I am not particularly new to typology, however I have not settled on a type for long. My enneagram, instinctual variant and MBTI have all changed in the last year. A reason for the difficulty in typing myself is likely due to the many different, contradictory parts of my personality which I have compartmentalised.

I currently type myself an ENTJ E8 845 VLEF, my instinctual variant is Sx/Sp and it’s unclear which is stronger, particularly as I do not fit the subtype of a SX8.

My childhood, and 8 as a gut fix:

My family immigrated to Australia from India a year after I was born. They were both quite hard working people, who placed heavy emphasis on my future and education. My sister was 8 years younger than me, and my relationship as an older brother was more parental. My mother had many mental health struggles, and under stress she would be prone to having outbursts, often targeted at me or my sister. My father would be absent for long periods, and when he was present he was not much more mature, he would defend our mother and mock my sister when she cried.

I often felt the need to protect my sister during family conflicts, I’d defend her immediately during verbal fights and take her to my room to comfort her after. I wasn’t encouraged to do any physical sports, so I read books instead. I was told I was mature for my age by others often, I developed quite a monotone manner of speaking which I still have and my emotional expression socially was very limited in range, I believe this could because overt displays of emotion, particularly of sadness or anger would become reason for conflict by my parents.

I went to a very cliquey Catholic school, I became quite a confident person however I would often be envious of others, for being more popular, being invited to parties, being in relationships. I was told by many of my friends that an ethnically Indian man isn’t sexually desirable, I was also told that I was very skinny and underweight. I was bad at soccer or football as I didn’t do these at a young age, but I was interested in boxing. I went to my local boxing gym 4 times a week after school, which was attended by amateur and professional boxers. I became fit and good at boxing, shortly after I became weight lifting, long distance running, MMA, Muay Thai. Many of these physical endeavours I became more than competent in, not through natural ability but instead through an application of continuous willpower. I was motivated by a desire to consistently improve myself, but perhaps only to better fit the masculine archetype that was valued in my social circle.

There were many times where overt racial or homophobic comments were targeted at me during school, at a certain point I started reacting by physically attacking these people until I eventually resolved my anger issues better.

At the age of 18: I decided to join the Australian Army. During a stage in recruitment which was essentially an IQ test which would unlock different tiers of jobs based on your results, I was deemed eligible to apply to all roles including officer entry and intelligence analysts. However, I chose to pick infantry which was placed in the lowest tier, because I wanted to do something fun and thrilling. I wanted to hold/shoot a rifle, to fire explosives and machine guns, to engage in physical activity and apply force towards my environment.

During basic training I was generally able to apply myself well under stress, but I missed my long distance partner a lot. I was assigned to being an artillery operator. I enjoyed the fitness aspect of my job, but I detested having to obey officers who I wouldn’t take a word of advice from if I was a civilian. I considered many of them to be douchebags who were dumber than me.

I left after a year (I joined through a gap year program that didn’t have minimum service requirements) to live with my partner and to pursue something more intellectually stimulating. I’m currently studying cybersecurity and I have spent time designing a roadmap of where I want my career to go 20 years into the future.

At my current job, my first instinct is to clear backlogs and organises processes and my work space. I enjoy interacting with the clients, I’m confident in my interactions with them and make them laugh often. I do this through dry humour that catches people off guard because the contents of what I say doesn’t match my otherwise flat tone and minimal facial expression.

I thrive during stress and challenges, when I’m in a comfortable period in my life I’ll start to feel bored.

Fi and the 4 heart fix - My politics, philosophy and gender:

I am a deeply open minded person and would consider myself to be very progressive. I dislike those who judge others, and my attitudes towards social issues are motivated by empathy. I do not believe morality exists in an objective manner or as an inherently real concept, and I dislike the proclaiming of activities as right or wrong as a E1 may do so.

However, despite these strongly held values I exhibit inconsistently by happily buying shares of companies I find immortal like United Healthcare or Palantir if I think it’ll be profitable, and I eat meat despite having a lot of empathy for animals and generally loving animals.

At a young age, I started experiencing feelings of gender dysphoria. I repressed this deeply as it didn’t align with the masculine image I had constructed through my childhood and the army, it wouldn’t be efficient for me and the ideal vision I had. However, over my life, despite attempts at repressing it, the feelings of dysphoria only grew more intense and more frequent. I still present very masculine in my daily life, but I feel envy at most people for not being afflicted with this misalignment between their gender identity and their biological sex that I have. I have dreamt about being a woman, I’d feel happy and then waking up to reality creates immediate grief. I long for what is natural for others.

It has recently reached the point where going outside becomes difficult, seeing women who in ways look like me, mannequins in stores adorned in pretty outfits, people being openly alternative or gender non-conforming and not repressing it like I do creates feelings of intense melancholy.

5 as the head fix:

I prefer learning and mastering a concept myself rather than being dependent on other people or institutions.

When I feel anxious about a topic, about my possibility of being incompetent, I aim to master the subject so being caught off guard is impossible.

My hobbies are philosophy, politics, and film/tv. When I watch film, I analyse its plot, characterisation, themes and write long dense reviews on them to publish to my Letterboxd. I rationalised my physical endeavours, for the gym I studied different workout splits, exercises to target specific muscles, etc.

I enjoy observing others deeply, and how they behave and interact at their most authentic.

SX:

While the army paid great and provided good benefits to an 18 year old who just moved out of home, I would take unapproved flights interstate to visit my partner every fortnight knowing that if I got caught I’d be facing serious consequences.

When my conservative parents gave me the ultimatum of leaving my transgender partner or they’d kick her out of the house, I chose to leave with her and lived on the verge of homelessness in a share house, and worked a very labour intensive warehouse to provide for us. Even though I could have stayed with my financially comfortable parents and not be expected to pay rent.

SP/Te/Ni:

I have created a long, detail trajectory of where I want my career to go and what I should study to get there.

I handle any logistical issue that comes up in our relationship, budgeting, planning outings, investing money into stocks.

SO last:

I am more than comfortable breaking social conventions and norms in conversations without feeling any form of anxiety.

I am indifferent to workplace politics and actively try to avoid it.

The argument for 4th Physics:

While I have enjoyed physical exertions of force in the form of sports, exercise and the army, and done well in these endeavours. They were interesting to me not due to the sensory experiences but instead because I pushed myself in them until they required an uncomfortable amount of willpower.

I detest having to have a corporal form, I view my body as a cage. Ideally I would exist as a cognitive spirit capable of shapeshifting into whatever form I please.

Please help me clearly establish my MBTI, enneagram, subtype, tritype and attitudinal psyche. I’ll answer any questions I can.