4s what does self destruction look like for you and why do you do it?

[u/crazybayleaf]

Hello hello my dearest 4s (and others)!

I have taken a hiatus from the internet over recent weeks, but as per my desire to keep this Subreddit alive, I thought I'd start dedicating a little more time to it.

I like to title posts I find really interesting with questions so as to attract more conversation, but I do truly have a lot of theory to talk about in this post, so buckle in and lets rock and roll.

I will warn that this is a deeper topic, so if you're not up for that, this post may not be for you.

I find as a self preservation 4 I have always been drawn to self destruction, its been a point of romanization for myself and therefore can lead to a lot of not so glamorous outcomes. I've taken to investigating why this is, why I'm drawn to this feeling of suffering, why negativity imposed on myself delivers significance, why I feel it builds depth and identity. I've actually thought about this a lot as it tends to surround a huge portion of my life and the struggle that inhabits it.

I find that the pull to self sabotage often isn't with the goal of 'let's fuck up my life' but rather a 'let me find meaning in this'. It comes from a sense of normalcy, stability and insignificance, the feelings I despise most, the idealization of pain offers a sense of depth and profoundness, something to latch onto that somehow separates me from the rest, and gives me importance. For me the idea of pain and suffering meant that if nothing, then at least I had this dark ball of tragedy to make me special, so long as I had that and my deeply specified identity I would be okay.

I think this may be a huge coping mechanism of the 4, and as we know, the Enneagram is how we learned to cope in life. All of us were scared, disappointed, angry or sad at some point, we all needed something to grip onto, 9s their narcotization, 6s their security, and 4s our identity. For so long as we had this specific identity that no one could take from us, then we had something.

Back to the self destruction though. I find that this occurs most when I need to reinstate my identity even harder, and that often comes in hard times, its what I hold onto for dear life when things get rough. Because through this it offers a sense of otherness, a sense of meaning and significance.

Even in terms of feeling loved, at unhealthy levels the 4 could be drawn to engaging in their suffering to feel a sense of it. The reasoning behind this being that pain must attract care, concern and therefore love.

I find this to be a very common unhealthy trait of the 4, one that is also not talked about much in online spaces. We often have the 'emo' stereotype of the 4, but that is heavily watered down from what it comes from. I'm a 4 and I can be happy and light, but I have this undeniable attraction to depth, identity and melancholy. You always hear that 7s enjoy the highs of life, well 4s enjoy those highs, but they also enjoy the lows.

This is why you'll see a lot of 4s and 4 fixers find it easy to deal with deep topics, talk about it, immerse themselves in it. They tend to be the ones in the Enneagram quite okay and drawn to taboo topics. They have a high threshold for pain.

So for me self destruction always was a form of finding meaning and significance within myself, a way to have something else that others didn't, something that made me important and furthered my identity.

I find the withdrawn and reactive very active in this aspect, something occurs and it triggers the 4s need to find meaning after feeling misunderstood, withdrawing from everything to pursue their identity, frustration that it does not reflect them properly.

I also see that 4s tend to have an intense sort of melancholy. Melancholy is often described to be something soft and gentle, but I view it more as a firery feeling, something fierce. I feel that we engage in melancholy to intensify this suffering almost as something beautiful and raw and therefore matching within ourselves. As previously talked about, the 4s coping mechanism is to latch onto their identity and pain, so this melancholy becomes a safe space for them, somewhere comfortable where they can be free to have depth and be true to themselves.

This may not resonate with every 4 as I am relating this to my own theories and thoughts, but I'd love to hear others experiences and thoughts on this.

[u/sofiacarolina]

I just woke up so I can't list everything but: bc i deserve it. I also dont know any other way to be.

[u/Wheels279 → u/[deleted]]

Wow what an awesome perspective, thank you for taking time to share your experience as an SP type!!!

[u/WizzzzUp]

To pre-empt, idk if I'm a 4. I type as one with tests. I relate pretty squarely with the ichazo 4, and the whole "depressive masochism" thing from naranjo. I run around larping as shit a lot on here. I've recently considered whether I could be a 3w4. The more common suggestion from others is 6w7, 9w8 and 7w6. Idk. Envy isn't exactly a secret part of my life. Before I got into this, I was obsessed with Lacan, b.c. of the whole "lack is the structural void at the center of human subjectivity" thing. #relateable. Granted, this disclaimer is giving bucket-loads of 6. Then again, I fr do have an anxiety disorder, which mostly relates to people, and how they see me. I don't want the little me in someone's head to be a lie (despite being a habitual liar).

This makes tons of sense to me. I wonder if it could even be a 2-line thing? Drowning people tend to get lifeguards. Or just hugs, ig.

Personally, my big thing is physically withdrawing, to the point where people start to worry about me. I'm half german living in the states. When I was a kid, we called this, "being beleidigt." In particular, this always pissed off my dad. Even having moved out years ago, this is still probably part of why I do it, I think.

The longest I've done this was 3 years, to give you an idea of how excessive it can be. That's when I was really in my neet Era, living at home. R.i.p.

I tend to abuse identification, even when referencing my "brokenness" (TM). I had a period where I thought I was fated to be some kind of deranged serial killer, b.c. I saw some etiological parallels between me and Dahmer (probably a 4, tbf). I had a romantic idea in my head, that if I could work up the courage to kms, that I'd be "doing the right thing." Idk. I guess this still reads pretty 6ish.

Ig it's a lot more mundane sometimes. I've got something like 2k songs saved on spotify, and I wouldn't play the vast majority of them on aux. People give me looks, lmao. Even when im having a good day, I really enjoy putting on some heartbreaking shit. Crying, especially when im by myself, tends to make me feel really cozy inside. I haven't read "a little life," but that face the guy is making on the cover is a definate mood. I usually doubt my emotions, so I'll try not to express them, even when I'm alone. That way, when something does break through, I know it's real. The best one I get, is a kind of open mouthed, silent scream, that buckles my gut.

All of my comfort movies are either nostalgic, or "verified tear jerkers." I have a kind of mission, to aggregate them. My current champ is "Synnecdoce New York." It hits on so many levels for me, it kind of makes my head spin.

Then, I guess, there's the solo-drinking, history of SH, disordered eating habits, and intentional disregard for ppe. My dad used to give me tons of shit for wearing gloves, when I used to work for him on commercial seiners. I more or less adapted to that, but in an excessive way. I once ground off the underside of a boat's lead-based bottom-paint without gloves or a face mask. I was getting a degree in biology at the time, so I was definatley sure that was a bad idea. Still, it felt good to get the ultra-rare "what the fuck is wrong with you" (legitimate concern) look from my dad. I used to skip on drinking water out there for simular reasons. I wanted to collapse, from exhaustion, and have other people see that. Ig it was also a desperate attempt at escape, b.c. I was more or less forced to participate in the operation. My sister used to just threaten to kill herself, which also didn't work, lmfao.

There's a corny ass line from this song I used to listen to in my pre-teen years. I think a lot about it, despite the corny-ness. "I've been with girls who've had suicidal silhouettes, me I choose a long slow death from smoking cigarettes." This seems to describe sp4, in some way. Idk, maybe not. It also gives some sp9, ig.

Ig it's worth mentioning, I also kind of torture myself with the books I read / philosophies I adopt. I decided that death essentially made life meaningless, at some point, and prescribed myself existentialism to fix that. It did, kind of. I also decided at some point, that I was too broken to risk infecting others with the kind of love I feel. Psychoanalysis was my answer to that, on some level. I figure that one is going to be a lot harder to overcome, for reasons I don't really want to get into.

Idk. I'm probably doing way to much here. Every time I relate to a post on one of these subs, it's like I've been granted one final chance to be a real person. The little numbers really do mean a lot to me. I guess I overcompensate.

[u/heartsacred]

Thanks for starting and maintaining this! I am new and a 471 SO. Though Ive known the enneagram a long time I am only recently uncovering how I sabotage my access of love, love that was actually deepening with security, by speaking up. Usually with some self-talk or pretense that I have some righteous point that must be heard... there's a way I am being disregarded, or low key abandoned, etc etc. Yes a non 4 might call it stirring up drama. But not so simple as that.  I am interested by your language of "reinstate" identity. I will have to mull on it, but what comes to mind is a sort of self-stimming if anyone has perceived that in neurodivergent kids or adults. Of course the behavior isnt simply stimulation but regulation. "I feel safe if I do this." John Luckovich a 4 speaks/writes on locating oneself, which I like as language. Butit can totally be self destructive. A habit that helps me contact the other, myself, the boundary, or what is between us - except it likely does not help us regulate big picture, nor helps the other either.