Since frustrating people are the “Life of the Party”, forever taking something on, it may look from the outside as if their main fear were that it will all end: “any moment now the result arrives, and that's it!” They want to stretch the process out: there has to be the buzz, one must not stop. But that guess is far too superficial.
The frustrating type is not afraid that everything will end, since that means the beginning of something else. The main fear of the frustrating type is that “this” will go on for ever, unchanged, and always. Eternity frightens them and fills them with gloom:
“Now I am going to wake up beside this person every morning, and it is for ever — but surely something needs transforming right now, something needs doing!”.
In other words, this is the fear of inevitability: that it will be so, and nothing can be done about it. It is the fear of helplessness.
And all of it together shows up in the situations that the frustrating type will avoid at any cost:
- Monotony, repetitiveness, stagnation, coming to a halt, silence.
- Being controlled, being subordinate, other people's rules.
- Obstacles in the way of their own Flow, their energy, “the buzz”.
- Pettiness, being pinned down to specifics.
- Reproaches about not being skilled enough (at work).
- Formality, strictness and solemnity of action.
- Responsibility, accepting the results of their own actions and decisions (negative ones especially).
- Being presented with facts, proof, irrefutable logical arguments against them and their behaviour.
- They can hardly bear a second whirlwind like themselves nearby, and go into competition and conflict with it.
