Recharging

Over the years I've taken quite a few personality tests and one that I always return to is the Myers-Briggs personality test which gives you a four letter classification of your personality.  For what it's worth this typically results in INFP [Mediator] or INTP [Logician] - most recently it threw out INFP.  I've detailed Myers-Briggs in past posts but for a quick summary you can check out 16Personalities which runs through each of the types and has a test you can take to determine yours.

Of the 4 elements that Myers-Briggs charts, the one I find most interesting is the first element which determines Introversion [I] or Extroversion [E] as the first letter in your classification.  I find this element the most interesting because prior to a traumatic incident in my childhood, I was decidedly extroverted.  After that incident my personality flipped and I became an introvert.  Over the years as I have gone through self-development, and various therapeutic approaches, my personality has shifted back and forth.  I have gone from being extremely introverted to approaching the border between introvert and extrovert to the point where I have been inconclusive in test results. 

In a way, the results of these tests provide data points that I can use to gauge where my personal development has swung to on this scale.  There is an underlying assumption here that the "goal" in effect would be to once again become extroverted but given the recent reflections that I have had to make when using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy I've had to question this assumption and why I believe this to be the case - this has ultimately led me to the conclusion that I can't actually know objectively where my personality would lie had my development never been interrupted in the first place.  Knowing this, I've now taken a step back from this approach of gauging my personality and accepted that whatever it is, really is not my concern, that ultimately the personality that comes most naturally to me, regardless of motivation, is likely to be the personality that I should be able to embrace and become more comfortable portraying.

To this end after my latest test out of curiosity I have found I have once again swung to the extreme of the introverted scale.  If you're curious as to the actual figures they came in at:

82% [I] Introvert to 18% [E] Extrovert
84% [N] Intuition to 16% [S] Observation (Sensing)
65% [F] Feeling to 35% [T] Thinking
58% [P] Prospecting (Perception) to 42% [J] Judging

You can see from the results above that the last two elements are quite close to their midpoints and why my personality on these charts is often inconclusive.  The trouble with reducing something as complex as social behaviour and interaction into something as simple as a four letter classification system is the fact that some interactions you will be comfortable with and some you will be uncomfortable with but the reasons for that level of comfort may have nothing to do with your personality at all.  For example social situations are something that I avoid because of Social Anxiety however when I feel safe or when those events are within parameters that I have confidence in then I don't have that much of a problem with them.  Likewise the distinction between perception and judgement for me personally is largely driven by experience with known experiences being things that I rely on judgement for and unknown experiences being things that I rely on perceptions for.

Despite all of this, and the progress in self acceptance that has been made with the aid of CBT, the problems that introversion can lead to are still problems that I am for the most part averse to.  I like to be alone but I don't like being lonely, this is an internal conflict that I struggle with because the latter drives me to seek out social interaction but the former causes me to need time and space to recharge.  It is this urge to recede and become reclusive to recharge my social batteries as it were that I am currently struggling with.  Left to my own devices I would quite literally never leave the house but that in itself is another issue which I have discussed before and isn't relevant here.

I'm yet to figure out how to maintain a balance between time to myself and time with other people that doesn't evoke a sense of loneliness in the former or a sense of social anxiety in the latter.  I wish I had some great revelation I could add here but there is none, this is still something I am trying to figure out for myself, I just thought I would share what I am trying to process mentally at the moment, especially since the series of posts relating CBT gained a lot of interest.