u/bleep_v

In which I once again ask myself, "Why other people brain work different??"

Disclaimer! This post is just me hypothesizing (as well as a direct invitation to tell me to kill myself, of course). I am not implying that questions about existence and existentialist thought are reserved for the attachment triad; I'm making an attempt at identifying core psychological mechanisms.

Absurdity Before Self. The Existential Brothers

This is the "attachment triad" which, I posit, is profoundly existentialist in its nature. It is human vs. absurdity one-on-one.

• Nine: "Why do I exist?"
• Six: "I exist. How do I exist? (i.e., What is the correct way to exist?)"
• Three: "I exist in a context. How do I contextmaxx?"

The absurdity of existence is an ever-present (sub)conscious undercurrent to the individual's life that causes a likewise absurd desire to """"attach"""" to something "meaningful." While seeking solid ground in an otherwise absurd world, the Existential Brothers are always questioning and reevaluating things, either consciously or subconsciously.

A Fixation Bothers–type solid fixation doesn't develop in this case because absurdity takes overwhelming priority. At the same time, absurdity makes any kind of actual """"attachment"""" impossible. (Attachment is a myth. At best, it is a yearning for the comfort of the mother's womb. In a world without meaning, you literally cannot attach to anything; attachment is always an illusion, something to doubt and scrutinize.)

• Cause for neurosis: Total inability to fight absurdity.
• Growth: Accepting absurdity ("choosing life" in spite of absurdity).

Self Before Absurdity. The Fixation Brothers

These are the "hexad types."

How the individual psyche rejects absurdity is the cause for fixation neurosis (type). Fixation is the mechanism which overrides absurdity completely.

The individual trusts fully in their neurosis. One could say, the fixation neurosis is the individual, the fixation is the individual's whole world. Thus, while the Existential Brothers feel no solid ground beneath their feet, the Fixation Brothers are their own solid ground.

• Cause for neurosis: Over-identification with fixation in the face of absurdity.
• Growth: Accepting absurdity (letting go of over-identification with fixation).

The Fixation Brothers are rooted in their selves, and the Existential Brothers—while also being individuals with selfhood—are unrooted in existence and, consequently, their selves.

I'm sorry for everything! I'm sorry for everything! I'm sorry for everything!

So, I have this online friend (we follow each other on social media and have discussions about all sorts of things), and after interacting with them for a while, I've realized that I don't really like them. They're the kind of person I'd be fine hanging out with IRL now and then, but the constant availability online wears me out. More and more, I feel like I have to feign interest. Had we not already been friendly with each other, I simply wouldn't engage with them.

I have this problem where I just don't want to be mean. I don't want to reinforce a leitmotif of rejection in someone else's life story. If I were honest, I'd say, "Hey, I don't hate you, but we don't meet eye to eye on a lot of important issues, our personalities clash [I think they might be a Six], and I am often annoyed by you." Frankly, I have already openly expressed all of these sentiments—just not in a "please, sit down, we need to talk" sort of way. I also have to take the extra mile to be gentle with them because they tend to perceive offense where none was intended. In the end, I always do the Nine thing of "let's agree to disagree," but they just keep probing and probing until I get mad at them. I don't understand why they feel the need to probe, and they don't understand why I get mad. :')

What is the etiquette for a situation such as this? I feel it's my duty to offer an explanation as to why messages remain unanswered for days, turning into weeks, turning into months. I'm basically ignoring them (either because I don't care enough to answer or because I don't want to start another annoying argument where neither of us will ever be able to understand each other's positions). Also, it's not like this person isn't a decent human being; they've tried helping out when I've posted needy, depressing stuff, etc. I just don't vibe with them at all. :')

Something prompted me to read the chapter on Fives in Sandra Maitriʼs The Spiritual Dimensions of the Enneagram, and it led me to wonder about a few of the ideas that she expresses.

1. Some Five descriptions of Maitriʼs sound incredibly Nineish to me. Am I correct in this impression?

Iʼm going to insert some paragraphs that feel most Nine-like here. Sorry for the wall of text to follow.

>She ends up feeling unseen, unappreciated, and not understood, and this becomes part of her ongoing sense of self. So rather than experiencing herself as someone whose needs are apparent and whose inner process is penetrable by another’s understanding as in Holy Transparency, she feels invisible.

>In a word, she hides from life, <...> she conceals herself from others and ultimately hides from herself as well. She becomes self-enclosed and prefers to remain on the periphery of things, whether they be social gatherings, intimate relationships, or any other kind of engagement with others. She withdraws and tends to be difficult to reach on all levels, from simply being elusive regarding her whereabouts or not answering her phone for instance, to evasiveness about what is going on with her internally.

><…> if a Five feels any danger of her response to a question being conflictual, it will be difficult to get a straight answer out of her. Rather than expressing herself and risking a challenge for which she feels unprepared or taking the chance of ruffling someone else’s feathers, she hides what is going on with her. In arguments, she will readily say that she agrees with the other person, and later it becomes clear that she still holds an entirely divergent opinion. She accommodates, appearing to go along with what the other wishes, while quietly going about exactly what she secretly wanted to do in the first place. At other times, she may accommodate to the extent that she loses track of her own direction. While she secretly longs to be seen, appreciated, cared about, and loved, she is afraid to take the initiative and instead feigns indifference and waits passively to be noticed.

>A Five’s dissembling keeps her from making waves and helps her avoid confrontations, but it also reinforces her disconnection from others.

>Her own aliveness and vitality seem ephemeral and tenuous, and her energy, stamina, and vigor feel limited, and she may even experience herself as unreal, ghostlike. She feels small, contracted, and shrunken, with her presence delicate, wispy, and insubstantial, and her expressions of exuberance and animation appear momentary and fleeting.

>In Freudian terms, her drive energy is diminished. Her investment of love and value in others and objects is blocked and held back, as is her libido, her drive toward them. Rather than going after what she wants, she talks herself out of what she wants and inwardly moves away from the wanting. <...> she may experience deep longing inside but blocks its expression, looking apathetic to others; or at the extreme she stops desiring altogether. She restricts her wishes and her wants, and in appearance if not in fact ceases to care about anything.

>As Horney elaborates <…>: ‘The resigned person believes, consciously or unconsciously, that it is better not to wish or to expect anything. Sometimes this goes with a conscious pessimistic outlook on life, a sense of its being futile anyhow and of nothing being sufficiently desirable to make an effort for it. More often many things appear desirable in a vague, idle way but fail to arouse a concrete, alive wish. If a wish or interest has enough zest to penetrate through the “don’t care” attitude, it fades out soon after and the smooth surface of “nothing matters” or “nothing should matter” is reestablished. Such “wishlessness” may concern both professional and personal life—the wish for a different job or an advancement as well as for a marriage, a house, a car, or other possessions. The fulfillment of these wishes may loom primarily as a burden, and in fact would sabotage the one wish he does have—that of not being bothered.ʼ

>Others, more thoroughly convinced of the futility of engagement, lose interest in anything altogether. In either case, with little inner drive - toward things, a Five has difficulty initiating action, and instead she waits passively on the sidelines for attention to come her way, for her needs to be met, and for contact with others. She is held back, restrained by her reluctance to move toward anything out of fear of rebuff or loss, and so her actions are stilted and awkward, infused with self-consciousness. She often feels paralyzed, unable to move in one direction or another, and when this happens it is because she is afraid. In the same vein, she has difficulty communicating her needs, in the extreme becoming catatonic, unable to speak.

>Rather than engaging life, then, and grappling with the challenges it brings, the Five retreats from it.

><...> as Horney says: <...> Being an onlooker at himself means just that: not actively participating in living and unconsciously refusing to do so.

>As we are seeing, a Five’s attempt to preserve her inner space and the integrity of her soul through withdrawing from life ends up ironically also isolating her from herself. She withdraws from her direct experience, so rather than  experiencing the vibrancy of her bodily sensations and her emotions, she observes them from a distance just as she does external things. As a result, she often feels out of touch, spaced out, and blocked, living a lot in her mind and in fantasy.

>As Horney describes: ‘<…> He is as defenseless as an animal that has only one means of coping with danger—that is, to escape and hide.’

>Her response to the demands of her superego as well as to any external demands is often simply to stonewall. Often it is even more important to her not to comply and in that way to preserve a sense of independence than to do things that she knows are in her best interest. to do, she tends to go into quiet resistance. She may say that she has every intention of doing things that are expected of her, but somehow they just don’t get done.

>A Five’s hostility, then, is expressed indirectly in passively aggressive behavior. With her docile and accommodating self-presentation, she will agree to do things and make commitments only to placate the other, with no intention of actually following through. She tends to procrastinate, postpone, forget, and find all sorts of reasons why she must fulfill her obligations later. She is rarely in touch with the hostility she is expressing in this backhanded way, and is usually quite surprised at the frustration and rage such behavior evokes in others, who are simply feeling the anger that she is not expressing directly and perhaps not even conscious of. She does not feel she can say no directly because she does not feel she has the inner strength to stand behind it. Like a hollow twig, she is afraid she would snap. So she demurs, acting out her aggression silently and not risking a confrontation with anyone. Rarely asserting herself, she appears to go along with another’s flow, while quietly in the background going her own way, as we saw earlier.

>Her hostility is also expressed in her movement away from life. <...> Strong emotions are so messy, why should she want to sully herself by feeling, much less expressing, them?

Is this a heavily Nine-fixed Five or simply a Nine? Is Maitri, perhaps, a meh source on Fives?

2. If the Maitri Five is a Five, how does one differentiate between an isolated, pessimistic Nine and a standard Five?

3. How to differentiate between the Five and the Nine kinds of withdrawal?

4. How to differentiate between a Nineish “lack of a developed self” and a Fiveish “internal emptiness”?

F-f-f-fank yew-w-w! (And will you find it in your heart to forgive me?)