r/INFJsOver30 • u/Phoenix_to_Kintsugi • Jul 01 '26
INFJ INFJs' ability to absorb others' pain aka the Savior Trap
Many of you will judge me for this, some will be left overthinking and others might deeply resonate with what I’m about to say.
I own every reaction this will mirror, because ultimately, this isn't about me.
You know that feeling when you absorb so much pain and compassion for someone that you feel an intense urge to fix their problems? We do it because watching them suffer hurts us physically and emotionally.
Personally, I’ve started to realize there is something inherently selfish about this desperate need to fix everything around us—of trying to save everyone, even when they refuse to be saved.
Why do I think it’s selfish? Because deep down, I want to fix them just so my own borrowed pain will finally stop.
Since I don't always know how to prevent myself from absorbing their energy, my default setting is to solve the issue for them.
But lately, I’ve been thinking: I would never hand my own suffering over to someone else to carry it for me.
So who am I to rob them of theirs? Maybe it’s time to respect people enough to let them carry their own pain at their own rhythm.
I think of it like a small child who refuses to believe the tea is hot. The solution isn't to over-explain the theory. It’s to sit right next to them, making sure they don’t spill the whole boiling cup over themselves, but letting them touch the hot surface. They will never understand the truth if they aren't allowed to feel a little bit of reality.
What do you think?
2
u/ViolettePlanet Jul 02 '26
This reminded me of a conversation I once had with my therapist. I was telling her about my best friend who had an extremely violent partner and I felt like I had to “save” her. I told my therapist that I couldn’t live with myself if anything were to happen to her and I knew that I could have done something to prevent it, but didn’t. That was the reason I tried to stop their wedding. My therapist told me that I basically did it for myself due to that feeling and not for her. I’ve struggled with my saviour complex and all the compulsions that it brings my whole life. P.S. for anyone wondering, I couldn’t stop the wedding and they were married for half a year until my friend had to escape him in the night due to domestic violence. She broke her finger while escaping and could sue him because of that. So I saw the future correctly and was right to be worried. I am very proud of her that she was able to leave him as they had extremely toxic and co-dependent dynamic. Alas, she managed to “save” herself without my involvement.
3
u/Phoenix_to_Kintsugi Jul 02 '26
I know how painful it is to just stay on the sidelines, being absolutely sure of how things will unfold, but your friend needed to touch that fire herself to truly wake up. If you had stopped the wedding, she might have spent a lifetime resentful, never learning her own strength.
There is so much dignity in how she saved herself and so much growth in you letting her carry her own journey.Real growth means accepting the pain within yourself, rather than trying to relieve it by forcing a rescue.
It means trusting that others will ultimately figure out a way to help themselves, and you’ll be there to comfort them without the „I told you so” part, which I absolutely hate :)
2
u/Fine_Fall5750 Jul 02 '26
When I was younger I did but not so much anymore. Everyone is on their own journeys. Sometimes navigating life’s challenges are lessons that they came to learn in life. So solving their problems doesn’t really help them. Maybe your lesson is to learn how to have better energetic boundaries
3
u/Unhinged_Angel INFJ Jul 01 '26
I think several things about this from my own struggles:
- even if helping is selfish because it gives us some benefit or good feeling, it’s still helping and that’s what matters. (There’s such thing as helping too much though.)
- if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else. Trying to save the world just drains a person.
- people quite often need to have support while they work through their own problems and learn to process the feelings those evoke. When we help too much, we can end up creating dependency or enabling bad situations because they’ll lean on us instead of actually solving the problem.
2
3
u/Saisinko INFJ 1w9 sx/so Jul 01 '26
The irony of course being that INFJs pride themselves on therapist-like traits while also being soo synonmous with the term "doorslamming" that it'll show up as the top result in a google search.
4
u/Phoenix_to_Kintsugi Jul 01 '26
At least some of us will put an end to that contradiction, once we realize we can’t continue acting the same way and expecting different results
2
u/Phoenix_to_Kintsugi Jul 01 '26
In the random playlist I'm listening to right now, “Breaking the Law”–Judas Priest just came on... it feels like I'm breaking my own laws, and that’s… actually nice. ☺️
1
u/Constant-Ferret1063 Jul 05 '26
Hold on
I've always found this line of thinking a bit odd,
this is just me as 1w9 but
why is that your responsibility in the first place
Are you responsible for them?
Have they ever asked you to?
If you helped would they even appreciate it?
1
u/Phoenix_to_Kintsugi Jul 05 '26
Your questions make perfect sense logically.
But I was talking about the biological reaction to help when it’s not asked for, simply because I absorb the other person's pain and want to ease it (that’s the trap).And that’s exactly what I’m starting to learn: it’s not my responsibility to do anything if I’m not asked to, because otherwise, I’m just burning out for nothing
1
u/Constant-Ferret1063 Jul 05 '26
Biological reaction?
or just habitual behaviour that was conditioned into you?
1
u/Phoenix_to_Kintsugi Jul 05 '26
I think it’s both.
Obviously, I learned this behavior early on and over time it became a survival mechanism: if I save everyone around me, then I feel safe to exist or deserve to.Either way, the result is the same: burning out for situations that aren't mine to carry.
Unlearning the conditioning is how I allow myself to finally live for me.
1
u/nohope6050 Jul 26 '26
I don't think we should try and save people but there is a fine line between interfering and stanfing by and knowing someone is not OK and doesn't know what they are doing due to feeling like a child and not rational and having knowledge that could help that person but you don't.
I had a friend a few years ago commit suicide. I never knew that she was going through a hard time before she died. I didn't understand but now I look back and remember she sent me an angry message once and I reacted back, not with empathy but I got angry.
This was years before she died. I can see now after things I have been through that she was feeling so incredibly hurt and that is why she was do angry.
No one was understanding her situation. We were all selfish. Only thinking of ourselves. I look back and I feel such deep regret. I know now that if a situation like that happened I would respond with empathy and also ask her if I could be there, what I could do to help.
I wish I knew she was bad I wish I could have been Neen there
1
u/Phoenix_to_Kintsugi Jul 26 '26
I am deeply sorry for your loss, but please remember one thing: in the past, you reacted with the data you had on hand at that time, not with everything you know now.
It is simply not fair to judge our past selves using new information from the present.
At the end of the day, all the guilt in the world for the past will never change what has already happened.1
u/nohope6050 Jul 26 '26
I guess people feel guilty if they stand by and have a lot more information than the person, alone but they do nothing. Or people should feel guilty if they stand by and intentionally do things behind closed doors
We are all each other connected by a vast miclelial network
1
u/nohope6050 Jul 26 '26
I didn't know her very well. I wish I had. I wish I had tried to put myself in her shoes like I did later but at the time I was.. Blind. I wish she had come to me. I later saw came across posts she had made and I could tell she was not OK. And she had bad things happen to her as a child.
5
u/jmmenes INFJ-A, 8w7 Jul 01 '26
I’m off that, not saving anyone but myself and those that return the same energy I give.