life doesn't cary on after death.

At 7 I theorized whether I could survive jumping down from the balcony of a sixth floor apartment if I had a table beneath me to stand on so that I could jump just before it hit the ground.

I would get very distant; thinking, watching tv, reading books, playing with my gameboy etc. I would get very distant and completely disregard anything other than what I concentrated on.

I always questioned every decision, statement, command etc. that any authorative figure made (parents, teachers etc.), I wouldn't obey to rules I didn't find logical either. And if they couldn't give a sound reason for it, I wouldn't comply to it. I never did things I didn't see any reason for me to do, or that I just didn't want to do. For example, my class (in 3rd grade) was given a task to read a book. I couldn't find any interesting book because I disliked most of the choices they had at the school library and I disliked the books for my age group. Therefore, I didn't have a book to read, and my teacher told me that I had to find a book to read. I went to the library again and I found Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and brought it to my teacher, she didn't think I should read it, but I didn't want to read anything else so I stubbornly held my position until she yielded.

I became an autodidact early; I decided that I would disregard school and learn things that interested me by myself. I became a troublemaker; contradicting teachers, correcting them, criticizing them, sometimes belittling them and so on - I would also not do homework, do lousy on tests etc. on purpose because I didn't respect my teachers and the teaching system as a whole.

 

[IssphitiKOzS]

One of my best friends with whom I no longer speak was acquired by denying him use of my crayons. Nigga, get your own fucking crayons.

 

[Jaffa]

I was reasonably well behaved in school. Homework was just a pointless excersize, especially in subjects that I was very good at. Being a real computer fanatic as a kid, learning what a keyboard and mouse did was absolutely boring. I had no time for it.

Being naturally good at English, any reading/writing assignments bored me.

I was more fascinated about the trajectory of chewed up pieces of paper from the end of my ruler. I had quite the aim.

I just could not concentrate on subjects that I didn't see the need to learn. Drama class, for example, was just a competition to see how far I could push the teacher before being removed from class. I would regularly forget my P.E kit.

 

[kora]

I was a liar. Not bad lies, just stuff to make myself seem more interesting and stories to tell, I really liked animals, bordered on obsession, I knew heaps of info about them all, and I had loads of encyclopeadias about them which I tried to learn by heart, I never wanted to do any homework, but too awkward to be openly rebellious (thank GOD that's changed haha) so I was just the dumb kid really, I find that people have considered me more and more intelligent as I've grown up and acquired more freedom, so hopefully university life will suit me ^^

I also used to stay up really late reading or sometimes even climb out of bed so I could play and create stories late into the night (usually about animals taking over the world and me living with them, becoming an honorary animal)

 

[kora]

Is it possible to have your personality type repressed by certain outside factors? Basically all rebellious attitudes were forced out of me due to strict parents and catholic school, but now I definitely meet the INTP type description. What could be the cause of the this? Mistyping of INTP or something else?

I think I repressed my INTP ness alot, and I think you can apparently fit in with others, still feeling incedibly like anoutsider in your own head, for me the apparent INTP ness came out much later, when I was about 14, because yo finally start to be yourself more openly. It's just down to being confident or not.

 

[KMaki]

Rather than most(?) previous repliers here, I never rebelled. I distinctly remember ONE particular time I slammed a door. I did fairly well in elementary school. I remember thinking schoolwork being relatively effortless compared to some others.

Some less usual, could-be-categorized-as-weird-intp-shit things:
-I miss my mom. So I get on my bike, and set off to find mom. No idea how old I was, but I was in a family daycare, and my bike had training wheels. Police was called. I remember being all "huh?" When the lady that was taking care of me was all freaked out seeing me pedaling back from my ventures. I remembered the first ~300 meters of the way, but turned back because I couldn't remember more.
-Just decided to sit on top of a mount of snow for a recess. Possibly for showz. At the age of 9(?) most classmates liked to do something else.
-I remember having a persistent idea that if I could hum the Knight Rider - tune _exactly_ right, I would be sucked into a parallel universe, where I would be the Knight Rider. I tried many, many times.

 

[EvilBlitz]

Hmmmm

Convincing a few friends to help me dig up the entire sandpit at kindergarten. This irritated the teachers quite a lot for some reason?
Being obsessed with explosives.
Making napalm.
Being suspended for setting off home made mexican firecrackers at school.
Being suspended for vandalism of school property.
Enjoy taking taking the piss and destroying teachers logic.
Making home made rocket launchers out of PVC piping and sky rockets to launch at school wardens from my friends place across the road out of his front door cat flap.
Running away from my mother while I was very young(under 2). Twice having to be picked up from the police station, rather embarrassing my mother.

Many other things mentioned here I did as well. Spooky possum.

 

[shortbuss]

I was not a cool kid in junior high. Quite the opposite. I went into middle school aspiring to fit in, but once I realized how others saw me I turned rebellious, at least in my state of mind.

I remember wearing clothes that I knew would alienate me even more just because I resented the way I was treated, and knew it was bullshit. I even dressed up as a Loser for the Halloween dance.

I'm proud I was above the bullshit at that age, and for me, what I did was brave. Of course my friends were all just embarrassed by me, which made me feel like shit, so it's only in retrospect that I give myself credit.

 

[duke of new york]

One interesting thing I can remember is that I would get out five or six board games, lay out all the boards next to each other in a way they could connect, took all the playing pieces and made up my own game and made my little brother play it with me. Since there were so many pieces and just two of us, the rules tended to involve each of us having a small army of different sorts of playing pieces which could kill one another in various ways. They weren't common games like Monopoly or Risk; they were mostly licensed games having to do with TV shows and stuff. The only individual game I remember being involved was a Thomas the Tank Engine game. The rule involving the train pieces was that they could only move on the tracks of the Thomas board, and they could kill any enemy unit on the tracks by running it over.

 

[SandMizzle]

When I was about 11 I complete banned the word "I" out of my thoughts for about 1 year. It worked pretty well. I was convinced that if everyone would do this, the world would be a place of harmony. Unfortunately I was the only one doing this, so the only thing I got was used. But that's ok, I would never deny this experience, although it takes a while training yourself not to think about yourself but others.

 

[pseudonymous]

SandMizzle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_(novella)

 

[SandMizzle]

@pseudonymous : Thanks a lot! Never heard of it before. I'm looking forward to gobble this book!

 

[skydeville]

Probably the most cool thing about my upbringing was my mother. I'd guess she's INTP, might be IXTP as well. She'd give me instructions, I'd react saying "Why" and she could always give a reason.

As opposed to most people here, I actually enjoyed school pretty much. When I was younger (6-pre-puberty) I really loved to learn new stuff. Doing homework was never a problem because it was easy and by doing so I would avoid trouble.


About this Anthem novella: I really liked it. Then again I liked the other novels from Ayn Rand as well. Just bear in mind that for her, the sacred thing is the individual.

Then puberty hit me, I didn't really sleep a lot, got into programming/"hacking". I still have source codes from that age and still now I'm fascinated how I could actually do this stuff just by looking at sources, the java classes, and some HowTos/eBooks.
I pretty much went into loner-mode. Didn't have many friends at school at this age, my grades sucked, but then they sucked so hard I was bored with being a sucker. Pulled myself up and brought my french/math grades from Fail to Good.
That was around the time I learned that girls aren't only pictures on the Internet but exist in reality, and around the time I figured you could have friends as well. Not many, mind you, but a close circle of good friends.

Throughout school I perfected the art of 80/20 solutions -- achieving goals with minimum input. The goals went higher as time passed, as did grades. Input did not, mind you. We were rather spending our spare time on thinking about how to make the world a better place. Required some dope as inputs, but heh. Fun times.

There was this one physics(science?) exam you could only do if you took the answers from the previous question as inputs to the following ones. However, It didn't matter much if you started from the beginning or worked your way from the end (_no idea_ how I figured that out during the exam, but I did). So I got lost in question three (of 6-8) and worked my way from bottom to top. Totally worked, totally worth it.

 

[chatvite]

I did several INTP things as a child. I had "vows of silence" days for myself. They were blissful.

I once wrote an essay for my computers class in 10th grade. We were supposed to write 500 on what we had learned in class. Well, I didn't learn anything in the class and ended up helping the other students with programming. I wrote this in my essay. Then, I didn't have enough words, so I started quoting Shakespeare and some nursery rhymes until I reached exactly 500 words. I somehow received an A.

I wore swim flippers to school and walked backwards for a day. I wanted to know if it was possible. It is.

I read books while laying in my closet.

In 11th grade, I took zoology. We had to do a group project. I paired up with a friend and we went to the Anatomy and Physiology class and asked for a cat to dissect. We filmed it. The best part was when we started filming we added a very disturbing intro. We were both wearing lab coats, glasses and had our hair in pony tails. We had another guy hide the cat (in plastic) and smuggle it into the cafeteria. During lunch, we walked in acting very serious. We walked into the lunch line, met this guy in line. He whipped out the cat. We put it on a lunch tray and then we each grabbed one side of the tray. The two of us carried the cat on the lunch tray through the cafeteria during lunch. We had a classmate film it for us. It was AWESOME!

 

[Panopticon]

This is the funniest thread on this forum.

Too many good things to quote in here. Alot of these stories had my dying.
INTP's do seem to be alot alike during early adolescence. Some much more rebellious than others though. I myself, not so rebellious as a little one. I was pretty well behaved.

Thread subscribed.

 

[MichiganJFrog]

When I was really little, I used to read the World Book Encyclopedia all the time. I remember reading the entry on the coelacanth. It said that this prehistoric fish was extinct. Then I read a news item saying someone had discovered it off the coast of Greenland or someplace. I couldn't wait to tell someone at school about this, since I knew it would establish my reputation as a chick magnet.

When I was about 10, I went around for a full day insisting that everyone call me Roger (that's not my name).

In junior high, I was way into Maryland history, so yeah, the girls all wanted a piece of me.

In high school, I did a project called "How to Become a Punk." I had a friend shave my head in front of the whole class. I got extra credit for that.

The school music program had a really nice Fender amp and guitar. One day during lunch, I cranked up the guitar to play "Complete Control" by the Clash, which irritated the hell out of the teacher conducting choir rehearsals next door.

 

[MEDICaustik]

I'm surprised at how many stories there are of outbursts in school. I think my father taught me more effective ways of fighting authority. He tended to get very angry, and my brother used to go right back at him, and I watched how it never worked for my brother. So, when my dad would get angry at me, I knew to just sit quietly til he was done, and go about my day.

I did the same thing throughout school, and was more often praised as a good student than reprimanded for misbehavior. And then I got into high school and started to exhibit the more INTP behavior.

I did occasionally stupid things that I thought were funny, but didn't realize other people wouldn't appreciate. A lot of poor judgment on things I said/did. When I was about 6 years old, I repeated a penis joke in front of my extended family thinking they would find it funny, and then I started to cry when they all looked at me shocked.

The joke: Your penis is so big, that you walked into the zoo and they said no elephants allowed.

I also used to cry everytime my mother, father or older sister would come to eat lunch with me at elementary school, because I knew they would have to leave, and I would have to go back to class.

And most of my nights I would make action figures and stuffed animals battle, and my favorite one would always win.

 

[intpz]

I'm surprised at how many stories there are of outbursts in school.

Yea, INTPs are sick. I didn't do much shit like that what's described in this topic, but I think I will comment on a few things sometime. My brain isn't working well since 3 hours ago for some reason, so that would be at least tomorrow.

 

[Pilot the Cannibal]

Yeah, I was a weird kid. Especially when I was really little.

I learned to read really early, and then I would write a bunch of weird stories about imaginary creatures that I made up who lived in alternate universes/on different planets, then force all of my older relatives to listen to them. I also spent about half my childhood pretending that my name was Crayola and I was secretly a special agent for King Goldmine.

In kindergarten, I killed all the fish in our classroom aquarium. This other kid was trying to convince me that fish turned blue when they ran out of oxygen, and I wanted to prove him wrong. So, naturally, I tipped the aquarium over.

I got moved to a different class for the rest of the year.

I tried to "escape" from school every month or so (because I was a secret agent, obviously) but was never very successful and usually ended up locked in the guidance office.

I killed our cat. (This was an accident, and I was only four, so I don't actually remember it, I just heard about it. Apparently, I was trying to warm it up, so I put it in the drier.)

After watching Peter Pan I disappeared from my house for an entire Saturday in an attempt to find Neverland. I was not successful. I eventually had to return home after running out of peanut-butter crackers. My parents did not notice that I was gone, even though I was seven and had been missing for about 13 hours. They are very unobservant people.

In fourth grade through middle school I was the quiet kid that nobody noticed. You can't have nearly as much fun when you're expected to understand and conform to societal expectations of basic human deceny.

Now that I'm in high school I'm just kind of normal. Well, not actually. But everyone thinks I am. I like writing and reading and music. I'm on the honor roll (whoop-de-freaking-do) and I'll probably go to college and shit next year like everyone else. I've only been arrested once; and my parents didn't even find out; so I consider it a success. (I'm pretty sure the police are out to get me, anyways, seeing as I'm a secret agent and all.)

:smiley_emoticons_mr

 

[miggslives]

A week before I hit kindergarten, my dad asked me if I was excited to go to school, and all I could say was "I hate school!" and even though I have always been good at it without even trying, I still absolutely hate the "system" of it and that it's jut something that "we're supposed to do." I LOVE LOVE LOVE learning, but I always hated being told that we were supposed to learn, and this is how were gonna do it, and you're gonna do it cause we said so.

As a kid (and even today), I was always cool with all the different groups and cliques in school. I would say it was because I was always a chameleon. I would never not act "myself" in different groups, but I would admit to speaking a little different to get their appeal. Whereas I see other kids, they would see a group that was different and say fuck it, I don't care, I'm just gonna be "me" and if they don't like it, we'll just fight about it.

Whenever me and my friends would play with legos, or kinex, or even simple fucking wooden blocks, they would always build very simple house or a tower, and I would bust out with a functional pyramid or some other crazy spaceship or some shit and everyone would be amazed and I would sit there and think, "Wow, you guys can't do this? I was just fucking around.."

As a young kid I was always someone people came to for dirt. My friends would come to me and tell me to ask someone something without them knowing I was getting information from them. I was good at settling playground disputes and shittalking. I was good at talking to other kids on the playground and getting them to tell me things with complete trust in me. I guess basically what I am saying is I was always a very good "liar", because to be an INTP you have to be able to hide a lot of things from people and put up a 24/7 facade! But I was always as honest as possible, I wouldn't SAY lies, but I wouldn't let them know my intentions.

As a kid growing up, I was sent to Sunday school. And every sunday I would go and just sit there like "What the fuck am I doing here and why won't anyone answer my questions?" I would always ask my parents, "Why ____?" or "How could this make sense if...____" and I would get no logical response in return. So by the time I was in fourth grade I was contemplating being an athiest, but was still a little afraid to badmouth the bigman upstairs, in case there was some crazy power I didn't know about. By middle school I was convinced there was no god and that when people die, they just die and that is it, and everyone who thinks otherwise is ill-informed and brainwashed.

In middle school I picked up on graffiti. I had been drawing my whole life and art has always been a big part of it, but graffiti was something else. It was this anarchist type art form where you were completely under the radar, and could still amaze people on a daily basis, and it was voluntarily defying authority for a personal belief that art should be free and not for the rich and their children. It is an art form where I could convey messaged without having to go out and physically tell people, "hey look at what I did!" I could blend in, while still being original.

In high school my best friend of 5 years was getting really cocky because he grew up to be a "pretty boy" and would always be talking out of his ass. And they were always things that nobody could question. He would be like, "my girl gave me a bj at church and at her house party for her birthday." And nobody in their right mind would go ask the girl, "hey is this true?" By my third year in highschool, I was suspecting him of lying about a whole shitload of things, so I wrote down about 2-3 pages of things he had said over the years I suspected were lies, and I went around to people confirming whether or not all of these things were true or not. I got down to the bottom of it, found out that he was a chronic liar, and "dumped" him shortly after the girl he rumored about confronted him about the lies he spread that went around unquestioned for 3 years.

I think the most biggest factor I did as a child was discover the internet. I feel like the internet is THE PERFECT playground for an INTP. When I was a kid using the computer, home computers hadn't been too popular yet. The internet was still something not every household had, and not too many everyday people knew how to use it. (Then they made the horrendous youtube/myspace, and the whole world wanted computers). So I was researching interested topics about the world, and learning programming and coding, and graphic design by the 5th grade.

But as I said it was this PERFECT place for an INTP child to explore. I could come home and surf the web for hours and just SUCK UP any and all information I want without having to get caught into any emotions or social interaction. Any social interaction on the internet was easy because instead of on the fly speaking, and INTP child could receive a message, then have time to think about a response and analyze their words. Which is where many of us have issues when in face to face interactions: not enough time to sit and think about what to say.

 

[MEDICaustik]

^ I'm not sure if being a chameleon is an INTP trait, but I am definitely one. Like you, I was able to fit in with any crowd in high school and had friends in all the circles. Even now, I fit in at a fire house, at a corporate office, at a super liberal non-profit, in a classroom, and I have various behaviors I exhibit in each.

In a way it is tiring, remembering what behaviors I use in the different environments, but I've always been phenomenal at keeping track. Same thing with lies in general. They tell you as a kid that all lies eventually come to the surface, and when you're young it's generally true. But as you get older, you begin to master the craft. Not that I'm a compulsive liar.. I can just whip up a thorough lie about something when necessary.

 

[miggslives]

I've read somewhere about chameleoning as INTPs and I would say I do it to everyone I meet. I let them initiate conversation, and before opening, I see what their boundaries are and then respond in a similar way that they do, that way they like me, I feel comfortable not having to guess if they enjoy my presence, and I don't come off as a smartass or something. And I hate that I do it, but I always listen to someone opinion, then be like, "yeah I get it." Even if I know down inside it's retarded. But I guess I strive to get people to like me, because I see too often when conflicting personalities collide and beef starts.

And it's tough: I don't know about anyone else but I feel as though I do not simply just lie. I make extremely thorough lies; that have backup arguments and excuses that are always logical and not suspicious and I can have a story that goes back a whole month. Whereas other people lie and I immediately see the flaw in their story.

I was talking with a friend about how if you believe and live a lie long enough it becomes the truth. And it sucks having so many different "personas" with all these different groups of people. The problem then comes when my parents and my friends meet, or my girl meets my parents, or my two groups of friends meet, or my friends meet at work and my boss is there, I am almost entirely different when hanging around thee different groups and don't know how I should act when they come across each other. That is then when I become the "shy and quiet" guy, where I would rather just stay silent than to say something that might get the facades mixed up.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

And it sucks having so many different "personas" with all these different groups of people. The problem then comes when my parents and my friends meet, or my girl meets my parents, or my two groups of friends meet, or my friends meet at work and my boss is there, I am almost entirely different when hanging around thee different groups and don't know how I should act when they come across each other. That is then when I become the "shy and quiet" guy, where I would rather just stay silent than to say something that might get the facades mixed up.

I know what you mean, that is compartmentalization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_(psychology)
http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/compartmentalization.htm
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/15-common-defense-mechanisms/all/1/

It happens to everyone, and is usually harmless and useful, but in extreme cases all that disassociation and splitting can lean towards psychological disorder. As long as the personas are not compulsive or elaborate there's really nothing to worry about.

Being your most natural and effortless self is a healthy way to deal with that situation of encountering different groups.

 

[EnigmaticMan]

I used to be a secret little bastard living in my secret little world, hell I still am and still do. I used to counter-logic and philosophical views to justify my actions, stole from my mom by charging only little things on her debit card, asked my mom questions I knew the answer to and expected he to know only to annoy her, and spent a ridiculous amount of time engulfing myself in antiquated warfare and history, such as medieval battles, WW2, and learning about genetic ancestry (which lead people to believe I am racist) I still do some pretty crazy shit till this day.

 

[crippli]

When I was five I was seriously annoyed that my brother who ws one year older still couldn't speak R-words properly, so I took it upon myself to teach him in the coach and succeeded.

 

[gedanken]

i never left house ( just to go school)

 

[The Gopher]

Now that I think about it.... (yes I am supposed to be studying)

We went camping on Goverment property lighting fires, I snuck into quarys with friends sliding down rock piles and messing with the clay. Then we would shoot bow and arrows in the quary. Went into private property all the time, particularly swamps and such. Not sure why walking underwater for miles was so attractive but we did. Then we would RUN whenever anyone found us.

Just a couple I can share.

 

[skip]

I followed through on a lot of "what if..." experiments as a kid. Thank God my parents were patient. One of my mom's favorite family stories (--now, it wasn't so funny when it happened) is from when I was probably 5 or 6 years old. I knew that toilet paper went into a toilet. What happens if you put other kinds of paper into a toilet? I decided to find out with tissue paper, paper towels, writing paper...

 

[cerebedlam]

Way too many experiences to explore them individually...Something written here triggered a very old memory of mine though...I was out at the eastern end of Long Island, at my Uncle's house, somewhere around 8 years of age...Nothing at all to do to fill the time, and left alone to my own dangerous device...

So, I stumble upon an ant hill outside, in the side yard...Over the course of about an hour, I make a game of killing every single ant that exits or attempts to enter their humble hill/home...Every single ant - murdered, by me...but, without any anger attached to killing - just, matter-of-factly, routine killing...

I remember not thinking anything at all about the act I was perpetrating...That is, until one, very 'human-like' maneuver was executed by one of the ants...Their little ant bodies were strewn across the pavement, like fallen war casualities...And, then, one, very brave sentinel hoisted one of his fellow ant brethren onto his back and attempted to carry him back to their sand fortress...Without thought, I smashed both of them underfoot...It was only at this point that 'empathy' and 'remorse' entered the picture, and I felt horrible about my transgression...

I know that the one ant hoisting up and carrying his injured co-worker had everything to do with 'instinct' and nothing to do with 'emotions' and the desire to save a fallen comrade...Still, it was this development, and this alone, that made me stop what I was doing and caused me great consternation...Guess that it had a big effect on me, 'cause I still remember it 'til this day. Any INTP-ness in this?

 

[Proletar]

Once, I threw one of my two year older brothers friends into the river.

We were playing a variant of hide and seek, and I was down by the river (deep and with underwater-currants that drowned people every year) hiding, and accidentally fell into the cold water, due to some reed that looked like grass. I had a hard time getting up, since the only thing to grab were a few roots that kept dispatching from the ground when I pulled them to get up.

I eventually found that I could get up if I pulled them all at once. Said and done, I got up from the water and back to my friends. I was soaked, and they wondered how I could have fallen into the river and so forth. We went back to the spot, and they said that it wasn't even deep, that I was stupid for falling in and having trouble getting up. When my brothers friend bent forward looking for the bottom, I approached him and gave him a hard push, shouting "How deep is it?!"

He had much more trouble getting up than me, and eventually needed the help of both of us. They expressedly had no idea why I did it, but I knew that my brothers friend didn't percieve me as stupid after that.

 

[PartyPoison]

My second grade teacher hated me. I was a good student, but she decided to attempt to ruin me. She did everything in her power to make me look dumb. She would give me different math problems and stand over my shoulder to "help" me. She convinced everyone at school that I had ADD. She would never give me the list of words I had to spell at the end of the week. After a few failed spelling tests I started to find the words in the book and write them down. She took my book.

So on the struggle went. Her making me look like a special education child and I stoped following the rules. If I knew the answer I yelled it out before she could pick a student. I always knew the answer. Eventually she called my parents and told them I needed to get tested for ADD. My aunt who was studying to be a teacher at the time believed me and convinced everyone that I was, in fact, not ADD. So my parents got me tested and I guess I was normal.

The next year she had me placed in a special education math program. The teacher kicked me out for correcting her math.

 

[anticlimatic]

Like many of the posters here, I got into a lot of trouble growing up. Shoplifting. Breaking and entering. Trespassing. Unchecked and uninformed Ne is tough on a kid, let me tell you. I basically broke every rule that was in my power to break, which didn't bode well for me as an alter boy in a strict catholic family.

The longer I was in school, the more I struggled. Barely graduated high school because I was skipping at least half of my classes every day-- basically, once I had a car, and realized that I could just leave if I wanted to, I had a real hard time sticking around. Ended up having to do some summer work to get my certificate, from a high school I had only been at for half a semester.

Prior to that, half way through my senior year, I was expelled from a christian school by a bunch of fundamentalist XSTJ fucks, after a meeting (interrogation) before the school board that went completely awry. A teacher who had a personal grudge against me had accused me of something that just plain and simply wasn't true. I explained this. They tried telling me that regardless, 2+2=5, and I should apologize to her, and to them, and submit to their authority. Naturally, I advised them to go fuck themselves, and that was that. Incidentally, two other boys in similar trouble bent over and took it like good little bitches, and were not expelled.

Also loved legos as a kid. I would build elaborate crafts, and destroy them in slow motion.

 

[MissQuote]

This is not things about me, but about my ten year old son who i suspect is an INTP.

He has started football recently but due to some things out of our control he began practice a week later than everyone else, and hence he had to sit out for any of the contact practice until he had acquired ten hours of conditioning. I was talking to him about if it was bugging him on the drive to practice the other day and his reply, after thinking for a moment, was: "No. I think I'll be better than everyone by the time I can participate, because they all had to start right away but I get to watch and learn how it is done first. I'll definitely be better because of that.."

The other thing he said to me out of nowhere the other day, afeter getting a huge smirk on his face, was" What if instead of cops everyone just had a thing in their brain that made their head explode if they broke the law.... ohhhhh that would SUCK! Runa red light and Kablloooom!!!!" the last bit, the kabloom, was very animated with is body lurching around and then him sitting still with his head lopping over and tongue lolling out.

*sorry about my typos, I have a broken wrist and the brace makes typing difficult, doing my best not to make any but sometimes I can't be bothered to go through and correct them all.