# Core + heavy wing



## Chesire Tower (Jan 19, 2013)

If this description applies to you, did you have trouble distinguishing your core from you wing? Did you mistype as your wing, stress, security point or another fix in your tritype, only to eventually realize that instead of being a core X with a heavy wing Y; you were in actuality a core Y with a heavy wing, X?

Please vote for your current type in the poll and explain why you confused your wing with your core.

I thought for the longest time, that I was a core 5 with a heavy 4 wing. I even considered 7, 2 and 9 as possibilities. Some people blew my mind by suggesting 6 or even 3 as a possible cores for me. :shocked: but I knew that I had to be one of the three withdrawn types. 

Matter were further complicated by getting a 5w4 on most of the Enneagram tests that I took but I did take one that wound up being eerily accurate:

Enneagram Variant Test

Also when I would read descriptions on mistypes; 5 always seemed to fit me the most but eventhough I related to the 5's core fear of being helpless and incompetent; I never really related to avarice in the way a type 5 utilizes it; so for a long time, I thought that I could be a 7 because I did relate to gluttony (as the way it is ascribed to a 7), quite accurately. I also related to Naranjo's 2 description; as well as a lot of 9 traits; but none of the types ever seemed to really fit.

I thought that I couldn't be a 4 because I wasn't emotional enough (I tended to escape from my emotions as opposed to wallowing in them), didn't have much use for melancholy (I view myself as a relentless optimist); although I did relate to the overwhelming need to be authentic and was powerfully drawn to and aware of beauty in life in all it's forms. I am also highly sensitive and generally feel misunderstood.

I had an epiphany as a result of challenging my usual fears when it comes to others and decided to face them and stay grounded for once, rather than run away or do the whole push-pull thing. I had come to the decision that I had well overpaid my dues, suffered enough and I (for once in my life) was going to refuse to sabotage myself and do what could make me happy.

This is what turned everything around for me. I had the painful, soul- eviscerating awareness that I had an obsessive attachment with needing to view myself as flawed and anything or anyone that would threaten that self image would cause me to have overwhelming anxiety.

My late mother was emotionally abusive but nothing I did ever had any impact whatsoever on her ill-treatment of me. I desperately needed some way to avoid experiencing myself as a total victim for being subjected to this ongoing injustice; so I resolved if I couldn't make the punishment fit the crime; I would then make the crime fit the punishment. I began to act out - which as I predicted, had 0 effect on the abuse but it made me feel that I was somehow in control of what was happening, because I CAUSED it - eventhough I know nothing I said of did ever made a damn bit o difference. In my mind, it was all my fault and this, while adaptive in childhood, became an albatross in adulthood when this became my default method of coping with anything bad that would happen to me. 

There was one little problem with this coping strategy: I needed to see myself as flawed. However, being flawed meant that I couldn't have any relationship, career or even friend success because any type of worldly success would threaten to undermine this defence that both saved me as a child and was underlying what my identity was based on. While I didn't see myself as inherently "special" whenever I would feel sorry for myself, I would experience a strong sense of entitlement for all of the pain I had been subjected to. 

At first, I didn't really relate to envy because I was going out of my way to do anything that could possibly trigger it but once I decided to wage war on my defences, I realized how I compulsively envied everyone who I perceived to be exempt for this sense of being flawed or broken at the core and didn't have to suffer like I had. This realization filled me with overwhelming shame, because I realized how I had literally lost years of my life due to this deliberate attachment to this sense of never being good enough, unacceptable, unlovable, a failure, being irretrievably wounded at the core.

*So, I want to know if there are any other cores with heavy wings that can relate to this issue of mistyping wing for core.*


----------



## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

I have never mistaken a wing for my core and I think people tend to over-attribute the importance of the wing and how it plays within the ego neurosis of the core type, personally, especially when people are new to the theory and often end up trying to justify their typings because of the wing i.e. I'm a 5 but a really introverted and artistic kind of 5 because of my 4 wing which makes me really emotional compared to all other 5s. This kind of typing is of course utter nonsense and completely overlooks what the enneagram theory actually is about in my opinion, and tend to just really fall into the snowflake syndrome of needing to stick out and be special. 

The only time I ever thought I could possibly be a 4 was when I was thoroughly investigating whether I was a 5 or a 4, simply because I realized there was more to the theory than the tests suggested that initially typed me as a 5. I thus wanted to nail it down completely and it boiled down to that I ended up comparing the holy ideas of 4 vs 5 respectively, because those were the only two I really felt I fully and genuinely understood at the time. I also knew that I could only be either of those types at that point, having done some reading on most of them and narrowed it down to that 5 or 4 were the most likely.

I idealized 4 a lot and wanted to be a 4 because I enjoyed the romantic outlook of holy origin and I felt that holy omniscience in contrast was quite devoid of feeling and empty, but that's the thing - I realized that I was denying who I was because the more I thought about type 4 as my core, the less it actually resonated. I understood holy omniscience at a level I did not want to admit because it also meant admitting the things I rejected myself to be. It was quite difficult to accept those things initially but my core neurosis drives me towards finding ultimate truth and understanding of things and accept what things are, so ironically I was forced to accept because that's who I am.

I have never retyped since though I sometimes entertain the idea of being an 8 core, especially now the past months. I don't think I am an 8 at the end of the day and it doesn't help that 8 is my integration point and I know I have 8 as a fix because the mentality of 8 is quite heavily ingrained within my psyche, but it could perhaps explain why some people especially early on on these forums thought I was a CP6. I also know that _if_ I am an 8 my wing is decidedly 7. 

I want to clarify that I do however think it is quite impossible for my head fix to be 7. I don't share any of the core issues with 7 as I do 5. I am more similar to CP6 than 7, _if_ I would be anything else than a 5 for head. However, at this point in time I have a very hard time seeing how I'm a mistype. If I am, I am an 8 core either way.


----------



## d e c a d e n t (Apr 21, 2013)

Hum, well. I did consider type 7 as my core, but it seems unlikely overall (hedonistic as I can be). I'm not sure which wing is the heaviest right now, though.


----------



## Scruffy (Aug 17, 2009)

Never saw myself as a 4.

Wing only influences the aim/direction of your core, it does not mirror the type in question.


----------



## jeb (Jan 6, 2014)

I can relate. Most of the tests I took said I was a type 2...

After much thought and discussion, I concluded that I was a 1w2.


----------



## spiderfrommars (Feb 22, 2012)

No, in fact, identifying my wing was very hard, and it doesn't have a strong impact on how I view my core type.


If I were ever to consider a different core type, it would be 2, not 4 or 6.


----------



## Dragheart Luard (May 13, 2013)

No, I never had the idea of being a core 9, nor it would make sense considering my motivations and how I deal with anger. It may influence me, but the main motivations and holy idea of type 9 don't resonate with me.


----------



## Kabosu (Mar 31, 2012)

No, I can't be core 7 because I'm at the mercy of my mind and don't feel comfortable ignoring problems unless that's supposed to be the solution to one.

I may seem positive outlook to people irl but I think that's my instinctual variants playing their role.


----------



## 6007 (Feb 12, 2010)

I'd consider 4 for my primary type, given enough reason. At this point, I consider it a wing, and my heart type, but I feel quite honestly fivish, and have been experienced by others as fivish. It's difficult to explain something as subjective as personality, humans just aren't simple. And while I may conceive of myself one way, another regarding me may see something else entirely.
But for now, I see myself as a 5.


----------



## Surreal Snake (Nov 17, 2009)

I have never doubted my core/wing...4w5


----------



## shakti (Oct 10, 2012)

I thought I was a 8w7, but a nice man on the PerC enneagram subforum told me I was actually a 7w8. I'm still open to both options


----------



## bearotter (Aug 10, 2012)

It's important to remember the enneagram and the MBTI and all that are about having interesting rules of thumb to explain a thing or two about oneself, to fill in some gaps. 

The confusion of core v wing partly can be because the boundaries of what these types constitute are shady when one attempts to get a neat match, but they're more unmistakable/clear when you focus on the real core philosophy and stick to accepting that a lot of the nitpicking about type traits might need to be viewed as fluff. That said, those things should be suitably explained.


----------



## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

I thought I was an 8 because of my full body angry intensity.. but I am also very playful and twitchy and had a frozen heart, more 7ish. Very head type thinking and behaviour.. also very id and wild and dark. 

I know I am a 7 but for a year I thought 8.


----------



## Chesire Tower (Jan 19, 2013)

cursive said:


> I'd consider 4 for my primary type, given enough reason. At this point, I consider it a wing, and my heart type, but I feel quite honestly fivish, and have been experienced by others as fivish. It's difficult to explain something as subjective as personality, humans just aren't simple. And while I may conceive of myself one way, another regarding me may see something else entirely.
> But for now, I see myself as a 5.


Oh c'mon, be a 4; come over the dark side. :wink:


----------



## 6007 (Feb 12, 2010)

Myoho Traveller said:


> Oh c'mon, be a 4; come over the dark side. :wink:


I'd love to, trust me, but pretty sure despite my fangirling tendencies I'd be the worst 4 ever.


----------



## Chesire Tower (Jan 19, 2013)

cursive said:


> I'd love to, trust me, but pretty sure despite my fangirling tendencies I'd be the worst 4 ever.


Why would that be and what constitutes a GOOD 4 anyhow?


----------

