#just really sells the best friend for 12 years thing yk

[wneleh]

Enneagram-inspired navel gazing

The summer I was 16 (before most of you were born), while at a university-sponsored summer science program, I took the official version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and came out on the INTP/ENTP (Logicain/Debator) line. I recognized it was just telling me back what I’d told the test, but it was fascinating to read about other types, and to realize that, even in that room of high-achieving nerds, there were lots of ways of looking at the world represented.  But I was the nerdiest.

Go forward 40 years, and I’ve just come out an Enneagram 9 - The Peacemaker, who goes along to get along.  What happened, and when???

My first go at the Enneagram was in 2008, and I scored about even in everything except types 2 (Helper) and 8 (Challenger), which were much lower.  I found the results confusing and the test bizarre - it seemed (and still seems) all about how much one fears/craves/rebells against authority/rules; how smart or special one considers oneself; and how afraid one is of ones own shadow.  Well, (1) rules are a tool and authority is just people; (2) WTF? More about this later, and (3) I’ve always hoped for the best and planned for the worst and mostly worn comfortable shoes.  So I felt the Enneagram was mostly just reflecting back my relative privilege.  And I was somewhat annoyed I hadn’t come out a Type 5 (Investigator).   Because I was an INTP/ENTP, darn it!  Except at about the same time my MBTI-ish scores started to go all over the place, depending on test.  So I dropped the whole personality test thing.

OK, so what else was happening in 2008?  I was working part-time as an engineer (still work the same place) and had just made a discovery that still influences my work today.  And I’d just been told that we COULD NOT PUBLISH because oops it solved the problem too well.  I was a bit crushed by this.  I also had two grade-school daughters, going through what, to me, had been the most difficult years of childhood; I was finding their experiences illuminating.  Also, my church was facing challenges that would result in selling our building and moving across town several years later; and I was leading the discernment process.  I was also deep into fanfic-writing; and I was fighting a lot on parenting lists (I’m still on the same lists with the same people, but we don’t fight anymore (knock on wood)).  Oh, and my heart was starting to increase in size due to mitral valve regurgitation - I wouldn’t know this for another year, and it would be corrected in 2010.  In 2008, I was just finding that I wasn’t as peppy as I’d always been, and my blood pressure was starting to creep up.

To figure out how I’d gotten into this state in the late 2000′s, I need to go back to - um - early childhood?  My parents are intellectuals who had me way before they’d planned to start a family.  We were poor (dad was in grad school, mom was at home with us and doing whatever she could for cash) but my mom, who finished her BA in Early Childhood Education just months before my birth, wanted to put that education to use.  And she did.  

I was a sponge - hyperlexic, and also fascinated with numbers and patters from a very young age.  Adults and older kids picked up on this, and I got a lot of positive reinforcement.  Not, as I got older, from teachers, and especially not from same-age peers (see the bit about having a hard time in grade school) but yk school is only 6 hours a day for 180 days a year and you really don’t have to go to many of those days, not if your stomach is on your side.  I had a fabulous friend across the street who was two years ahead of me in school, and parents I got on well with, and a church that suited me (and church friends)... and eventually fandom (Mr. Spock!) and two years of private school for 7th/8th where I learned to fake normal, and a high school for math/science kids where I was challenged and appreciated and GUESS WHAT I turned out tall and blond and skinny and a whole lot less damaged than a lot of kids, see above about having done well in the parent lottery.  So peer-induced damage pretty much ended by the time I was 12.

But deep in me was an understanding that I was (1) very, very smart, (2) almost as weird as I was smart, and (3) destined for greatness in some academic pursuit.  In the 1970s/1980s, this wasn’t a bad frame of mind for a girl to have, and was definitely encouraged by my parents, because there were pressures otherwise (though I never really felt them).  Forward momentum!

So I put a lot of energy into Smart things.  Some of them I liked - Jane Austen, Math Team, getting strong-but-not-perfect grades - and some I just faked my way through - chess, classical music, more advanced math and physics, all of biology - and some things I completely failed at - essentially, anything that required a decent memory + good phonemic skills.  I.e., any language other than English. Anyway, on the whole this all worked spectacularly.

But all along there were things that didn’t quite fit.  I have always loved sports - watching and doing - though I’ve mostly been really bad (okay, I was the best race walker in my state the summer between 7th and 8th grade :-) ).  I’ve always liked SF.  I can’t quite quote Tolkien - see above about memory incompetence - but I can tell you exactly where any quote you shoot me comes from (um, don’t test me) (like anyone is reading this!!!).  Nothing about the lives of my professors, especially my grad school professors, appealed.  I’ve ALWAY loved babies, in fact calming crying babies is my superpower (I talk to them about math or Tony Stark).  I’m deeply religious.  I like being part of community organizations, and NOBODY in these groups knows a thing about my math or my papers or patents.  I’m coaching a grade 3/4 boys soccer team this season for no particular reason...

Anyway looking at me in 2008 - stressed, sick, self-righteous, and worried - and me in 2021, I can really see a hard left towards 9-dom.  Not that I'm never stressed or self-righteous or worried!  But seeing my kids THROUGH those years helped me put a lot of my childhood issues to bed (I was going to really delve into this, but I’ve already written plenty).  Seeing the state of the world - and realizing my OTHER superpower is White Privilege and I can use this for good (again, skipping details) - and realizing that, if I’m going to live authentically, then I’m not going to do what you need to do to really succeed in science/math/engineering - and struggling for some causes and having things work out well, and having other things fail, and on the whole just enjoying the trip - well, that kind of drops me into Enneagram 9.  

Now to catch some Pokemon and lose a soccer game :-)