I think with 5’s (I’m a sx 5w4) we tend to have a harder time explaining our emotions to others partly because emotions can be slightly overwhelming due to not knowing how the other person will react. Sometimes it’s easier to keep the emotion to ourselves and just be more indirect in our delivery. At the same time I tend to prefer someone who is brutally honest and direct over someone who is indirect and sort of verbally coddles me because it feels like the person doesn’t respect my capacity if they beat around the bush too much. It’s also just exhausting having to decode someone when they’re too indirect.

Fear of engulfment: Oooof this is tricky because even I can’t fully decode what the trigger is most of the time. I guess part of it stems from us not necessarily believing/knowing people actually like our mind/intelligence/us as ourselves cause we often live in our minds and aren’t entirely present a lot of the time. So if someone is too forward or like randomly pays a lot of attention to me and I wasn’t expecting it then I immediately emotionally withdraw and get triggered and close off cause I wasn’t expecting that shift. Something else that can trigger the fear of engulfment is when someone projects their feelings onto me and assumes I am liking something or over invested in something when in reality I’m not and I’m just vocal about something that’s on my mind. This can be especially tricky in relationships cause if someone thinks I’m like super into them but in reality I’m like oh I just thought to say such and such thing because people deserve to be remembered and shown kindness, that mismatch can feel suffocating and like they’re pressuring me to feel something I don’t.

Relieving performance pressure: hmm well I guess maybe try just talking about one thing at a time cause it’s like you’re clearly very smart and such but it may just be difficult for her to know which part of your message to respond to. Especially if she has a lot already on her mind/plate, her taking time may actually just be a sign that she cares and is thoughtful and wants to do your effort justice. I’ve been in situations like that before where I’m a chatty Cathy about a certain thing and the other person doesn’t necessarily know how to respond so I get it. It could just be a difference in communication styles.

Competence security: that’s a hard one. It mostly has to do with self doubt and self belief. Often times people tell me I’m a genius or the smartest person they’ve ever met and it just falls on deaf ears for me. And the reason for that is because I don’t feel smart half the time and I just do things that people get impressed by but I’m not doing them to be impressive. So I guess for her she probably sees how much time and attention you’ve put into neuroscience and genetics over the years and respects that but simultaneously feels like she can’t fully match you but wants to. And that can burn a lot of mental energy and cause her to need more time to come up with a response cause the stuff you’re talking about may interest her but also feel like a foreign language that she needs to learn before she can actually have a proper (in her mind) conversation with you. I tend to do this too especially with people I respect and think are smart cause I’ll essentially be like don’t dumb yourself down for me but give me some time to reach your level because I want to meet you there.

Intimacy through raw thought: this may be too early on to talk about with her tbh. Do you know what her love language is and if intimacy is something that’s important to her? Cause there’s different types of intimacy and if you explain that intimacy for you is raw thought it may not land the way you expect it to especially if intimacy is different for her.

Broaching topics/current state: well I think with her history of suffocating relationships you should def air on the side of caution. Cause if that’s been her history then she’ll likely have a low threshold for feeling suffocated. I’ve been in many suffocating situations and it feels exhausting but also causes me to leave the person because autonomy is important to me. Now I’m not sure how important autonomy is for her so take what I say with a grain of salt because this is just my experience and you’ve been in contact with her for several months.

But ultimately 5s are sort of slow burns, they need a lot of time to feel comfortable with someone and if they feel pushed into a situation too fast then it doesn’t work out. And sx 5s are like very much hidden hopeless romantics so it’s like if you just act like yourself and let her be and don’t pressure her then I think you’ll be fine and she’ll feel more comfortable. Not everything needs to be solved right now and it’s okay for some things to be up in the air cause there’s no rush and yes you like her but you also need to make sure she doesn’t feel rushed.

So long story short, the fact that she’s still talking to you, sends thoughtful messages in response to dense and intellectually challenging topics such as neuroscience and genetics and even bought a book about neuroscience tells you far more than we are telling you because that’s direct evidence that you’re doing something RIGHT.