How to tell difference between scrupulousity and true contrition.

[gmor8802]

Hi all,

Do you have advice on telling the difference between scrupulousity and true repentance?

On the surface, they look/feel the same so wondering what everyone's thoughts were.

Thanks.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

You might be confusing terms here. True contrition is real sorrow for sins; scrupulosity is the inability to determine what is or is not sinful, or how severe a sin is. So can you explain a little more what you're asking, please?

[gmor8802]

I think you're right there actually. I'm probably missing terms.

When you do feel guilty and sorrow for something you've done, I suppose you'd examine the act against the three things that determine mortal sin.
Inadvertently answered my question I think.

Maybe a secondary question in that case. How do we accurately determine what is or how severe a sin is?
I understand there is a difference in stealing a $2 item from a store vs stealing $1000 dollars worth of things from a store.

If they both break one of the 10 commandments, why is one venial and one mortal? Is the impact of sin a big aspect of what makes it mortal vs venial?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Okay. For someone who is scrupulous, I recommend what I call the 2+2 test.

I assume you don't have to sit and ponder whether or not 2+2=4. You know that. A person who is dealing with scrupulosity is caught in a seemingly endless web of "maybe," "what if," "I don't know," etc. The only way out is to cut through the web. If you are feeling bad about something but are not 2+2 sure that it's sinful, then you must proceed as if it is not. If you are not 2+2 sure it was mortally sinful, you must proceed as if it is not. If you are not sure 2+2 sure that you omitted something in confession or left out an important detail (scrupulous people almost always confess way to much detail--if you can't sort it out, I probably can't either), then you must proceed as if you did not. Etc.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Think of your mind as having three processing centers. It has lots, actually, but we will look at three.

The Executive Center processes incoming data. If it decides that the data might require action, it passes it along to the Alarm Center. If the Alarm Center decides that it needs action, especially urgent action, it wakes up the Action Center that, well, takes action.

The Alarm Center of a person with scrupulosity is misconfigured. It's prone to go off at the wrong inputs, or to react out of proportion to them. "I might have sinned? I need to DO SOMETHING!!!!1!" A scrupulous person needs to train the Alarm Center to respond correctly.

I think of my Alarm Center as a dog, so when I'm all worked up over something, I ask myself, "Why is the dog barking?" If it's not a good reason, then I do my best to turn my attention elsewhere.

If I attend to the dog every time it barks, it will bark more. If I don't respond to the barking, at first it will bark even louder, but it will learn in the long run not to bark at that stimulus.

[Riverboat]

You have no idea how helpful this is!

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I'm glad I could help.

[gmor8802]

Thank you for your response. Very helpful. This actually does make a lot of sense

Thanks again.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

You're welcome.

[Peetem]

Wish I had read this years ago. Fortunately things are fine now, but for the first nearly 20 years after becoming Catholic, it was tough.

Good stuff Father. Thanks for the analogy.

[Doom]

This might be related to scrupulosity or a different topic, I'm not sure. But for people like me, with my personality profile (INTJ according to the Meyer-Briggs classification Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging) we tend to be our own worst critics and our worst enemies. There is always a voice inside you doubting every decision you make, telling you that nearly everything you say and do is wrong, selfish, or narcissistic, telling you that everyone you know shares your own fairly harsh opinion of yourself, exaggerating your own minor failings or minor social errors into major disasters, etc At times, the voice tells you that there is no point in attending a certain event because no one will notice or care whether or not you are there and it won't make a difference anyway. It's a nasty, vicious inner voice that you never completely silence. But what you can do is realize that it is an unreliable guide and stop obeying it, or at least, you can reduce it to only one source of guidance out of many, and don't allow it to have veto power over conflicting sources of guidance, If you realize that this voice is an unreliable guide that you can't trust you can mitigate the negative effects of that voice.

I think this inner critic is the real source of scrupulosity, you need to know that that self-critic is a liar and try not to trust it. Ignore the voice and while it won't go away, it can become weaker and have less power over you.

[Riverboat]

But for people like me, with my personality profile (INTJ according to the Meyer-Briggs classification Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging) we tend to be our own worst critics and our worst enemies.

Is there a charge for this test? I tutor papers for students who often refer to some other personality test (I forget the name). I'm almost curious enough to see how I turn out.

Good post, by the way. This thread has been illuminating.

[Doom]

Meyer Briggs is based on the psychological theories of Carl Jung, you can find tests all over the place. Some people tend to be a little too dismissive of it because they never look beyond the initials

I introverted
E Extroverted
T Thinking
J Judging
S Sensing
F Feeling
P Perceiving

And they conclude that it is pseudoscience, but the real value isn't the initials, all 7 qualities are possessed by everyone, but the ones that are dominant vary. The real value is how the personality types can help you understand yourself, what your strengths and weaknesses are, where you blind spots are and how to mitigate the damage they can do.

I really only deeply understand my own type, INTJ because it is the only one I have studied in depth.

My strengths are understanding abstract ideas, being able to create a plan and follow it precisely, explaining my thoughts to others, and being good at mapping out exactly what I want to say in conversation and saying it in the most precise manner possible.

My blind spots are recognizing social cues (for example, if a woman is interested in me and is trying to drop hints that she wants me to ask her out, I will recognize precisely none of those hints and nothing short of her getting on her knees and begging me "please ask me out" is going to help me get the message, another example is not recognizing when someone is being sarcastic, or when an apparently negative comment is a serious insult or just an attempt at light-hearted jesting) understanding nonverbal communication, such as body language and tone of voice, a tendency to be extremely self-critical and to project my negative self-evaluation onto others, and being able to sense what others are feeling or empathize with their position.

Now that I know those are my blind spots, I can adopt strategies to mitigate their damage, since I know I tend to interpret lighthearted mockery intended only as gentle teasing as a personal insult, whenever a conversation is ambiguous and I find myself feeling insulted I can remind myself "no, this person has shown no evidence of malice, so this is probably just a joke", and if I have difficulty empathizing with someone, I can consciously try to put myself in the other's position to try to see it their way.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

8 -- you left out N.

Meyers-Briggs can be a helpful tool to help you recognize when your dog is barking and shouldn't be.

For those who are visual, here's the alarm dog.

alarmdog.jpg

[Doom]

I knew I was missing something , I omitted one of the initials that is part of my own designation INTJ

[Riverboat]

My blind spots are recognizing social cues (for example, if a woman is interested in me and is trying to drop hints that she wants me to ask her out, I will recognize precisely none of those hints and nothing short of her getting on her knees and begging me "please ask me out" is going to help me get the message...

If that were to happen to me, I'd take that as sarcasm. Is there a letter for low self-esteem?

[Doom]

Having difficulty reading social cues has absolutely nothing to do with self-esteem, it is based on your ability as an empath, i.e. the ability to sense other people's emotions

[Peetem]

Meyer Briggs is based on the psychological theories of Carl Jung, you can find tests all over the place. Some people tend to be a little too dismissive of it because they never look beyond the initials

I introverted
E Extroverted
T Thinking
J Judging
S Sensing
F Feeling
P Perceiving

And they conclude that it is pseudoscience, but the real value isn't the initials, all 7 qualities are possessed by everyone, but the ones that are dominant vary. The real value is how the personality types can help you understand yourself, what your strengths and weaknesses are, where you blind spots are and how to mitigate the damage they can do.

I really only deeply understand my own type, INTJ because it is the only one I have studied in depth.

My strengths are understanding abstract ideas, being able to create a plan and follow it precisely, explaining my thoughts to others, and being good at mapping out exactly what I want to say in conversation and saying it in the most precise manner possible.

My blind spots are recognizing social cues (for example, if a woman is interested in me and is trying to drop hints that she wants me to ask her out, I will recognize precisely none of those hints and nothing short of her getting on her knees and begging me "please ask me out" is going to help me get the message, another example is not recognizing when someone is being sarcastic, or when an apparently negative comment is a serious insult or just an attempt at light-hearted jesting) understanding nonverbal communication, such as body language and tone of voice, a tendency to be extremely self-critical and to project my negative self-evaluation onto others, and being able to sense what others are feeling or empathize with their position.

Now that I know those are my blind spots, I can adopt strategies to mitigate their damage, since I know I tend to interpret lighthearted mockery intended only as gentle teasing as a personal insult, whenever a conversation is ambiguous and I find myself feeling insulted I can remind myself "no, this person has shown no evidence of malice, so this is probably just a joke", and if I have difficulty empathizing with someone, I can consciously try to put myself in the other's position to try to see it their way.

I pegged you Doom as an INTJ.

Lots of folks dismiss the test, but I can with about 95% accuracy, predict before they take the test how they'll come out. The only characteristic I sometimes miss is E/I - unless I spend a lot of time with someone, its very difficult to know that. Regardless, if there was nothing to the profiler, I don't think I'd be that accurate.

Knowing the types of things you described has helped me greatly grow as a leader. It has helped me with my reports too - how to communicate better for their temperament and what to provide them feedback (and help!) so they can be successful.

I'm an INTP.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Look up (if you haven't already) extroverted introverts. We function gladly as extroverts ... for a limited time.

[Doom]

Well, the other thing is that there are degrees to these things let me state again everyone has all 8 qualities. Everyone is a little bit introverted and a little bit extroverted. But some traits are more dominant than other and there is a big difference between someone who is 70% introverted or higher, which I probably was as a teenager because I had rather severe social anxiety and tended to have panic attacks when uncomfortable in a social situation, and say 51% introverted, which is probably closer to where I am now, because I do now feel completely comfortable in social situations and I no longer have social anxiety, and I haven't had a panic attack since my senior year in high school. And while you cannot change your basic personality, you can shore up weak areas, I would say I am lot stronger in empathy now than I was as a teenager, and reduce the intensity of qualities that can be negative in too large amounts.