- I consider myself a post-postmodernist by the way,
just thought I'd put that out there.
Today I want to talk about INFJ depression
and why specifically the INFJ will get depressed.
Now, full disclosure to you my lovely audience,
about an hour ago,
I was deep, deep in the throws of depression,
and on the one hand,
I don't wanna make a video that is something light
and cheery, you know, why INFJs make the best barbecue,
meanwhile I'm dead inside, but at the same time,
I didn't wanna make this
lugubrious video about
oh I'm so depressed 'cause I made one like that last week
and how much can I really push you guys
with my confessional kind of videos
where I'm talkin' about how frickin' depressed I am.
INFJ depression, basically,
comes from
that Ni Ti loop.
You've heard of it before I'm sure.
Ni being introverted intuition which is our main function,
Ti being introverted thinking which is our third function.
Now,
some of you might think because Ti
is our third function, then that means it's weaker,
we don't use it as much, and we're more into
the feeling thing, but don't take the order
of the functions, especially the two in the middle
as necessarily saying how much you prefer one or the other.
It can throw you off if you're just looking
at the letters especially and you say INFJ,
there's no T in there, but we actually use the T a lot.
We think a lot and in some ways, you might even be said
to feel more comfortable with that
because it's being introverts,
that's an introverted function,
and so we can often just fall back
on the two introverted functions.
We do fall back on intuition and thinking.
This is a deadly combination if you start to get depressed
because it's gonna send you, it's a loop,
and it sends you into this spiral
that is very difficult to get out of.
Ni, our dominant function, that intuition is basically how
we're always trying to operate in the world
and how we contextualize everything else.
We're always looking for the big picture,
the big patterns, we're tryin' to see
how everything fits together.
Introverted thinking is looking at the reasons
for things and it's our reasons as opposed
to extroverted thinking which is going to be trying
to see what everyone else's line of reasoning is
for something and then we take everyone else's stuff
and figure out what we think based on
what everyone else thinks.
So we care more about what other people feel
but when it comes to the line of reasoning,
the rationale for things, we care more about our own.
When you start to get into this loop,
what's happening is there's a trigger thing
that you're depressed about, and then what happens is
you need to make sense of it, you need to get a hold of it
and assert some kind of control over it 'cause usually,
when you're getting depressed about something,
it's something you have no control over
or at least that you perceive you have no control over.
Introverted intuition is always trying to assert control
over things by fitting it into a pattern,
I don't know why I said it like that, a pattern,
or a patterin if you're from somewhere weird.
Introverted intuition is trying to see the big picture
and assert some control over all this garbage
that's going on.
Meanwhile, when you get depressed you kind of shut down
and you're in your own little world so you're looking
at the reasons why this depressing thing has happened
or you're trying to analyze it looking at things
in a logical way so it's like you're looking in at
rationality but at the same time trying to zoom out
and make sense of all of it, and you can't,
you just don't have enough there to make sense about it
and you get caught in this loop where you're tryin'
to make sense out of a bunch of things
that don't make sense,
and guess what isn't involved in that?
You're not extroverting the feeling
because you're not talking to anyone else
or trying to get it out, you're not tryin' to shout,
shout, let it all out, these are the things
I can do without, come on.
I'm talkin' to you, come on.
What's happening is you're just caught in your own head
and you're goin' around and around.
If I could just boil this whole loop down,
what happens is you lose all objectivity
and you think you don't, you think that you're tryin'
to get to the objective truth,
you think that you're being objective,
but actually you're off in a fantasy world.
Meanwhile, it's getting you more and more depressed
because you can't come to any kind of closure with it.
Here's just the basic truth.
Suffering is all mental.
Pain can be physical, but suffering is all mental.
Something can happen to make you feel sad, depressed,
but what keeps you there is the thoughts.
What keeps you there is that loop,
that Ni Ti loop of trying to assert control
over a situation, trying to make sense of it
so that you won't be depressed about it anymore
by constantly going over the facts
and the reasons for things.
Here's the thing, I was about to say it doesn't work.
Here's the thing, if you're like me,
you've had at least one time in your life,
if not a couple, where you actually came to a solution
by being in that loop for a while.
It doesn't happen often.
You'll be super depressed and in this terrible head space
and then all of a sudden it comes to you,
and you feel great.
That's happened to me before, but that's sort of like saying
the TV wasn't working and then I kicked it a few times
and then it started working,
so whenever the TV stops working, I just kick it.
No, okay, that worked one time,
but that's not really the right way to do it.
What you have to do in order to
break that loop is to extrovert something
'cause the loop is all introverted, it's all inside,
it's all looking into yourself and not valuing anything
outside of yourself and you're losing objectivity
because of it.
Extrovert your feeling.
Talk to someone about how you're feeling,
and then see how they feel about it.
And it might be something very personal
but just to bounce your emotions off of someone else
is that release valve to get out of that loop.
I think you should bring in other people
so that you can gain some objectivity.
It's hard though because one of the things I thought
to myself as I was laying on the bed here
and thinking I can't go on like this hopeless
is that I have no friends to talk to.
Who am I gonna extrovert my feeling to?
Or at least I don't have friends that are close enough
where I would feel comfortable talking with them
because I have people who have said to me,
hey if you need someone to talk to, I'm here.
I don't like to take people up on that offer
unless I'm really depressed and even then,
I don't like to do it because when you're in that situation
where it's like if you really need someone to talk to,
I know what that's like being on the other side of that
and I don't like that burden so I don't like to do it.
What I want in a friend, when I'm telling my emotions
to them, I want them to listen and kind of give me
some feedback and say okay, yeah,
but really what I want them to do is distract me
and say yeah, man, it's gonna be okay,
let's go do something fun.
That's what I want, and at first I'm gonna resist it
even though I know it's what I want,
I'm gonna resist it, I'm gonna be like,
oh I just wanna be in my bed and stuff,
but that's not really what I want.
What I want is for someone to listen, to hear me,
to say it's okay to feel that,
but you can't stay stuck here, come on,
we gotta go do somethin'.
But when you don't have friends, what do you do?
Here we are on YouTube, that's what I do.
When I'm really depressed and I don't have anyone
to talk to, I just go to YouTube and I look for stuff.
It can help to just trick yourself and watch a bunch
of funny stuff or watch motivational videos.
Just watching something to get you,
to break the loop, anything that can break the loop,
and a lot of times what happens is,
especially if you watch stuff that's more inspirational
and trying to motivate you, it inserts new things
into that loop that change the pattern
because usually these thoughts are just obsessive
and repetitive and so just adding some more information
can then make the loop take a different turn
the next time around and maybe can diffuse things
because suddenly you've added more information,
you've gained a little bit of objectivity.
You're not just doin' the same thing over and over again.
So that's my two cents on that on that loop
and what you can do to get out of it.
So I have so much to say that I'm gonna have
to split this up into two videos.
Gonna talk a little bit more about what I was all depressed
about earlier today and a few more tips
on how to break out of it I guess,
or at least what I try to think of.
So I hope you'll join me over there.
It's an unlisted video so only cool people
who watch this video this far can see it.
A link right here and at the very end of the video.
Make sure that you like, subscribe if you haven't already,
and comment below about this Ni Ti loop.
All right, well I'll see you in the next video.
♪ Shout shout ♪
♪ Let it all out ♪
♪ These are the things I can do without ♪
♪ Come on ♪
♪ I'm talkin' to you ♪
♪ Come on ♪
(vocalizing)