Enneagram: I’m a Type Four! #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Oh well, once again I’m late, extremely late to the party. For today’s post in the #AtoZChallenge, I thought I’d muse about the Enneagram.

The Enneagram, for those not aware, is a spiritually-based personality typing system consisting of nine different types. They are all interconnected in various ways. I, for instance, am a type Four (“the Individualist”), but I do share traits with both type Three (“the Achiever”) and type Five (“the Observer”). My Five wing, though, is strongest.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. What’s a Four, exactly? Fours’ core vice is envy. Fours’ core motivation is to express themselves and be understood as the unique individuals they are. Their core fear is not having an identity or significance. As a result, Fours are self-absorbed, emotional yet creative and empathetic.

When in distress, a Four will move closer to resemble the bad qualities of a type Two (“the Helper”) and become clingy. When feeling particularly well though, a Four will move closer to exhibiting the positive qualities of a type One (“the Perfectionist”) by being more objective and principled.

I will illustrate this using an example from my own life. I am often envious of people I perceive to have better quality of care than me. When I’m my normal self, I feel this envy but can keep it at bay. When distressed though, I show it more and become extra clingy to my staff. On the other hand, when I’m feeling well, I can more objectively view that no, in fact, no-one is receiving optimal care.

At its worst, Fours are called “Defectives”, because they experience their own pain so deeply. I wrote about this last January. I really do hope that, over time, I will grow into a healthier Four. Like I may’ve said then too, the healthiest version of the Four is the “Appreciator”. This makes sense, in that Fours (at least, healthy Fours) experience positive emotions and artistic and natural beauty at a deep level too.

No Longer Defective #Bloganuary

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s daily prompt for #Bloganuary is to share about your biggest challenges. At one point, I believe I wrote on this blog that my biggest challenge ever is my poor distress tolerance. Right now, I’d like to take it to a deeper level and say that my two biggest challenges are basic mistrust and a sense of being defective. I think the sense of being defective is even worse. This stems from my being an Enneagram type Four – or my being a Four is a result of my sense of defectiveness. In fact, the most distressed Fours are called “Defectives”. The healthiest are called “Appreciators”.

Being an externally-oriented Four – I’m undecided as to whether my instinctual variant is Social or Sexual -, I commonly blame others, be they in my past or present, for my sense of defectiveness. Now it is true that my parents commonly alternated between idealizing and devaluing me, that I was severely bullied in school and that I suffered numerous other traumas. That’s an explanation. It’s not an excuse.

There’s a thing I forgot to list when writing my not-quite-resolutions for 2024 earlier today: to work on personal growth more. I mean, honestly, I’m pretty stable where it comes to the most severe of (C-)PTSD symptoms. I do still get nightmares and flashbacks, but they do not ruin my day nearly everyday. Rather, my main issues are probably clinically classified as personality disorder symptoms, shameful as that feels to me to admit. I may or may not need a therapist to work on those, and if I do need one, I may or may not be able to find one. I can, however, work on exploring my issues on my own. I want to stop seeing myself as defective and start moving towards becoming the appreciator I know I can be.

Life Always Offers Me a Second Chance

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t touched the blog in a few days once again. It’s getting old. I often do want to write, but don’t know what about except how shitty things are here at the care home and how I still haven’t got a moving date. Endless venting about the care home isn’t going to please my readers though, so I usually end up trashing those posts. After all, even though I originally intended this blog to be for me to write from the heart, I do care about my readership.

I do still read blogs, albeit not as much as I used to. Today, I came across an inspirational one-liner by Tanya: life always offers you a second chance. It is called tomorrow.

This definitely speaks to me. Of course, it isn’t always true, in that eventually we’ll all die and not have a second chance. However, until that point comes around, we can always create a better rest of our life. It doesn’t even have to be tomorrow, if that just leads to procrastination. It can also be a minute from now.

I employ this logic when it comes to my disordered eating and other unhealthy coping mechanisms. I see each day – or if needed, each moment – as its own opportunity for growth. For this reason, I don’t count the days I’m free from self-harm, in the sense that I’ll have to “start over” when I’ve had a slip up. I don’t do “cheat days” either. Not that I’m on a diet, but even when I did follow a stricter food plan than I currently do, I didn’t consider a day ruined when I had binged. Interestingly, I did at one point struggle with letting go of my 300-odd day streak of reaching my movement goal on my Apple Watch. However, I am happy to report it doesn’t start over when it comes to calculating when I’ve reached 365 days of completing my movement goal (I think it’s going to be this Thursday or Friday).

In a sense, the idea that life will always give me a second chance tomorrow, might be an excuse to laze around. However, that’s not the point. The point of this idea probably is that there’s no use in dwelling on my past mistakes, because as long as I live, there’s time to set them straight.

How My Attachment Style Affects My Decision-Making

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I have been contemplating my decision to move to my current care home from the previous one a lot lately. My assigned staff often asks me whether I might be a little too critical, because my old care home offered near-perfect supports and yet I wanted to leave. Indeed, it could be this is a factor. I’m an Enneagram type 4, after all, always looking for that elusive ideal.

However, I am also insecurely attached. Attachment is formed in early childhood between the infant/toddler and their primary caretaker. When there is frequent disruption in this attachment and/or the caretaker isn’t a safe person for the child (as in the cases of neglect or abuse), this attachment doesn’t form or forms insecurely. This then will lead to problems later in life with relationships, both romantic and otherwise.

The different attachment styles described differ per professional, but I primarily score as anxious-preoccupied. This means that I am essentially looking for close connections to people, be they my romantic partner or otherwise, but also intensely fear them abandoning me. I also relate strongly to the ambivalent attachment style, which is essentially a mix between avoidance and preoccupation. This would explain why I push people away when I sense they might be abandoning me.

This is where my decision to move out of my old care home comes in. Starting at the end of 2021, half the team of my old care home left their positions, including some staff I could get along with really well. I remember, shortly before making the decision to ask my assigned staff to involve the behavior specialist in finding me a new home, E-mailing that same assigned staff. The contents of the E-mail were rather, well, needy. I expressed the fact that I knew none of the staff currently working at my home could guarantee they’d remain with me for months, let alone years to come. I probably even mentioned my spouse, who, though we have zero intention of divorcing ever, might leave me eventually. That’s life. No-one can predict the future. And honestly, it kind of sucks.

Though my then assigned staff assured me my E-mail had nothing to do with it, she did indeed quit her job several months later. However, the fact that the team as it was when I got my one-on-one support funding, had pretty much fallen apart, gave me the impression I didn’t need to stay for the team. And since otherwise the home wasn’t suitable for me – because the other clients couldn’t speak and needed far more physical care than I did -, I started the search for a more suitable home. Which, as regular readers of this blog will know, I didn’t find. I mean, yes, my fellow clients can speak, but the support approach is very different and not in a good way from what I got at my old home.

My attachment style also means I often come across as very trusting, because I at least initially accept everyone into my life because I have such an intense fear of aloneness. This is often misjudged to be a sign of secure attachment. In fact, recently a relatively new staff tried to get me to join him on a car trip to get food for just the staff during my designated activity time. I felt kind of lured, because I didn’t want to but he was like “it’s fun, I’ll buy you a treat too” and then I didn’t feel comfortable refusing anymore. This should’ve been a big no-go had this person not been a staff member, but since he’s a staff member it was okay, according to one of the other staff I talked this over with. What this staff didn’t realize is that I’ve had previous experiences of risky encounters with men and a history of being a victim of sexual violation too. And, though of course my easily accepting others isn’t to blame for any victimization (that would be victim blaming), it is important to realize I don’t distinguish between those in a position to help me and those who aren’t, like that staff person believed.

How I’ve Focused My Attention and Energy on What Is Missing As an Enneagram Type Four

Posted on by Astrid

I’ve been meaning to write more, seriously. There’s a lot on my mind, but somehow I can’t find the words to express myself. To get started, I chose a prompt from the Enneagram-based journaling prompts book I own for my type. As those who’ve read about me and the Enneagram before will know, I’m a type Four or the “romantic individualist”. The first prompt for my type in this book asks me how I’ve focused my attention and energy on what is missing.

On the surface, this seems to resonate with me, in that I’m always looking to improve my situation even when I’m relatively content. I don’t mean right now – right now I’m far from relatively content. However, back when I was in my former care home, honestly I had it pretty good and even so I was focusing on what was missing. In that case, this was, among other things, a sheltered institution environment. I badly wanted to live on institution grounds and completely lost sight of what I would lose if I took the leap to move here. And that was a lot.

In a sense, focusing on what’s missing isn’t necessarily bad. It allows a person to consider steps to improve their life. For instance, something I’ve often missed is to be a more contributing participant in my care home. Today, my assigned staff and I were discussing my birthday and I mentioned wanting to help cook the meal one of the weekend days (the staff only cook homemade meals on weekends now) around my birthday. She told me this doesn’t need to wait till my birthday and we now have a plan for me to help cook köfte for the home next week.

Often, in this sense, a wish to improve my life starts with something I’m missing. At other times, it starts the other way around, with an impulsive idea to buy something only for me to realize later on that something I feel I’m lacking in is underneath this impulsive idea. An example is my former assigned staff at my old care home having mentioned the idea of me getting a mini fridge. I got all excited, started thinking up ideas, but eventually it turned out I was missing certain supports.

As an Enneagram type Four, I am always longing for something. In this respect, the idea that I’m “always dissatisfied”, as my staff think, is sort of correct. That doesn’t mean I need to settle for something that’s absolutely unsuitable, like my current care home, though. Yes, I took the leap, but that doesn’t in itself mean I am forever stuck here. I am hoping that, if I ever find a place to live that is slightly less unsuitable than my current care home, I can stop chasing the ideal and start embracing what’s missing as an opportunity for growth in myself as much as for improvement in the situation.

Linking up with #PoCoLO and #SpreadTheKindness.

Solo: Making the Most of My Alone Time

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for #JusJoJan is “solo”. It has many meanings, but the overarching one is “alone”. For this reason, I thought I’d use this as an opportunity to write about ways to make the most out of my alone time.

You see, I don’t really do well with alone time. It makes me anxious. At the same time, I need alone time. It helps me recharge. How can these two coexist, you might wonder. Honestly, I’m not quite sure.

However, the more important question is, how can I make sure the recharging effect gets the upper hand rather than my anxiety? The key to this is making the most out of my time alone.

In my old day schedule, I had random slots of alone time that could last anywhere between 15 and 60 minutes, sometimes longer if I didn’t come out of my room to alert the staff. This caused intense anxiety, because I never knew when I’d have time alone and, when I did, how long it’d last. This meant I didn’t know what activities to do during my alone time.

Now though, I usually have time slots of 30 to occasionally 45 minutes alone. In all honesty, I think the 30-minute time slots could be lengthened to 45 minutes if they could be decreased in number and by extension my time slots of activity lengthened too. This isn’t likely possible at my current care home though.

During the time of my old day schedule, I used to feel stressed when alone and as a result use up the time by wandering around my apartment. Now I occasionally still do this, but I try to put each moment of alone time to good use. For example, Bible study and blogging are things I can’t do when a staff person is in the room. I do these when I have alone time, but sometimes I struggle to finish them off during my 30-minute solo time slots. At the same time, I struggle to find meaningful activities that I can do within my 60-minute time slots (which are usually cut short) of one-to-one support. Part of the reason is my need to get into a routine – for example, of gathering my polymer clay supplies. Part of it is the fact that some staff start out by proposing a certain activity, which makes it hard for me to switch to wanting something else. And part of it is probably my mindset too, in that I get overwhelmed with not knowing how long an activity will take and thinking I “only” have this amount of time. This applies to alone time too.

I often say that, in an ideal world, I’d have one-on-one all the time. This isn’t true. In an ideal world, I’d have good chunks of alone time with staff only popping in once every 45 minutes (because otherwise I’d lose track of time), so essentially no extra care then, during later evenings and part of the weekend. I’d also have good chunks of supported activity during the day. Oh wait, that’s pretty much how I had it in Raalte and I was going to let go of comparisons with old homes. No, wait again, my day schedule back there wasn’t ideal either. But it allowed for longer chunks of activity time during weekdays and that’s really what I dream of.

Re(dis)covering My Creative Self

Posted on by Astrid

Today I crafted a dachshund out of polymer clay. I haven’t put it into the oven yet, as I still want to create other things before baking them all together. I sometimes feel a rush to create, create, create as who knows when this will end? In two weeks’ time, my support coordinator will be back and may decide to put my old day schedule back in place, in which I had only one tiny moment when I could possibly choose to work with clay, inbetween my morning coffee, a long walk and my lunch.

I am taking baby steps towards becoming my creative self again. This blog post is part of the process, as writing too is part of creativity. I notice my writing suffered significantly due to the chaos that was (and may become again) my support at my current care home. I know I’ll still have lots of time to write if my support coordinator puts my old day schedule back in place, but time isn’t the only factor. Inspiration is, too. And when all I do is try to survive from moment to moment – the staff’s terminology for the times they step in to support me -, I am not able to be creative at all.

I am really trying to look at these few weeks as an opportunity to re(dis)cover myself as a creative person, not just as a disturbed, manipulative yet oh so intelligent person, like most of the staff see me. My hope is that the staff who see me as primarily oh so intelligent yet disturbed and manipulative, will soon realize that, with the right support, not only will those “disturbed” behaviors lessen, but I will be able to show them my artistic side. If not, I am hoping that, soon enough, the staff who do get me will be able to convince my support coordinator and those who agree with her that this is not the right place for me. They have seen a glimpse into what I can be like when I am properly supported and I am cautiously optimistic that they can help me maintain this sense of myself, regardless of what happens when the support coordinator returns from her time off.

Confronting My Dependent Shadow Side

Posted on by Astrid

This afternoon, I downloaded a small collection of shadow work-based journaling prompts. One of them is to write about the time I felt most offended by someone. What did that person say or do? And more important, what was my reaction? I am encouraged to focus mostly on the emotions involved rather than the mere facts.

The first thing that came to mind, was my former psychologist diagnosing me with dependent personality disorder. This, though, didn’t really offend me: it scared me. After all, she claimed not just that I was being passive and clingy, as people with DPD often are, but that I was misusing care. I, obviously, disagreed and feared losing my care because of her diagnosis. This, indeed, did happen about six months later.

The moment I felt most offended though, was the moment in June of last year when my husband said he thought I might have DPD. He may’ve forgotten that this was the exact diagnosis my psychologist had given me in order to kick me out of the psych hospital, since he did not propose I move back in with him. His reasoning was, however, the fact that, even with one-on-one support for most of the day, I still struggle.

I felt intensely triggered and scared again, but also angry. However, I wasn’t necessarily angry with him, but with my own dependent side. After all, maybe, just maybe, he is right indeed.

Deep down, I do know it is crazy to want – to feel I need – one-on-one attention all of the time. I don’t even want it, truthfully. Right now, I’m very content being by myself. But then again, why do I feel so anxious some of the time when my staff leave? Why can’t I make simple choices? Why do I need my husband to take responsibility for any major parts of my life? These are telltale DPD criteria!

I am not even scared of the diagnosis itself. Diagnoses are just labels. But I am scared of losing the care I have now, like I did in 2017. And then the little voice, my independent part, is telling me that I coped just fine. I mean, I know I took two overdoses of medication during my first six months of living with my husband, but wasn’t that just manipulation?

Couldn’t I have a much better, much richer life if I unlearned this intense fear of needing to fend for myself? Yes, yes, yes, I could! But does unlearning this fear mean being given a kick in the behind and being forced to live with my husband again? Maybe there are steps in between. Like, today I poured myself a glass of fruit-infused water, spilling a little over myself, but I did it anyway. I felt intense anxiety, because I knew my staff noticed and maybe she’s going to expect me to always be able to do this independently. Then again, so what? Then the worst thing that could happen is I can’t get fruit-infused water if this staff is working my shift and I don’t feel like pouring it myself. Is that so bad after all? And just to say, the staff didn’t even tell me to pour the drink myself. I just noticed the bottle was in front of me and I decided to try to do it. I could’ve asked her to pour the water for me, in which case she’d likely have done so. She is a staff who generally encourages independence, which sets off my demand avoidance. However, the fact that I not only did something independently I wouldn’t normally have done, but took the initiative rather than being encouraged (read: pushed), gave me a confidence boost.

I Am Not Alone: Reflections on Being Different As an Enneagram Four

Posted on by Astrid

I have been watching videos about the Enneagram recently. One I watched, talked about the differences between a 5w4 (Enneagram type Five with a strong Four wing) and 4w5. One of the distinctions the YouTuber made was that Fours tend to take pride in their being different, while Fives try to hide their difference. That kind of hit a nerve with me.

I always saw myself as so uniquely different from others that it’s almost impossible to be true. Not just in the “You are unique, just like everybody else” type of sense. In fact, I always thought that I belonged to just a little too many minority groups to be real. I thought that there must not be anyone else in the entire world who could relate to my combination of minority statuses.

At the time, I was about fourteen and just identified as blind and possibly queer. Well, I know quite a lot of blind people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community now.

Then came being autistic, having dissociative identity disorder, my childfree status, etc. My fourteen-year-old self would certainly have believed no-one in the entire world would belong to all of these groups. Well, quite truthfully, I’ve met several people who belong to most if not all of these minority groups. That’s the great thing about the Internet.

About ten years ago, I read something on Tumblr that should’ve struck a chord with me, but didn’t. I read that, if you are white, but belong to a hundred minority groups, you are still white. Of course, the point was to prove that white privilege isn’t negated by other minority statuses. I at the time started writing a list of ways in which I was privileged, but didn’t realize these are also ways in which I am part of the majority. Ways in which I belong to the human mainstream.

Instead, I still focused my attention, aside from that one blog post and acknowledging when I’d reacted out of privilege in safe spaces, on ways in which I’m different from the mainstream. And still I somehow couldn’t believe there were people who genuinely belonged to at least as many minority groups as I did. I still somehow saw myself as the most special person in the world.

Isn’t that a bit grandiose, narcissistic even? In fact, feeling that only a select group of “special” people will understand me, is the only legitimate narcissistic personality disorder trait I have.

The truth is, everyone is special and everyone is unique and everyone has some parts of themselves that ar ordinary at the same time. At the core, no-one is fundamentally different from everyone else. And isn’t that a wonderful thing to realize? After all, it means that, at the core, we all have something in common which connects us to each other. That of course doesn’t mean I need to associate with all seven (eight?) billion people in the world. It just means that there will always be someone out there who can relate to me. Just like there is no-one exactly like me (God created us all individually for a reason, after all), I am not radically different from anyone else (we were all created equal, after all).

Longing for Belonging As an Enneagram Type Four #Write28Days

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to my first post in #Write28Days, a writing challenge I use for self-exploration too. Today’s optional prompt is “Longing”. I haven’t had ideas in mind for what to write about many of the word prompts, but for this one, I definitely have.

That is, the first thought that sprang to mind was not really a thought, but a feeling. A feeling of wanderlust, of always seeing that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. The actual feeling in my body is hard to describe. I could probably best describe it as a longing for perfection.

I am an Enneagram type Four. As a Four, my core life strategy is that I must be understood uniquely as I am. In the real world though, there is no-one exactly like me, so who is going to completely understand me? No-one is!

Yet, like most other Fours, I long for this elusive ideal of a perfectly fitting life. I see this in my constant search for the perfect care home. I know all care homes have their drawbacks, but in my heart, I always feel there must be somewhere where I will be fully understood and, as a result, my needs will be completely met. Newsflash: there isn’t.

Most Enneagram type Fours experienced some early trauma, distress or loss and keep chasing after that lost sense of belonging. I feel, in a sense, that so do I, but in a sense, I also feel as though I never belonged. Yet my longing to be fully understood, as well as my belief that there must be someone, somewhere out there who will, shows that I have the capacity deep within me to belong. If only I could stop fleeing from that capacity towards the apparently greener grass of a new external source of belonging!