The ENFP Dark Side Returns: ENFP Withdrawn, Stressed, and Overwhelmed
Under all this stress I realized I wasn’t taking responsibility for myself and wasn’t expressing myself at all.
What To Do If The ENFP Shadow Side Returns
You might have watched my original video on the ENFP Dark Side I released a few years ago that was describing my experience being involved in a startup and what happens to our ENFP motivation when we are under extreme stress.
Well, my ENFP Dark Side returned!
And it was intense.
I haven’t had any big challenges for quite a while, so life decided to kick my ass or – in this case it wasn’t life actually kicking my ass – it was my own self creating those situations under an otherwise externally stressful situation.
What happens in these kinds of contexts is that you gain a lot of insights and you grow, so I’m very thankful for it all!
In the video above I want to share this story about my recent ENFP and INTJ partnership experience when my ENFP shadow side crawled back under extreme feelings of dread and stress.
I was in Ukraine with my INTJ friend and business partner and our first decision took place where basically we had to finalize a contract and move forward with our deal.
What I realized later is that on a gut level I knew the whole time I didn’t think it was a good decision.
I did not feel great about it. but I didn’t express that. I didn’t put that out there.
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As days were going by, I was really feeling worried about parts of this partnership. I was feeling like I was under a lot of control, like I was not making my own decisions.
I had this feeling that maybe what I signed on for wasn’t what I really wanted or thought I was getting into and, really, a feeling of dread at a pit of my stomach.
Some years ago I was that overwhelmed ENFP and I knew what that felt like, but it was like I kind of…forgot. This kind of stress and worry I haven’t felt to that extent for years!
So I was feeling this and it was not a great place to be, but I was trying my best to be the happy ENFP Dan here and reflect on it.
I asked myself:
What do I want out of this situation? What is going on? Why am I feeling this way?
And it hit me!
You’ve made a video about this! You’re in the ENFP Dark Side!
I realized that I had gotten into this state, that I was going into my shadow side!
I was not being myself and thinking – critically-thinking. Thinking intelligently about the whole thing.
And that was a very good realization.
When you look for the ENFP personality type description (or so-called Campaigner), the combination of our ENFP functions normally gets us profiled as bubbly and happy-go-lucky.
But if you’ve found yourself not really feeling that way, feeling like you’re not being your true self…like me in this situation, you might’ve slipped into a totally unhealthy ENFP mode.
An ENFP under stress will tend to feel paranoid, depressed, and overwhelmed. The positive Campaigner personality traits will be overthrown by these emotional problems and they will project their pain and suffering outward. They will feel controlled and attacked while blaming other people for that behaviour (let’s just say that some of the ENFP famous people were Gaddafi and Fidel Castro!).
All the ruminating thoughts will be only in their head and they will withdraw. There will be a lot of thinking people around are manipulative, being paranoid, being very pedantic, and worried about every little detail.
Some of this wasn’t even in my head at the time. It was in my gut and I didn’t even realize it was in my gut until afterwards. I wasn’t trusting my ENFP intuition or expressing myself in any way.
I can tell you this ENFP withdrawal is not a joke and it should be taken very seriously! It’s like you become a whole another person for some time and you can alienate people you care about if you aren’t aware of it.
If you’ve recognized this happening to you…
The ENFP Personality Dark Side is on!
Watch the video above for the full story and my personal advice on what to do if your ENFP Dark Side (re)emerges – whether that is in your ENFP relationship or career aspect!