Self reflection. Take a look. Take the test. What are your results?

[TheSomberlain]

INTJ here 

You guys should check out the book "Please Understand Me II"

Pretty good read.

[just_think]

I never really liked the MB personality tests, but then I started looking into jung and took one and was like "ok, I get it now"

I'm pretty rare from what I understand, a male INFP.

Ladies, feel free to start a line right over... .there ----->

Applications will be processed in the order they are received.

[Jaybird]

I am an ISTJ, my uBPDstbxh is the opposite, ENFP.  Wow, that is a lot of letters! I would however attribute hypervigilence to both of us in different ways.

I describe myself as fiercely loyal  .

[Skip]

Survey Results



Most common personality types at bpdfamily:

INFJ [ 2% of US population/ 20% of bpdfamily participants]

Seek meaning and connection in ideas, relationships, and material possessions. Want to understand what motivates people and are insightful about others. Conscientious and committed to their firm values. Develop a clear vision about how best to serve the common good. Organized and decisive in implementing their vision. More Info

INFJ is most compatible with: ENFJ, ESFJ, ENTJ / least compatible with : INTP, ISTP, ISFP

INTJ [ 2% of US population/ 15% of bpdfamily participants]

Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance – for themselves and others. More Info

INTJ is most compatible with: ENTJ, ESTJ, ENFJ / least compatible with : ISFP, INFP, ISTP

ENFP [ 8% of US population/ 14% of bpdfamily participants]

Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency. More Info

ENFP is most compatible with: INFP, ISFP, INTP / least compatible with : ESTJ, ENTJ,ESFJ

INFP [ 4% of US population/ 13% of bpdfamily participants]

Idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want an external life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened. More Info

INFP (2nd function Ne) most compatible with: ENFP, ENTP, ESFP / least compatible with : ISTJ, ISFJ, INTJ

INTP [ 3% of US population/ 8% of bpdfamily participants]

Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical. More Info

INTP is most compatible with: ENTP, ENFP, ESTP / least compatible with : ISTJ, ISFJ, INFJ



Information Pages in the Thread

Here is the link to the test       

Trait Definitions (Introversion, Extroversions, Sensing, Thinking, etc.) <click here>

Profiles Descriptions (ENTJ, ESTP, etc) <click here>

Compatibility Profiles <click here>

Incompatibility Profiles <click here>

Data Summary <click here>

[ems mother]

Female, age 58 ENTP

This works out well with my True Colors testing too.  I am a mega Orange and High Green  - my judging and feeling are down in the tubes.  Maybe this is helping me cope better with my efforts to detach.  Of course, it also exacerbates the conflicts between me and my dxBPDd33.

My s35 likes it though as we still do the hard rock concerts together (first concert I took them to was Motorhead opening for Alice Cooper when s was 12 and d10.  We have been rocking together since then.

ems mother

[Sadforson]

Survey Results



INTP [ 3% of US population/ 8% of bpdfamily participants]

Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical. More Info

female INTP

[EF]

INFP [ 4% of US population/ 13% of bpdfamily participants]

Idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want an external life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened. More Info

Another INFP here.

[Vivgood]

That is ENFPs superpower, and why introverts love us. We are like alcohol minus the hangover!

Too true my friend! altho after my ex ENFP, I have had a mild, 20-year hangover



vivgood, INTJ

[just_think]

That is ENFPs superpower, and why introverts love us. We are like alcohol minus the hangover!

Too true my friend! altho after my ex ENFP, I have had a mild, 20-year hangover



vivgood, INTJ

I've been doing a lot of reading up on the MBTI.  Really fascinating stuff.  I find us INFP are like a fine wine compared to our ENFP brethern's party keg to INTJ types. (I also find that I tend to like the ENFP party keg as I've begun typing friends and I have a lot)

[PotentiallyKevin]

Yeah, INFPs are like a romantic 1on1 dinner under the moonlight. Passionate, intense and unforgettable .

ENFPs are like a series of crazy all night parties that end up turning into drunken yet still somehow deep philosophical talks around the fireplace at 4 in the morning with everyone ending the night usually arguing over conspiracy theories and then talking about how much we love each other, before passing out. Next morning everyone finds themselves waking up in the most awkward sleeping positions, a reeling head, and no one can seem to find their shoes... .

[just_think]

Yeah, INFPs are like a romantic 1on1 dinner under the moonlight. Passionate, intense and unforgettable .

ENFPs are like a series of crazy all night parties that end up turning into drunken yet still somehow deep philosophical talks around the fireplace at 4 in the morning with everyone ending the night usually arguing over conspiracy theories and then talking about how much we love each other, before passing out. Next morning everyone finds themselves waking up in the most awkward sleeping positions, a reeling head, and no one can seem to find their shoes... .

Lol, perfect descriptions. 

Borderline ex = INFP

Previous 5 year long relationship ex = ENFP

my currently closest friend = ENFP x100000

[PotentiallyKevin]

Yeah, INFPs are like a romantic 1on1 dinner under the moonlight. Passionate, intense and unforgettable .

ENFPs are like a series of crazy all night parties that end up turning into drunken yet still somehow deep philosophical talks around the fireplace at 4 in the morning with everyone ending the night usually arguing over conspiracy theories and then talking about how much we love each other, before passing out. Next morning everyone finds themselves waking up in the most awkward sleeping positions, a reeling head, and no one can seem to find their shoes... .

Lol, perfect descriptions. 

Borderline ex = INFP

Previous 5 year long relationship ex = ENFP

my currently closest friend = ENFP x100000

I am still under the impression that pwBPD can't be accurately tested MBTI. The lack of self and mirroring will get in the way. Otherwise - INFP or ISFP would be the "borderline" MBTI personality... .

[just_think]

I am still under the impression that pwBPD can't be accurately tested MBTI. The lack of self and mirroring will get in the way. Otherwise - INFP or ISFP would be the "borderline" MBTI personality... .

They can still be typed to a degree.  Over on the borderline help site (for those with the disorder), there was actually a thread on the same thing and it ran the gamut of types. I typed mine as INFP based on long term behaviors even outside of our relationship.  Admittedly, she very well could have been ISFP as well but I think she had enough intuition to be categorized as IN - just that it was all directed in the wrong direction.       

[Vivgood]

I am still under the impression that pwBPD can't be accurately tested MBTI. The lack of self and mirroring will get in the way. Otherwise - INFP or ISFP would be the "borderline" MBTI personality... .

I've been typed as INTJ since I was a 20-something BPD. Hasn't changed, except that my percentage  P vs J has moved closer to P as I've aged... .I attribute it to life as a single mom- you gotta roll with the punches! and a stepmom- don't expect much and you won't be disappointed!

BPDdd is an ENTJ (like DH) and BPDsis is ESFP (total opposite from me).

On the other hand, I think it not unlikely that some borderlines will change a letter or 2 after recovery... .its a big change. And me being an Aspie plays into my unrelenting (inescapable? insufferable?) INTJ-ness


vivgood

[Mable]

ENTP female here.  This is interesting, we are tested every year at work and I never really got into it.  Wonder what my BPD is, I'm guessing ESFJ but could be totally off.  I know in some of the pamphlets they give us for tips that it says the shadow functions take over in extreme stress.  So she can exhibit ESFJ but in reality be INTP.  Interesting

[Blixtbarn]

My N is far stronger than my S.  Which meant that no one ever gets my jokes.  And which means I'm one of the few human beings on this planet who knows what my mom is talking about when she isn't in "Wise Mind."  

Me too! Great for making art or mind-reading "crazy people". Awkward when it comes to (attempts at) social interaction.

Another INFJ over here  Hi!

[Nelson]

Also an infj here, hi blixtbarn

[claudiaduffy]

I know that personality disorders kind of make ordinary personality tests at least partially invalid, but if any of you find the Myers-Briggs/MBTI/Jung personality types helpful in your understanding of yourselves, have you been able to use it to help understand the PD'd in your life?

My uBPDmom is, or would be if you zapped the BPD out of her, an ESFJ. Extreme levels of each. I am an INFJ/P, and studying the dynamics between our types has been really fascinating and in some ways helpful for me. For example, it's hard to find INFJs getting along easily with ESFJs in any circumstance. (I was delighted to find company with other INFJ children of ESFJs here - www.personalitycafe.com/infj-forum-protectors/25076-micromanaging-esfj-mother-infj-daughter-conflict.html ) So, knowing this has helped me be able to see things in our relationship that are exacerbated by her BPD but not caused by it. And that has made me able to respect her inborn personality in some of our differences, instead of just chalking it all up to the disorder.

[Clearmind]

CD, yes absolutely! I have an uBPD father and BPDexbf.

I have worked extensively on this. I did one with my T using RHETI (The Enneagram Institute) and I came out with:

Type 9: peace maker ~ The Easygoing, Self-Effacing - Receptive, Reassuring Agreeable, and Complacent

and closely followed by

Type 6: Loyalist ~ The Committed, Security-Oriented Type - Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious.

The basic fear of a Type 9 is loss and separation and tend to be the referee rather than the player in the game ~ enter BPD! The key motivation for a Type 9 is wanting to create harmony in the environment, to avoid conflicts and tension, to preserve things as they are, to resist whatever would upset or disturb them ~ devoted to the quest of internal and external peace for myself and others.

Having an uBPD father I was the studious peace maker of the family, the one who didn't rock the boat, pulled the family together during a crisis, was the first port of call to fix including all manner of binds my father got himself into. Not much changed when I became an adult ~ I was a BPD magnet because I thought I could 'deal' or handle anything that came my way ~ I was use to high drama ~ in time it was to my own detriment.

So now I have learnt to balance out my peace keeper type personality with boundary setting and knowing my own limits. Its all a work in progress but needless to say I found my voice.

[SmokeyViolets]

I've noticed the majority of the people I suspect of having BPD are ISFP's and ESFJ's (mirrors of each other). I know many more healthy people of that type then not, but it seems like it would be easy to slip into wrong thinking when your emotional world is so concrete to you.

And yeah, Clearmind, 9 makes sense to me too. The downward spiral into wrong thinking.

I'm an INFP and a 4 and I think NPD is probably more common among types like myself (mainly IN's), if you follow the enneagram spiral correlation. I do know at least one INFP with NPD and an ENTJ.

CD, I've been thinking about this a lot lately too. *winks*

[BehindTheWall]

I'm an INTJ and believe my uBPDm is an ISFJ.  It does explain some of our conflict as female ISFJs tend to be big on homemaking and thrive on gratitude.  INT types are generally the opposite of that.  So I don't care about the things she thinks are important and I'm not naturally good at giving her the gratitude and encouragement she needs.

When I first learned about Myers-Briggs types, I was taught that SFs are the most likely to have trouble with depression, or have the hardest time getting out of depression, something like that, as they are focused on their feelings and the present moment and have difficulty envisioning things getting better in the future.  (Not knocking SFs as I have my own struggles with depression.)  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a correlation between SFs and BPD (or at least Fs).

[allergictodramaSD]

One book I've found helpful in this regard (and have recommended here before) is The New Personality Self-Portrait, by Oldham and Morris.  One of the authors helped to write the personality disorders section of the DSM (the last one by now, I think), so it's quite scientifically solid, but also accessible (lots of anecdotes/made-up but mostly quite believable illustrative characters, practical advice for coping with people).  The basic premise of the book is that we all have personalities made up of a combination of traits, and that, in people with personality disorders, at least one of the traits is carried to a disabling extreme.  Many of the traits are pretty similar to Myers-Briggs, but one comes up with a map of stronger and weaker traits rather than 4 letters (and the authors argue that the balance of traits can change somewhat over time).   The book has plenty of advice for helping normal people with differing personalities (romantic partners, parents and children, colleagues) get along, and also some (careful, qualified) advice for coping with people with PDs (all of it in keeping with what's advised on this board; the authors encourage self-preservation and self-care, setting boundaries, and getting out of toxic relationships if/when necessary).   I think it's likely to appeal to anyone who finds Myers-Briggs helpful, while also offering a slightly different perspective, and addressing the issue of what happens when normal variations in human personality pass over into the realm of pathology. 

Even having read this book, I find it difficult to figure out what my uBPD/NPD stepmother would be like if she weren't PD'd.  She's definitely more of an extrovert than I am (which is probably true of 95%+ of the population, so that's not saying much), and I initially thought that difference might be at the root of many of our misunderstandings, but that difference pales in the face of her many projections, blackings, etc.  And, as I've written elsewhere, at least for her, one BPD (and perhaps also NPD) trait seems to be that she feels extremely threatened by the idea that people are different. If people are just like her, and agree with her in every way, then all is right with her world; the moment one gets into the realm of difference, even differences that, as far as I can see, have no positive or  negative value attached to them, she's uncomfortable.  She seems to need there to be one right way to be, and she needs to know the rules so she can be sure she's following them, and thus "right."  She also needs an audience, and plenty of reassurance.  So, when she says there must be something wrong with me because "I have no friends" (meaning that I often spend free time alone, by choice, and see the relatively few but good friends I do have regularly but not necessarily weekly or even monthly), it's hard to tell whether she's being an extrovert who just can't understand enjoying, even wanting to, spend time alone (and I've encountered more than one of those), or whether she's being a pwBPD who is, on some level, threatened by the fact that I have a clear sense of my identity even without anybody else present to reflect it back to me.  When I first met her, I assumed the former (partly because I'm aware that I'm far at one end of the introvert/extrovert scale, and can puzzle people at the other end, or even the middle); now, I tend to think it's as much the latter.  I suppose the blacking/black-white thinking and rigidity in her judgments (at least of me), might also be seen as J traits in Myers-Briggs language, but I'm somewhat J myself (I've regularly come out INTJ on M/B tests, with all of the tendencies fairly mild except the I),  and it took me a long time to get to the point of saying "okay; I'm not blameless in this situation, but I also can't make it better without her also wanting that, and she clearly doesn't," or even of labeling her in my own mind as seriously mentally ill (partially because she spends an awful lot of time "diagnosing"/psychoanalyzing me, and it felt counterproductive to just do the same thing back.  I still wouldn't enter into the "who's crazy" argument with her and my father, but understanding that she's PD'd in some way, and that that's a major component of the situation, helps keep me from spending time trying to fix a situation I can't fix). 

[Waiting to Exhale]

I'm an INFJ. Bring in BPD and the fact that a BPDs favorite thing to do is screw with your internal sense of intuition and your feelings on a regular basis and you have for one introspective-judging person who wonders if their intuition and feelings are off kilter or what.  "The protector" personality which explains why I'm overly protective of my brother and some people in my family and find it my "job" to keep them safe...

[claudiaduffy]

One book I've found helpful in this regard (and have recommended here before) is The New Personality Self-Portrait, by Oldham and Morris. 

Ooh! I'll have to check that out.

[GeekyGirl]

Myers-Briggs has always been fascinating to me. I'm an ISTJ and I'm fairly certain that my enDad is as well (we're both engineers and 75% of engineers are ISTJs). No idea what uPBDMom is, but if I had to guess, I'd say ESFJ. It kind of explains why I keep looking for patterns in her behavior... .

[backontop]

As I read alot of these posts, I notice that we Nons on here share a lot of similar traits, just as our BPDs share similar patterns.   I have always been a big fan of the Myers-Briggs personality profile and have wondered how we might be similar in that nature.  

I am the Idealist/Healer    (INFP), that is my personality to a T... . Im codependent also, but that I can work on.  My personality is what it is.

[Willy]

INFP, the description is spot on!

[MaybeSo]

I am INFP. In my masters program to become a therapist I was with a cohort of about 12. This was the predominant personality style in the class, this and INFJ, almost all were introvert intuitives. The professor said this is what he has seen for years.

[Mystic]

INFJ every time I test. 

[realityhurts]

Artisan - Crafter (ISTP) for me. I broadly agree with the description.