I posted this on FB yesterday:
Did Myers Briggs at work again.
Got an almost entirely different result from last time.
Last time: ISFP
This time: ENTP
Last time it was winter and I was pretty depressed. This time it was spring and my meds had been sorted.
This aligns with my gut that MBTI changes depending on mental state (at least for those of us with broken brains) and all my jokes about being an introvert in winter and an extrovert in summer may actually be more accurate than I thought.
It seems a lot of people missed that I was being mildly sarcastic about it. My honest opinion is that it is pseudo-science and pretty much anything that aims to categorise humans into nice neat little categories is bound to fail.
It did lead to an interesting conversation though, because after the workshop was over, I went and chatted to the person who ran it and asked them how they thought mental health influenced results. And they had never thought about it.
So I was like, “I mean, you realise how many people in the world are battling with one kind of mental health issue or another, though, yeah? So if you’re going to do a ‘personality diagnostic’, you kind of have to take that into account. I am way more introverted, have way less energy in the cold months, and if the point is for my colleagues and managers to “understand me better” isn’t that something they need to understand?”
To which their response was, “Well, it is intended as a test for people who are ‘well’.”
Reader, I had to force myself not to laugh. Because you don’t get ‘well’. That’s not how this whole depression/anxiety/etc thing works. You get better. You develop coping mechanisms. You find better meds. You don’t get ‘well’.
My depression is part of my emotional landscape and will be forever. I get better at handling it. But it doesn’t go away. It’s not a cold. This isn’t like not doing your workout when you’re under the weather. If your “diagnostic” can’t handle the ups and downs of mental health issues, it is fucking useless.
So yeah, I feel my point was made. But I also think there is some danger here. I am very aware of my own mental landscape. I am very open about it. I talk to my managers and my colleagues about it. The people around me know about the bumps in my mental landscape.
But not everyone is as open as I am. Not everyone is a decade or more into learning how to handle the shit in their heads. Some people are only just starting. And now their managers think they’re this one thing, and then in six months or a year, they’ll be something totally different.
It’s a journey. If you’re not ready to tell the people around you, that’s totally fine. Not everyone is, and that’s cool, that’s part of the journey. But if you’re a manager taking this shit seriously, keep in mind that apparently it only works for “well” people (whatever the fuck that means), and given the stats, that means a pretty statistically significant group of people break it. Even if you DO buy into it. Which you probably shouldn’t, since there’s pretty much zero science behind it.
If it’s helpful to you, then cool. I find song lyrics helpful. But try not to take it TOO seriously.
Stay awesome, nerds.
Passport to Everywhere