The complex childhood of INFJs 

It is only during the last 2 years that I've admitted to myself that my childhood was very turbulent and it had a profound effect on me. I remember being about 4 or 5 and feeling severe melancholy, loneliness and heaviness of heart. Feeling abandoned. I'm grateful to have discovered your channel, it is a great help!

INFJs often have complex childhoods marked by emotional depth, introspection, and sensitivity

Interesting video like always. As a child, I feel like I lost my innocence quite early? I could read people easily, how much incoherence there was in adults' behavior and how kids were mean to each other. I disliked injustices. It was weird to see all of this, while other kids were just playing. I had a couple of friends, usually 1 or 2 best friends. My peers thought I was really kind, gentle and a little shy. Teachers adored me because I was an "angel" (i.e. not a trouble-maker even though I was quite rebellious in my mind lol). I had the highest grades in class every year. I loved the arts and literature. I was always drawing, reading books and writing stories. I liked to be part of adults' conversations, sitting at the table with them, just listening. The melancholy and solitude were a heavy part of my childhood. I felt like something was missing, like I was looking for something, but I did not know what and why. It worsened a lot as a teenager. Thank god, it is not the case anymore. 🌸

I enjoy your insight at age 61 as I'm increasingly embracing the paradox of being INFJ. So yes I had a complex childhood, but there were other factors at play: being in an immigrant family and having a special needs brother. I spent most of my life bemoaning how misunderstood I was as a result, and am now glad to be more embracing and utilize the givts I was given.

My childhood was about as bad as one could get whilst still surviving.

Family dynamic was indeed turbulent throughout my childhood years. Absent narcissistic father flavor, yum :') My school years were lonely as well. I had the trait of "liked by many, loved by none" and still have, to an extent. I had the odd but nice child character, so no particular enemies, but no true friends. I... Survived, I think. Nonetheless, I learned a lot throughout the years and... Am hopeful for what is yet to come :)

Unfortunately, I can't write much now, but I can confirm for myself and other INFJs I've known along the years - very crappy experience. Also yet to meet an INFP and INTJ who had a really good home environment.

As a child I remember that sometimes I was left alone at home and I had to deal with the frustration of the feeling of loneliness. I'm not saying I was neglected, but I was probably devoid of certain aspects of love and affection. I was never taught that failure is a way to learn. I was never taught to embrace failure, in fact ever since I was a child I was raised to feel ashamed of committing mistakes or failing in certain ways. This has, of course, had an impact in my personality. In some ways for the better because I can be very stubborn and don't give up easily. In other ways for the worse because I tend to be very persnickety about my decisions and actions and I tend to overthink and analyze way too much, often beyond the realm of the reality and into the realm of paranoia.

So, my childhood was quite bad. I'd categorize the time up to the end of primary school as childhood. First my father turning out to be a cheater before I was even born and then was trying to starve me by dodging child support. To make things worse my parents have decided to create me during economic crisis and in a society where racism was common - my father was often called vile racist names and yet he still thought it's appreciate to create me in such vile environment. I remember that when I was 3 I was sent to kindergarten and I was completely isolated there. Other children didn't want to play with me. I was daydreaming a lot as a child. Then when I was 4 we moved to another city and I started making first acquaintances among my peers. These were mostly xSTPs, I think. We'd go together on adventures and to cause mischief. We'd climb roofs and fences and explore places. I was less capable at this due to inferior Se. They always treated me as worse because of that. We'd go on these adventures until I was 12, I think. At that time in kindergarten two kids would regularly attack me and beat me and the kindergarten teacher wouldn't do anything to stop it. I was never able to defeat them. Because of that I got social anxiety and would cover myself with my arms if someone would make sudden moves. During kindergarten my mother taught me to read. Starting out with comic books. I became a big fan of reading and of comic books. When I went to primary school, I was assigned to the worst class at school. To make things worse, my mother was lost her job as an architect due to worsening crisis and was unemployed for years. At school I was regularly called vile racist names and since I wasn't good at fighting I would run after the perpetrators with a chair, of course careful to not catch them as it could get me into trouble. I watched TV a lot since late kindergarten, I think. I watched a-team, airwolf, he-man, general deimos, tiger mask, sailor moon, robocop, yattaman dynasty, hannah barbera, disney, sea quest, star trek, babylon 5, brazilian soaps, dark skies, x-files, etc. Often during school pauses we'd talk about most recent episode of tv show. One time I watched a youth show about palaeontology and was instantly passionate about it. My mother would sometimes buy me books about palaeontology and also we'd go to places to look for fossils. I still have many fossils from that period. I was passionate about palaeontology until I was 13, I think. I also loved arcade games. One time me and my mother visited some people and their daughter had Commodore C64 and has showed me game called Commando. From that time I craved to have a computer. One time during one of rare visits from my father I asked him for a computer. After declining a PC or Amiga, he agreed to buy me Commodore C64 which was already outdated at that point as and soon I had it. It was when I was 7. I became an avid computer gamer. At that time I started going to local community centre to various hobby clubs - including wood modelling (particularly infested with racists), tried to start plane modelling but got bored with it before I got anything interesting to build, biology/ecology, tried to start Judo and fencing but couldn't keep up with basic physical conditioning, especially push-ups, clay sculpting. My strongest memory from biology was a cabinet with fossils that had a trilobite in it. I loved trilobites. I was super into arts and crafts. I loved scale models but I was really bad at making them. At school, I loved physical education classes but I did very badly in them because of poor grasp on physical world. I also struggled with house chores. I was a frequent visitor of libraries and reading rooms at school. I particularly loved adventure books, history, geology and palaeontology. Early primary school was when my interest in military history started. When I was in primary school, I got into a lot of woo woo stuff. Catholicism, paranormal stuff, UFO, ancient astronauts, etc. I have started attending religion classes in 1st class and have quit them and Catholicism when I was 13 when I learned about all the atrocities and corruption within the church in history classes, particularly counter-reformation - I no longer wanted to associate with this organization. During all that time I was living in poverty. Things started changing when my mother started her own company when I was 12. Things started getting better financially. My mother also got a modern PC when starting her company so I soon was able to play on it. Initially we couldn't afford any games but I borrowed some from acquittance from another class. I think I got my first own game about a year later. My father also stopped dodging child support and we started meeting regularly. When I was 13, I really got into fantasy, sci-fi and cyberpunk. I pretty much started "living" in video games and fantasy stories and my own fantasies. I got into cRPG games, starting in Ultima VII which fascinated me with its living world and idea of VIII virtues and then Fallout series which made interested in psychology thanks to speech skill and empathy perk, then Baldur's Gate series which really got me into Forgotten Realms. When I was 12 racism got much worse because of one song which created even worse racist name. Also, I was too old to chase people with chairs or other heavy objects. In late primary school, things got really toxic in my class as there were multiple anti-social individuals there. As I mentioned before, most of my acquittance were sensors and one in my class started low key bullying me and together with one guy in my class we started mocking him and making up stories about how he's an alien like in dark skies. Which lasted for a weeks, in the end we (as in the old acquaintance and I) ended up having an official fight behind a block and ended up making it up. Then things got worse as the other guy and his clique started harassing girls and even SA'd one but teachers have never done anything to him, they haven't even lowered his behaviour grade despite that they knew about him. One time I unintentionally insulted him and he started psychologically abusing me. The worst thing was that he was stronger and faster than me so I couldn't get him to stop. It lasted for like whole last school year. Then there was another abuser. Some older student haven't passed 7th grade and has joined our class and first he was threatening to beat me up, then was psychologically abusing me, calling me names, spitting under my feet, engaging in annoying behaviours, I quickly realised he's weaker than me so he got a beating every time he did it but he wouldn't stop. Somehow during that we became frenemies since he was also a Fallout fan. I felt extremely stressed out because of all the abuse that just refused to stop. I started suffering from insomnia and ruminating about how to stop when lying in bed and attacks of rage, school phobia and social anxiety. I really started hating my school and the society in general. In the end I got IBS and couldn't go to school at all during last months. I got chronic health problems because of it and recently got on disability because of it since I can't get and keep a job. I also became increasing alienated from the society because of smoking and drinking becoming more and more common and because of having a desire to get out of that toxic environment and become a better person. That's a shortened summary of my childhood and its most important events.

Though there were certainly dark spots, my childhood (pre-10 years old) was actually the best part of my life. My parents raised five children, all of whom had very distinct personalities. They always taught us that it was okay to be different -- that EVERYONE was a unique individual loved by God -- and that what really mattered was being a good, moral person. I guess that lesson, instilled early on, has always helped me to never feel ashamed of what I now know to be my Introverted Intuition. I didn't even realize for a LONG time that most other people didn't think about stuff like I did. This is probably because I never talked about it. It didn't occur to me to talk about it. It was almost like a private game I played with myself, and playing by myself was nothing new for me. My parents actually hyped me up as being special more than I thought I was (they used words like "mature for her age" and "imaginative"). In hindsight I realize that I often felt that I had somehow fallen "outside" of something I couldn't identify, but -- being that I am THE MOST introverted person I know -- it never bothered me for long. Until my teens, that is, but we shouldn't talk about that time.

As a young INFJ I was frequently bullied by my classmates. My mother joined a cultish religion, and I took on her ideology, becoming even more of an outcast. My father’s side immigrated after war and displacement, so they also maintained their own cultish enmeshment. Since we kids were “mixed”, of a mixed marriage, of parent’s from different cultures and religions, we were outsiders of both. It was a challenging childhood for anyone, but for an INFJ, very difficult and lonely.

I had a pretty good childhood for a sensitive soul, but that’s because I was brought up in the 70s/80s and had good parents. Teen years were challenging though to say the least.

Also, both books are incredible (a true pair!) --> I can confirm your hypothesis regarding INFJ's often having a "turbulent childhood" 😅

I was one of the few. I sum that up to the environment. There were barely any people. Mostly seeing the same people every day. There were 82 kids in my school K thru eight grade. Anyone I saw, that I didnt know, were adults, and my parents knew. Until sixth grade. Then I moved. Which was difficult to say the least. Then I basically drowned myself in my interests. Which due to where I previously lived, were dirt bikes and BMX. Luckily for me, it was the 80's, and BMX had blown up. When people saw my magazines, ect. They would initiate conversations. Which made it MUCH easier to make friends. A few friends, but many acquaintances. Being friends with someone fairly popular. Slowly meeting others that were. Then by the time I was in HS. I knew at least someone in every social group. I didnt talk a lot, but always had a place I could be. Kind of popular by default. Everyone knowing who I was, but few actually knew me. About a year of Hell, but the rest was pretty good. It also helped having an older brother. His younger friends, still being in HS when I started. I consider myself fairly lucky.

im only now starting to love being an infj, after going to the dark night of the soul, i know now when to walk away and when i do its a forever walk away never going back and that allow me to heal my childhood story too where walking away was all i had to do to. as a child i would say i always dreamt of wanting to be alone but that was not the case now all i do is work from home, avoid people as 99 percent as i can unless i go for a walk near trees which also as a childh i had love to do, i turn my home into all that i ever wanted as a child but this time im in it alone and its to me the best. truly the desire i had for my childhood has really manifested now i dont think ive met infj a lot but if i do they talk about how splendid their childhood was i would be shock like none of you seeking ni away from the tribe and i would even wonder how their ni ti loop work if childhood was brilliant.

Ok, so here is my second attempt to leave a comment.... Both of my parents loved me intensely, and in many ways , I led a charmed life during my childhood, years. But in some ways I was not completely understood by my household which happened to be SJs. My natural way of being disturbed them,which left me feeling shame, and guilt and loneliness as a result. Consequently I hid from them emotionally, and physically, as I grew older, escaping into my inner world so that I could be myself without recrimination. I received the same reaction from many people outside of my home,as well, although I was never a complete outcast ! I was in turns accepted, and rejected, if that makes sense ! And yet, I would not change my past for anything ! I have many found memories of growing up. Perhaps I will write a memoir ....

I believe that this typing is a direct result of trauma. If I’m told that someone has this typing, sans trauma, I will not believe them. And I can, hopefully, open everyone’s eyes better with a simple explanation. If we or infj’s (cause I even doubt my own typing, often, and healthily) were born this type, and 85% (roughly) face trauma. That would say that our personalities are causing our caretakers to become abusive towards us. Which even if we said it’s only 20%, is preposterous, and also, kind of victim blaming. I do not and can not see how these traits exist without a sufficient reason to. Otherwise the plight or purpose of all infj’s should be to guide others to exist more like they do. And we all know we cannot. We can’t even get most to exist in a marginally better way than they have been. In other words these traits, while they can be improved upon, cannot be taught. This is how I feel about it. And I think I’m right. 😊❤

I wouldn't say my childhood was the "best" but it wasn't the "worst" either, I like to think that it was neutral. Family was/is very supportive of the way I am and the majority of them would just leave me alone to do my own thing. Infact they often found comfort knowing where I was at all times with a book in hand. I was often really quiet too. However I was often bullied not by peers, but also teachers and my neighbors as well. Infact it was mainly adults who had issues with me despite me minding my business. I was often told that I was "weird" or "depressed," despite me not actually being depressed. Today I find it rather pathetic that those adults had beef with a literal child though who was just minding their business. The closest type of children I found more comfort with was probably ones that were (or I deemed were) INFPs but even they didn't understand the issues I had with the adults. Years later I find out from multiple people that I had a presence of: 1) calm 2) Intimidation 3) reserved 4) sophistication I can't help how others feel about me and I accepted that, but it does make me happy that I can be a source of calmness for others to some extent. As for the intimidation, I only do it when bullies are around me. I would recommend the movie "Detachment" since the main character (and actor) is an INFJ and captures the INFJ childhood struggle and adult life quite well in my opinion.

Haha, is a 38-year-old INFJ young enough? Jung enough?...