# damaged extrovert or suddenly introvert? changing yourself?



## Maura95 (Mar 16, 2013)

Hello forum,

Do personalities change? Can past experiences influence the person you are today? I used to be an extroverted person. I was easy to talk to, I always felt comfortable with anyone and I loved having people around. I am a dreamer and an idealist, but I definitely wasn't shy. Just a bit chaotic and absent-minded at times. More extroverted than introverted.

After being bullied for a year (ignored, made fun of, for no reason at all) my personality changed. Nowadays, even though it happened a few years ago (4/5 years) I still am uncomfortable and shy around people. I am terrified of rejection, I wouldn't be able to handle it. So I tried to exclude myself from parties and get-togethers. This made me feel lonely so sometimes, when I feel a bit adventurous, I go to a friends house or even go to a party. I love parties! But when I'm there, having normal conversations I get so worried of people disliking me, I end up having excruciating headaches. But I'm a little better now because I am not isolating myself anymore and I have a group of friends. I also have read a self-help book that made me a bit more relaxed. Still, it's basically ruining my life.

It wouldn't bother me as much if it wasn't my dream to study anthropology and wanting to do research that involve a lot of interaction with people. Basically my college-life will be one big social get-together. I want to make a living of travelling or getting involved with politics. I love to live the life of an extrovert. I just don't know if I have become an introvert or am a severely damaged extrovert. And let's say personality is flexible, can I make myself more extroverted by forcing myself to interact more?

Are there more people here who have shifted?

Thanks for reading this


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## ashleigh090990 (Jan 23, 2013)

I have often wondered this myself!

I'm a huge introvert now, but I look back to when I was a teenager (I'm 22 now) and see myself mainly as an extrovert.

I'm sorry to hear you were bullied though, I'm lucky to say that that's never been the case for me.

It's more that people at school would find me quite weird and would make fun of me for it. Although it might just have been a little bit of fun for them, it was a bit 
isolating in a way and I felt so rejected! Could just be me being too sensitive but I disliked the fact that they were making fun of my personality, something that I can't really help! I wouldn't have minded if they made fun of my dress sense or my haircut... 

I even noticed around that time that I was becoming much more withdrawn. It was also around the same time that I began feeling self conscious of weight and wearing make up, so that could have had something to do with it?

Even now, I do feel like my Ne is much more dominant than my Fi and likewise Te over Si (which would make me an ENFP- though I could just biased towards wanting to be E? I don't know, I like being introverted though... Hmm)

I'm still quite new to this myself, so I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this


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## Psychopomp (Oct 3, 2012)

@Maura95 - Universal consensus is that type doesn't change. Even more universal consensus is that you need to be what you are, whatever you are. If you think you are in a bad state, you need to look for help to get out of it. It never hurts to have a chat with a professional and get their opinion... but, honestly, good friends and solid relationships are peerless helps. Don't blame type for negativity in your mind or in your life... it's not ever going to help and is almost universally not deserving of the blame. It looks like you've been through a lot and the effects of that can take a long time to get under control. It took time to get in this place and it will take time to get out. Good relationships and real successes will make all the difference, I am sure.

Strong inconsistencies in your processes are most likely the result of the natural toll extreme stress can put on the psyche.... don't blow it off. Get help from wherever it's offered... it's _always_ worth trying. 
@ashleigh090990 - Same advice... also, think more in terms of WHAT you extravert than if you extravert. What aspects of yourself happen inside and what aspects do you tend to socialize? When you are social, what function is being fed?

Also, for both of you.... I think you may want to question the 'INFP' typing. You both strike me as.... not.... that. ISFP? I don't know. It will be hard to tell during tumultuous or stressful times. You both strike me as strong Fi types, however... but I see no Ne and your struggle to find connections and meaning in these events, looking to socialize the logical process.... all strong indicators of xSFP.... again, for both of you. 

Just some thoughts to chew on if you want to.


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## William I am (May 20, 2011)

Maura95 said:


> Hello forum,
> 
> Do personalities change? Can past experiences influence the person you are today? I used to be an extroverted person. I was easy to talk to, I always felt comfortable with anyone and I loved having people around. I am a dreamer and an idealist, but I definitely wasn't shy. Just a bit chaotic and absent-minded at times. More extroverted than introverted.
> 
> ...



One of the tenets of MBTI is that people can and do change/switch between J/P and E/I. The core NT/NF/ST/SF does not change, according to the theory. 

That said, I was initially typed ENTJ, which was never really appropriate. I do feel myself shift more towards I sometimes.
I was bullied as a kid and survived emotionally abuse from an intimate partner, and I do have social anxiety. What you're describing sounds a lot to me like social anxiety. Counseling really helped me deal with the issues I picked up from the abuse and some of the issues I picked up from the bullying. I'm going back for more to kill off the last of it - the stuff I didn't really notice was a problem to begin with. 

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that your motivations haven't changed - you still love parties and people and being around people, though you're scared of potential to get hurt. You haven't stopped wanting or needing interaction with other people, you haven't started to want to spend time alone and to focus inward because you've changed. Your anxiety/fear is keeping you from doing what you want to, so deal with that and then deal with whether or not you've fundamentally changed.


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## cyamitide (Jul 8, 2010)

@Maura behaviors and habits chance, the core personality - not so much. The parameter introversion-extroversion is set at very early age, and reinforce by how your mind develops, such that it's highly improbable to change later in life (Development of functions with age). However, sometimes extroverts, suffering failures and social bullying, can withdraw from the world for a while.


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## ashleigh090990 (Jan 23, 2013)

arkigos said:


> @_ashleigh090990_ - Same advice... also, think more in terms of WHAT you extravert than if you extravert. What aspects of yourself happen inside and what aspects do you tend to socialize? When you are social, what function is being fed?
> 
> Also, for both of you.... I think you may want to question the 'INFP' typing. You both strike me as.... not.... that. ISFP? I don't know. It will be hard to tell during tumultuous or stressful times. You both strike me as strong Fi types, however... but I see no Ne and your struggle to find connections and meaning in these events, looking to socialize the logical process.... all strong indicators of xSFP.... again, for both of you.


@_arkigos_ As much as I would love to be ISFP, I have no grasp on my Se at all! Which is a shame, because I really wish I did. My Ne is one of my more favoured ones (this is going to be awkward when I see my other functions in the morning...). I do tend to hold it back when I'm speaking to people I don't know, or when I'm trying to be serious, so I'm not sure it's obvious to a lot of people anyway. From experience, I think it's my Ne that made others think of me as weird, so it's something I've tried to repressed more since then.

I do have a clear idea on what made me less 'extraverted' than before, because I've lingered on it since I first noticed it myself. I couldn't write it all in one post: there are millions of factors, only some of which I shared above 

It's funny, because I only recently learnt of MB typing, yet I've always thought about intravertedness and extravertedness and whether it could change. Only I thought of them then as 'shyness' and 'outgoingness', which I know are NOT distinct parallels of intravertedness and extravertedness, but the ideas have managed to cross over and kind of overlap for me. And likewise, when I think of my 'weirdness', I now think of it as my Ne because that's where the craziness all tends to come running from for me.

It's my personal belief that I have always been intraverted, but that I am even more so now. When I was younger, I wanted to be at parties, make loads of friends and have people think of me as 'cool' (I was SO lame...), but it was more because I didn't want to be seen as the odd one out, than me actually wanting any of these things. It doesn't mean that I was actually extraverted at all, but I still had a desire to be around people, to be respected. I wanted people to think of me in years to come and think 'Wow, she was so different and unique' rather than 'Wow, there was something not quite right about her... Oh, and she was fat and ugly, too.'. Though, this was something that was already beginning to happen anyway... I was intraverted in that I secretly would have preferred to stay in and read a book, but extraverted in that I still felt so happy and energetic being around people. I am much more intraverted now in that I don't even care about socialising. Upon being made fun of (etc.) I withdrew completely from socialising, so much so that my parents thought I had depression, and although I still felt left out of things I didn't miss it all too much. 

When I'm socialising and I'm truly comfortable, my Ne comes out spectactularly (yep, tooting my own horn here). But that's only due to me being comfortable with who I'm with, whether or not I trust them. I think it's previous experience with the people who would make fun of me that has consequently made me less trusting when socialising that causes me to stifle my poor Ne. I constantly think 'What if I say this thought in my head and they start making fun of me for being weird?' Is that my Si at work here, too? These functions are such rascals!

Gahh @_arkigos_ your posts always makes me want to read up on things... It's another late night of pondering for me, I think 
@_Maura95_ Reading over your post again (and mine- I just realised I didn't properly answer your question before and have just written another rant above... No more late night Per C strolls for me, I think), I completely agree with what everyone is saying, in that you have a core personality and that different experiences can lead to a change in behaviour. This doesn't mean that you have changed, just how you act and may feel about certain situations. You reacted to this bullying by withdrawing from social interaction (which is understandable- you didn't want to experience it any more, so not mixing with people means you're not putting yourself at risk of being bullied by them), and now it has perhaps become more of a habit than your natural inclination. So you may very well be a damaged extravert. Which means, you need to fix it 

I have no remedies for damaged extravertedness, but I can give you a few tips on healing a broken ankle (I mean, how different can they be?!). Don't put too much pressure on it at first, let it heal gradually as you go about your life as you want to live it. If you want to go to a party, do it, but at a pace that you feel comfortable with. Talk to your friends about it (if they haven't already noticed the bandage on your foot), so that they can lift you up when you're down


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## ejomby (Feb 27, 2013)

I'm sort of chicken or the egg on this.

Were we already predisposed to be introverts and that's why teasing got to us, or even we made ourselves vulnerable to teasing?

or

Did teasing/bullying cause us to turn inwards and protect the self?

I'm not sure. Could go either way. But I do think that extroversion is the natural way, and introversion is either a reaction or an advancement in our psychological complexity (sorry extroverts-- just my honest thoughts.) Either way, I think extroversion and introversion are both good things.


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## WeirderThanYou (Oct 16, 2015)

That is pretty much what happened to me and I'm only 3 years older than you actually. But, I intuitively know that I'm still an extrovert. I'm a very damaged extrovert. I'm sure that's the case with you


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