are ISFJ's squeamish?

[substitute]

My ISFJ sister lives in North Carolina. We correspond by e-mail, mostly. Yesterday I went out to a nature reserve and took lots of pictures of all the different kinds of mushrooms they have there (and though I say it myself, the pics aren't half bad). I sent her the link to my Flickr so she could have a browse and she wrote back:

"Euw, looking at mushrooms makes me want to puke. Gross."

I laughed and said sis, you've always been squeamish, I remember a time when I mentioned the word 'spleen' in passing in a sentence and you pushed your dinner plate away and blamed me for 'making' you not be able to eat it.

She answered,

"I'm not that bad anymore, but if I think about what I'm eating (meat-wise) I totally can't eat it anymore. That's why I have to have steaks cooked at least medium well and hate handling raw chicken.
I'm also very careful about what I eat around J after he has tricked me into eating rabbit and deer and probably squirrel too, who knows with that red neck!!!!
I like my food to look nice and B makes fun of me all the time because whenever I order a sandwich I have to dismantle and rebuild it so it looks pretty and the fillings are distributed evenly. I hate when there's a giant mound of turkey in the middle and the tomatoes falling out and the cheese is all on one side etc. Ok so maybe I'm a little OCD, but I'm ok with that! Probably why I have a miniature hand sanitizer clipped onto my handbag too. I hate germs, euwwyyyy!"

And I'm thinking, is this the beginning warning signs of a person en route to developing the life-taking-over kind of OCD that I'm familiar with in another SJ friend of mine?

I just find it a bit worrying, considering that this girl grew up on a farm like I did and when we were kids we used to play with mud and bugs and dead rodents caught by the cats, and y'know... she didn't develop this squeamishness until her late teens... I wonder what it's all about??

[Geoff]

I've known a few ISFJs well both personally, and in the workplace. I'd say they are sometimes squeamish, and usually about as squeamish as a typical feeling type.. but not as squeamish as a cold impersonal INTP type.

2 out of 3 (personal experience, so ymmv) don't like the sight of blood.

[substitute]

yeah I'm wondering, is it just typical T thinking to say "well if you'll eat a cow why not a squirrel? dammit either don't eat meat at all or base your choice on flavour or something, not just whether it has a cute face or not ffs!"?

just the miniature hand sanitizer and the 'I hate germs!' thing makes me sorta go on red alert for OCD... I could understand it if she ever had occasion to think her hands were 'unclean' but since she works the kind of job that, if I worked it, I'd consider I could get away without showering for a week, and I really can't see any logical or scientific need for sanitizing her hands 'on the move' like that... hmmm...

[Mo_(operalover)]

My ISFJ close pal also has a very low tolerance for what he considers disgusting stuff. Looks away during whole sections of some movies, shushes us or walks away when we discuss stuff he considers nauseating... just a low tolerance for things that I might consider normal.

Naturally, I taunt him a lot. :D

He has the pottiest mouth of anyone I know though so taunting him comes with its (verbal revenge) hazards. :shock:

[alicia91]

The only really squeamish ones I know are ENFP, ESFP, and ESFJ. Gotta be an E-thing :D

[Usehername]

My ISFJ mom can deal with all varieties of blood and guts and has spent some time working in the E.R.

[Metamorphosis]

My ISFJ mom is very squeamish, to the point that we can't watch any form of gory movie while she's there. I know another ISFJ, however, that is as morbidly non-squeamish as I am.

[NYmac86]

This topic screams at me. I changed my major from medical lab sciences to nutrition just recently for the fear of having to deal with morbid and exotic disease after disease. Even certain smells set me off and even cause me to vomit along with just normal anxiety inducing situations. Chalk it up to the possibility that I'm a bit extreme but I think Si followed by Fe makes for the worst when dealing with any sort of primal fear. Can possibly focus overly on the formation of emotions provided from archetypal fearful scenes.

[Grungemouse]

The ISFJ friend I know finds the sight of salad cream and butter touching in a sandwich highly disturbing.

But proving Geoff's theory, I don't like the sight of blood either. Despite being a devout scab-picker.

[burkeus]

And I'm thinking, is this the beginning warning signs of a person en route to developing the life-taking-over kind of OCD that I'm familiar with in another SJ friend of mine?

Really good point!

[Haphazard]

No.

Well, at least my mother is not. Then again, considering she had to clean up baby shit for two children and take care of whatever they got into, that's no surprise.

I, however, am extremely squeamish. And I wasn't too squeamish until 14. I'm not sure if this is because before then, things simply weren't that bad, or were just below my notice, but I've also heard that certain phobias like to cement themselves in their early teens...

Then again, just thinking cows are cute does not stop me from eating them. They're just too damn tasty.

[Randomnity]

yeah I'm wondering, is it just typical T thinking to say "well if you'll eat a cow why not a squirrel? dammit either don't eat meat at all or base your choice on flavour or something, not just whether it has a cute face or not ffs!"?

Would you eat cat or dog meat if it was readily available and delicious?

Not rhetorical, I'm actually curious.

[runvardh]

yeah I'm wondering, is it just typical T thinking to say "well if you'll eat a cow why not a squirrel? dammit either don't eat meat at all or base your choice on flavour or something, not just whether it has a cute face or not ffs!"?


I think food when I see squirrels and rabbits. There's this one that shows up on my lawn all the time and I start thinking about all the ways I could cook it. Then I start to drool and the rabbit takes off like it knows what I'm thinking. Does that make me not an F?

[Hmm]

I guess I'm squeamish but I don't think it's so much because it's gross but moreso because i"m really uncomfortable with the thought of people or animals being hurt. The same with senseless violence. And bugs are yucky too. Oh and really dirty and/or smelly stuff. Eww.

[Grungemouse]

I guess I'm squeamish but I don't think it's so much because it's gross but moreso because i"m really uncomfortable with the thought of people or animals being hurt. The same with senseless violence. And bugs are yucky too. Oh and really dirty and/or smelly stuff. Eww.

So I'm guessing you don't find the "Baby seal walks into a club..." joke particularly funny at all?

[substitute]

So I'm guessing you don't find the "Baby seal walks into a club..." joke particularly funny at all?

Haha... I have a T-shirt with the sloga "I (club shape like in playing cards) baby seals" on it. My sister hates it, which naturally means I go to great pains to have it clean and ironed for when I'm expecting her to visit :D

I don't know if it's so much squeamishness or, well, with her it seems like she's just scared of SO MANY THINGS. Seems to just live her life on a level of anxiety that's totally alien to me. She isn't mentally ill at all, has no sorta issues like that in general, just I tend to find her very ...well like she looks at life like a deer in the headlights or something...

I came across this about ISFJ's from this website (http://similarminds.com/jung/isfj.html):

follows the rules, polite, fears drawing attention to self, dislikes competition, somewhat easily frightened, easily offended, timid, dutiful, private, lower energy, finisher, organized, socially uncomfortable, modest, not confrontational, easily hurt, observer, prone to crying, not spontaneous, does not appreciate strangeness - intolerant to differences, apprehensive, clean, planner, prone to confusion, afraid of many things, responsible, guarded, avoidant, anxious, cautious, suspicious, more interested in relationships and family than intellectual pursuits, not adventurous, fears doing the wrong thing, dislikes change

Now I can see as can you all probably, how this was obviously written by an anti-S and probably anti-F biased author and misses out all the good qualities whilst magnifying possible bad ones. HOWEVER, seeing the general thread running through it of fearfulness and anxiety, I have to say it does ring true with my experience of my ISFJ sister...

[Hmm]

If I hated you, I would tell you so.

[Haphazard]

Would you eat cat or dog meat if it was readily available and delicious?

Yes.

But cat meat doesn't seem like it would be particularly delicious, for some reason...

[substitute]

Would you eat cat or dog meat if it was readily available and delicious?

Not rhetorical, I'm actually curious.

I would most definitely give it a try and if it tasted good then yeah, it'd become a part of my diet. I honestly see no logical reason why not. Unless there were some scientific reason, if it were proven to be bad for the health in some way or whatever. But not just on the basis that cats and dogs are cute. I mean I grew up on a farm where we had chickens and goats and stuff, and when i was a kid, while those animals were alive, I played with them, petted them etc, but I had no problem with it when they arrived on my dinner plate and just chowed down lol

-----

Thinking also about another ISFJ I know, who also gives off an impression of general fearfulness, example: she won't cook meat, because she's afraid that she might do it wrong and end up being poisoned by it not being cooked properly. And if you cook meat for her, she'll be prodding at it and checking if it's properly cooked and quizzing you about how many minutes exactly you had it on the grill for, when you turned it, etc....

[BerberElla]

My ISFJ friend isn't squeamish at all, she works with nature, infact once she was doing up someones garden whilst I was standing on the sidelines refusing to help because I might touch a worm or someone other bug, and I have seen her deal with a really nasty wound on someone else that made me squeamish.

[Haphazard]

Thinking also about another ISFJ I know, who also gives off an impression of general fearfulness, example: she won't cook meat, because she's afraid that she might do it wrong and end up being poisoned by it not being cooked properly. And if you cook meat for her, she'll be prodding at it and checking if it's properly cooked and quizzing you about how many minutes exactly you had it on the grill for, when you turned it, etc....

My father does that, and he's an INTP.

Well, not to that extent, but he freaks out if food is cold.

[oasispaw]

i can be squeamish sometimes but mostly i'm deeply affected by violence, real or fake. i get nightmares, i can't help it!

i can handle obviously fake violence like in Kill Bill or something, but Million Dollar Baby made me nauseous and caused nightmares.

i've gotten over a lot of my more ocd tendencies, but some linger. i ride public transit so i can't be too upset about germs, though i do wash my hands as soon as i get to my destination. also, having a child and potty training and the gallons of poop and pee have softened some of the gross-out factor of many things.

like, i watched "2 girls 1 cup" out of curiosity, and of course i thought it was disgusting, but i wasn't affected by it at all. just left with the thought, "why would anyone do that? that's gross."

i think your sister's issues are perhaps not related to type.

[zago]

An ISFJ male is the prudest person I know. Won't talk about sex or even comment on attractive people. A college-aged male, at that!

[Lightning_Rider]

I don't think it really has to do with being an ISFJ or not. It depends on what it is, I think everyone has something that will gross them out. But for me mushrooms certainly don't make my stomach turn...

[Dwigie]

My mom is isfp..or isfj and we're both pretty squeamish when it comes to violence.Graphic or "auditory" it gives us tingly sensations in our legs when we hear very "surgical" scene descriptions.
We can't handle being yelled at either=>:cry:

[Walking Tourist]

I'm an isfp and I am incredibly squeamish when it comes to violence. I can't watch a violent movie by myself. Someone has to tell me when it's safe to open my eyes again.
When I see someone experiencing pain, I actually experience it with that person.
I'm not squeamish about handling bugs or worms or cleaning up after the cats after they get sick.


My mom is isfp..or isfj and we're both pretty squeamish when it comes to violence.Graphic or "auditory" it gives us tingly sensations in our legs when we hear very "surgical" scene descriptions.
We can't handle being yelled at either=>:cry:

[Apollanaut]

I'm an INFJ and I'm quite squeamish. It used to be I couldn't go near any body fluids without feeling nauseous, but years of owning pets and clearing up their various unpleasant bodily discharges have cured me of that tendency.

However, I remain very squeamish around blood. I can handle the stuff itself (when it's nicely packaged in a test-tube) but I can't deal very well with cuts or wounds when there's a lot of blood involved. I've even been known to pass out on a few occasions - so I'd be useless at first-aid!

With fantasy/TV violence it all depends how realistic it is. For example, I loved the Kill Bill movies despite the blood and gore, because it was portrayed in comic-book style.

[chimpuloc]

My ISFJ sister lives in North Carolina. We correspond by e-mail, mostly. Yesterday I went out to a nature reserve and took lots of pictures of all the different kinds of mushrooms they have there (and though I say it myself, the pics aren't half bad). I sent her the link to my Flickr so she could have a browse and she wrote back:

"Euw, looking at mushrooms makes me want to puke. Gross."

I laughed and said sis, you've always been squeamish, I remember a time when I mentioned the word 'spleen' in passing in a sentence and you pushed your dinner plate away and blamed me for 'making' you not be able to eat it.

She answered,

"I'm not that bad anymore, but if I think about what I'm eating (meat-wise) I totally can't eat it anymore. That's why I have to have steaks cooked at least medium well and hate handling raw chicken.
I'm also very careful about what I eat around J after he has tricked me into eating rabbit and deer and probably squirrel too, who knows with that red neck!!!!
I like my food to look nice and B makes fun of me all the time because whenever I order a sandwich I have to dismantle and rebuild it so it looks pretty and the fillings are distributed evenly. I hate when there's a giant mound of turkey in the middle and the tomatoes falling out and the cheese is all on one side etc. Ok so maybe I'm a little OCD, but I'm ok with that! Probably why I have a miniature hand sanitizer clipped onto my handbag too. I hate germs, euwwyyyy!"

And I'm thinking, is this the beginning warning signs of a person en route to developing the life-taking-over kind of OCD that I'm familiar with in another SJ friend of mine?

I just find it a bit worrying, considering that this girl grew up on a farm like I did and when we were kids we used to play with mud and bugs and dead rodents caught by the cats, and y'know... she didn't develop this squeamishness until her late teens... I wonder what it's all about??

Organization and control. Both stemming from the J in most ISFJs.
One the strongest aspects of the personality and also one of the biggest flaws. Being able to control these issues/"urges" is one of the greatest challenges to overcome
And no, I'm not squeamish :D

[Tiltyred]

I carry hand sanitizer. I don't want to get sick and not be able to go to work. Plus, colds are a nuisance. And sometimes there is no soap in the public restroom.

I'm squeamish. Once I got my finger pricked for a blood test, and the woman squeezed my finger to make the blood come out, and I fainted to the floor. I can't watch gory movies and if I do, the scenes NEVER LEAVE ME. I flash back on them the rest of my life. I remember the first sadistic thing I ever saw in a movie, I was so shocked and hurt, I thought I'd die -- I was about 9 (a man was branded in the chest in the movie). My stomach clenches and I get electric shock feelings in the palms of my hands, and if it's bad enough, I cry and will be depressed for a day or two. Ditto with news having to do with sadists (child torturing, murderers, etc.) Literally makes me sick. It's literally painful in my body. So ... not so much my idea of fun, and since reading about or seeing gore is optional, I opt not to.

I'll rearrange a sandwich if, for example, all the pickles are stacked in one spot, because I don't like the taste of that much pickle at once. I'll eat pretty much whatever you put in front of me, including rabbit or squirrel. I wouldn't eat cat or dog because they're companion animals and it would feel like cannibalism. Although any animal could be a companion animal. Thing is, I don't feel any need whatsoever to be logical in my personal preferences, since they are just that.

[Haphazard]

Tilly, I nearly passed out reading that.

[Tiltyred]

Oh, no! Was it the part about the pickles?

[Haphazard]

No, the first thing.

For some reason cuts or pricks on the fronts of my fingers floor me but anywhere else isn't so much a problem.

[Tiltyred]

Ah! Fainting is so weird, isn't it? You're there and then you're not.

[mai345]

weird. I've never fainted before, sounds like a new experience that wouldn't be that bad.
im not squeamish, i just get disgusted with my little brothers gross-ness. it used to be that if they touched the bowl or plate where i was eating out of, id refuse to eat it. that didn't last long tho.
i don't think people consider me to be squeamish either. when there's a bug in the classroom that no one wants to touch or if they want to squash it, ill pick it up and take it outside.
im also the one who handles the dissection in science classes.
i however feel uncomfortable when theres completely gorry films or ones that involve physical pain to a certain degree. ive watched saw with my brother but i wouldnt choose to watch on my own.