Most INFJ personality types struggle with feeling selfish all the time. It’s most often triggered when we think about expressing a preference, or getting help with meeting an important need. When we realize we have the preference or need, then immediately we have the thought right after that we are somehow being selfish. The thought that we are selfish then triggers guilt and shame and we go into avoidance about dealing with that preference or need.
Most memoir writers worry about how their book will be received, but for those writers who are writing about controversial themes, they have an even bigger worry than what other people will think, and that’s whether or not anyone will even believe them.
When memoirs feature controversial themes such as narcissistic abuse, abuse by a parent, relationships that revolve around mind games, and/or control and manipulation, many writers feel they won’t be believed because they weren’t believed when it was happening to them in real life.
All memoir writing can be difficult for writers, and bring up a lot of fear, especially when it comes to sharing it with other people. However, one type of memoir is the hardest type of memoir to write, and that is the form of memoir known as “dark memoir.” Dark memoir is a common sub-genre within the category of memoir, but most writers who are writing it don’t know that’s what they’re writing.
Dark memoir is a memoir that contains taboo topics and/or controversial material. Dark memoir contains elements and themes such as narcissistic abuse, addiction, and usually includes details about the writer’s feelings of rage toward family members or former partners. It is hard to write this kind of memoir, and even harder to share it. Fear is the number one obstacle that holds writers of dark memoir back from writing and sharing their work.
In my last article, Do You Always Attract Energy Vampires? This Is the Reason Why, I talked about how empaths and intuitives (i.e., people who have the INFJ or INFP personality type) tend to go through life attracting energy vampires not only because of our heightened empathy, but also because we usually struggle with feeling overly guilty and this guilt shows up as a strong emotional charge in our energy field, and that’s when energy vampires take advantage of us.
Most empaths and intuitives I’ve worked with have told me they feel guilty for existing, or taking up space, for a variety of different reasons. Some of us had parents who were unable to handle the challenge of having a child (us), and some of us had parents who were unable to process their own emotions and so they dumped those emotions on others (again, us). Whatever the reason, most empaths and intuitives in childhood did not receive support from loving, mentally healthy people with appropriate boundaries, and so we grew up finding much the same in our adult world.
This is one of the main reasons that so many empaths and intuitives feel completely and utterly alone. Although we long to form deep connections with others that feel loving and meaningful, and actually nourish us, it seems like this just never happens. When we do make friends, we find that we most often act in the role of constant counselor to them, even if they’re not an actual energy vampire and they really mean well.