Me, but not me...

This post leans heavily on the Jung Personality Types to explain some things about myself. If you do not know them, I suggest you look them up before reading further, but here's a brief explanation:

there are four parts to the Jung Personality, each of which has 2 possibilities, which yields 16 personality types. The four parts are:

Introverted vs Extroverted (I vs E)
Intuitive vs Sensing (N vs S)
Thinking vs Feeling (T vs F)
Judging vs Perceiving (J vs P)

The good tests recognize that you could be slightly to the one or the other, but not very much, and might have aspects of both sides of that part. But, it still places you in one or the other for all four. And each are always listed in the order given.

An introverted person finds dealing with people tiring, whether they enjoy it or not.
An extroverted person finds dealing with people energizing, whether they enjoy it or not.
An intuitive person favors intuition over their observations.
A sensing person favors their observations (senses) over their intuition.
A thinking person prefers to make rational judgements.
A feeling person prefers to make emotional judgements.
A judging person prefers structure and organization in their environments.
A perceiving person prefers open-ended and casual environments.

These are incredibly simplified. For a better explanation check out this page.

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I am always introverted.

I will skip the middle two for now.

Judging and Perceiving swing back and forth for me, but I'm usually kinda strongly in preference for one or the other.

Now to the middle two. When I feel like myself, these two are N and F, intuitive and feeling. So when I feel like myself, I am INFP or INFJ. But, randomly, I'll switch. I never know which will switch first, but it starts with one, and then the other, will slowly rotate to the other side. When both are firmly in the other side, I become aware that I don't feel like I am me.

So what happens? Well, most people describe me as being bubbly, outgoing, kind, considerate, and a little air-headed. When I switch, I become bitchy, judgemental, impatient, hostile, and selfish. I hate being this way, but I don't know how to keep myself from switching. I have no way to predict when it's going to happen. Sometimes, it doesn't happen for three or four months. Sometimes, it happens every month or every other month. Sometimes, it comes in the middle of my normal times. Sometimes, it comes during PMS, sometimes, in the middle of Red Week, sometimes, in the tail end of red week and the start of normal times. I also have no way of knowing, once I recognize it, how long it will last. Sometimes, it's a week. Sometimes, it's a few days. Once, it lasted almost a month. I don't know what triggers it. I don't know how to switch back. I don't know how to tell it's happening until it's already happened. Examining it after it's in place sometimes reveals that I lost my feelings and started thinking heavily first, sometimes it reveals that I stopped being so intuitive and started paying more attention to facts first.

This is why I say I have a very changeable nature. The one thing that stays the same is that dealing with people exhausts me, whether I'm enjoying it or not. The factor that changes is how well I deal with people before I get exhausted by it. Think of it as having a short fuse vs having a long fuse.

But, right now, I'm an ISTP. I miss myself.