INTJ

I am a very private so writing about myself publicly isn't something that I'm comfortable with.

In the past I've written articles from my point of view as a "mum", a "professional", or a "student" but I've never allowed anyone a glimpse into my truly personal thoughts. For this reason I am not intending to share my identity on this blog, but I feel that it is important for me to share my musings because I've found a lot of peace in accepting myself & that wouldn't have been possible for me without having had the opportunity to study others.

I feel like this is my way of saying thank you & paying it forward. I don't consider my musings particularly profound, but I do understand the easy comfort in agreeing (or disagreeing) with an opinion & I don't believe there there are many online spaces specifically for INTJ women to look for that.

I have never met anyone that really understands me; partly because of how little I disclose about myself, but also because I have always felt different. That was especially the case growing up, but even to this day I haven't found a peer in whom I can honestly say "yepp, your mind works the same way mine does".

For a long time that meant that I was lonely; I've never been unpopular but I often choose to be on my own because I find most social environments very cliquey & in order to "fit in" I had to create a facade which is exhausting. I'm still capable of doing that & I do exercise that skill when I'm in situations that call for it (i.e. work, social events etc.) but what has really allowed me to not feel lonely any more is my acceptance of myself.

More recently that acceptance has developed into curiosity & that lead me to looking at the Myers Briggs Type Indicators. My experiences have made me sceptical to the validity of some practises in the field of psychology but I'm open minded & my curiosity pushed me to take a test. This test to be precise.

I am INTJ & although I still haven't (to my knowledge) met another INTJ woman, I feel happy with the idea that there are others out there that probably do think similarly to me & that's a nice feeling.

Sleep

I love my bed but I go through phases where I don't sleep very often. This month has seen one of those phases. I don't have insomnia, I'm actually blessed with the ability to sleep where ever & whenever I desire, I just don't sleep if I don't want to sleep.

For instance: If sleep is less important than completing a task then I wont do it - at least until I remind myself that I need sleep to ensure that the task that I'm doing is done to the best of its ability, but I very rarely allow myself to get to that point any more.

I remember several episodes when I was younger, however, where I would become physically sick from exhaustion. I don't fully understand the why but I do remember the feeling: I would suddenly upchuck the entire contents of my stomach, my body would ache, my head would spin & I would crash out somewhere in a daze until I had enough restless sleep to allow myself to get back up & start the new day. I'd generally have to go to bed earlier than normal the following evening but other than that life was normal. I affectionately call those episodes "rebooting".

Now I'm more likely to become a bit (for want of a better word) anti-social when I don't sleep. I try not to let that happen too often but it is an inevitability because I often make a conscious decision not to switch off my brain until I have a sense of accomplishment. This has made me a big fan of power-naps.

Power-naps aren't always possible though, most notably when there are other people relying on you to be awake & at your best. So at the moment I am re-creating my sleep pattern to accommodate a healthy balance of work/family/life/study & as part of that I have taken up writing again.

Rather than write something that I would feel the need to research I decided it would make most sense to write about myself. That way I am "killing two birds with one stone": I'm giving myself that sense of achievement on a day where I may otherwise not have it but I am also allowing myself to to a "brain dump" & we all know how important that is...