While childhood trauma won't change your personality type, it can change the result you get on a type indicator (personality quiz, the official MBTI®, etc,.). One of the reasons this happens is that trauma can impact how you use, develop, and show your type preferences.
Neuroticism.
A difficult childhood places a person at risk of experiencing a high degree of negative emotion. They may be prone to depression, worry, anger, panic, or other forms of anxiety. Once the person is upset, it may be hard to recover.
The effects of exposure to trauma in childhood have repeatedly been linked to the development of maladaptive personality traits and personality disorders [1,2,3,4]. In contrast, much less is known about personality related problems that may arise in adulthood.
A large body of literature demonstrates that people who have suffered emotional neglect and childhood trauma are more likely to develop Borderline Personality Disorder as adults than those who had a stable upbringing.
The responses are usually referred to as the 4Fs – Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn and have evolved as a survival mechanism to help us react quickly to life-threatening situations.
Childhood trauma is often the cause of split personality disorder, now referred to as DID. A person will subconsciously create other personalities to handle certain aspects of themselves and their traumas, without which they cannot cope.
Conclusion: Finding that appears relatively consistent is that PTSD is positively related to negative emotionality, neuroticism, harm avoidance, novelty-seeking and self-transcendence, as well as to trait hostility/anger and trait anxiety.
According to Myers-Briggs theory, your personality type is inborn, and it doesn't change. However, the way you exhibit your type WILL change (and should) as you go through life. Why? As you age and mature you develop different facets of your personality type.
A study of young adults found that childhood trauma was significantly correlated with elevated psychological distress, increased sleep disturbances, reduced emotional well-being, and lower perceived social support.
Adults who have experienced childhood trauma often have heightened anxiety levels. They may worry excessively and have trouble managing their anxiety. Childhood trauma can lead to persistent feelings of sadness, lack of interest in activities, and difficulty experiencing pleasure.
Traumatic reactions can include a variety of responses, including intense and ongoing emotional upset, depressive symptoms, anxiety, behavioral changes, difficulties with attention, academic difficulties, nightmares, physical symptoms such as difficul- ty sleeping and eating, and aches and pains, among others.
Fawning refers to consistently abandoning your own needs to serve others to avoid conflict, criticism, or disapproval. Fawning is also called the “please and appease” response and is associated with people-pleasing and codependency. “Fawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs, and demands of others.
Adults may display sleep problems, increased agitation, hypervigilance, isolation or withdrawal, and increased use of alcohol or drugs. Older adults may exhibit increased withdrawal and isolation, reluctance to leave home, worsening of chronic illnesses, confusion, depression, and fear (DeWolfe & Nordboe, 2000b).
When trauma impairs your ability to develop full emotional maturity, this is known as arrested psychological development. Trauma can “freeze” your emotional response at the age you experienced it. When you feel or act emotionally younger than your actual age, this is known as age regression.
Overall, the rarest personality type is INFJ
The rarest personality type is the INFJ personality type, known as 'The Counselor'. INFJ is the rarest personality type across the population, occurring in just 2% of the population. It is also the rarest personality type among men.
ISFJ: The ISFJ personality is known as “the protector,” “the defender,” or “the guardian” type. ISFJs are affirming, caring, and practical nurturers. This is the most common personality type among the general population.
All of this is to say that if you have received differing reported MBTI letters, it could mean that you have significant distinct tendencies on both sides of one or more preference pairs (E/I, S/N, T/F, J/P). However, according to the theory behind the MBTI, you're ultimately one or the other in each pair.
Feelings of shame and guilt: Survivors of childhood family trauma frequently carry a strong sense of shame and guilt. Children have a natural propensity to self-blame, and they often assume what happened, or didn't happen, to them is their fault.
Intrusive memories
Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event. Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks) Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event. Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
Reemergence - A Message from the Trauma Holding part that you're Safe Enough now to Process. Reemergence of memories usually means that there was some form of trauma, abuse, neglect or emotional hurt that was experienced years ago, but was repressed because you were not in a safe or stable enough place to heal it.
When empaths are exposed to early trauma or abuse their young nervous system may develop without healing making them hypervigilant. They can become exquisitely attuned to their environment to ward off threats and ensure they are safe or enter a state of hyperarousal.
Re-experiencing or re-living unwanted memories as flashbacks or nightmares. Hyper-arousal: problems with sleep, irritability, anger, anxiety, hyper-alertness, exaggerated startle response. Hypo-arousal: feeling numb or cut off, feeling detached from others, dissociating, feeling flat or empty. Emotional dysregulation.
INFP. The winner of the cutest personality type goes to INFPs! With their dreamy eyes, romantic souls, and compassionate personalities, INFPs are the quintessential adorable type. They're affectionate, gentle, and generous with those they love.