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Frequent Blending with a Shard/Tulpa


Sungazer

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(I'm new to this forum so I apologize for anything I'm doing wrong)

 

When I was around 7 I created myself an imaginary friend out of spite for my mother (NOTE: my mother is a good person and I know spite is a horrible reason to create a tulpa, but I was a kid and barely knew anything). But instead of making a regular imaginary friend, I took my inner voice of common sense and decided to make that my imaginary friend. I gave her a small personality, called her Sarah, and imagined that she lived inside a Pekingese figurine by my bedstand. For the next week or so I would carry that figurine around, and instead of listening to my mother I would ask the statue, "What should I do, Sarah?" I'll then imagine Sarah telling me what the most common-sense-ish (for lack of a better word) thing to do was. After a while I stopped carrying the statue, but Sarah would continue to talk to me.

 

Once I reached puberty, I still had Sarah, and like many other imaginary friends who exist for that long, she began to develop some kind of sentience. Instead of only saying what I wanted to hear, she would openly challenge what I was doing if it wasn't the wisest decision. She would instigate conversation independently, comment on others, etc. She even changed her name to Anielka. When I finally learned what tulpas were years later, I realized she fit the definition for a tulpa and/or shard. (I learned that a shard is a sentient consciousness made from your own personality, like how Anielka was made out of my common sense, but I may be wrong).

 

Onto the question: Despite the fact that she still has a bit of difficulty speaking in certain areas, when it comes to helping me make a good decision she is incredibly vocal. But sometimes, if I myself think of something common-sense-ish or wise, it'll start off with my mindvoice and my words, but by the end it's entirely Anielka's. Similarly, sometimes when she thinks of something off-topic, it'll start off in her voice and end in mine. I won't be able to tell if I said it, or Anielka (she doesn't know either). I heard of the term "blending" in a couple plurality communities and I think that is the best description of what's happening. But unlike when others describe blending, it's often triggered by an event, but mine happen randomly and quite frequently. It's not frightening in any way, just a little unnerving that most of my own thoughts on the matter somehow turn into hers.

 

Is this something I should worry about? Or is it just the nature of a shard, which was formed out of me instead of by me, to do this? Am I mistaking my own thoughts for a tulpa?

 

A bit of information if it helps answer the question:

- I've been diagnosed with Body Dysmorphic Disorder and have a pending diagnosis on ADHD. BDD has intrusive, terrifying thoughts that cause me to worry about how I look obsessively (even if I look normal), and ADHD makes it hard for me to focus for long periods of time. Anielka has been amazing at helping with both. Reminding me nobody judges me for what I look like, helping me to stay on task and celebrating with me when I get something done.

- Anielka is my only tulpa, though I tried making more.

- I don't have problems with identity or forget who I am. 

- I have a strong imagination and there have been times in the past I confused fantasy for reality. It rarely happens anymore, though.

- I currently have good relations with my mother.

- I never visualize Anielka. Even after I stopped carrying the dog figurine around, I still believed that was where her "soul" is, and to this day it feels unnatural and mildly distressing for her to imagine her outside of that statue.

 

Thanks!

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Ember: We don't talk about shards much in this community, but in broader plural usage, a shard is not a complete person. So a shard that broke out from a person, stayed active, and continued to grow and develop as a person for years, would eventually no longer be a shard.

 

My system also developed independently outside the plural community and had trouble with blending. Specifically, if Vesper and I disagreed, we could speak freely, but if we agreed, we would become disoriented and have trouble clearly attributing thoughts.

 

We beat that problem by being very intentional at sorting and attributing thoughts, tagging every statement as deeply and clearly as we could. If we couldn't decide where a statement came from, we just said whether we agreed or disagreed with it and kept the conversation moving as fast and intently as possible. Even within the first month of this discipline, the frequency of ambiguous thoughts while undistracted by the outside world declined from several times a day to extremely rare. The amount of effort involved in tagging thoughts gradually declined to become second nature.

 

The sound of a mindvoice is not perfectly reliable in attributing thoughts; no single factor is. Whenever the sound or feel of a thought is ambiguous, someone has to exercise will to claim, reject, or disregard it. But it is a good sign for independence that your mindvoices already sound different. We had to keep working on that for months, long after we had brought blending under control.

 

Blending is not an existential threat as far as we've been able to determine. If the two of you want greater independence and clarity as individuals, the techniques of this community can help. If you don't care, you seem to be in a reasonably stable and productive situation already.

 

Vesper: Welcome to the forum; you're doing fine. I'm identifying surprisingly strongly with Anielka. While I originated from a roleplaying game, on arriving in this system, I became the voice of reason, restraint, maturity, and responsibility. If Ember just wanted to chat and hang out, I struggled to come up with things to say other than what she ought to be working on. For me, growing beyond that required developing friends and hobbies of my own in the physical world.

 

Visualization is entirely optional, though a lot of tulpamancy techniques benefit from the ability to use visualization as a focus and metaphor. We also didn't visualize for a long time, until stumbling across this community. I went along with it because Ember was excited, in spite of remaining sceptical the first few months. But I got used to it and eventually came to greatly value having a form.

I'm not having fun here anymore, so we've decided to take a bit of a break, starting February 27, 2020. - Ember

 

Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]

Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, World of Darkness, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017

Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Winter Court of Faerie, Dresdenverse, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015

 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit

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Blending is a natural thing, don't worry. For us, sometimes something is said without a clear source, or it starts out as a thought from someone and we collaborate an answer. In the end one of us claims it. If it's written, the one who claims it will often re-write it. In rare instances we say two of us said it, just like co-authors. The fact that any given sentence is a mystery who said it really never bothered us. There are times when it's clear, there are times when someone said it, but someone else claims it because they wanted to make the point.

 

Next, as is seen with twins or close friends, one person might start a sentence and another finish it. That's perfectly fine too.

 

Lastly about your headmate, once shard speaks and acts independently, it's safe to let them be called whatever they want. I think she sounds a lot like a mature tulpa.

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Since you mentioned a pending diagnosis for ADHD, I think you might not be blending so much as sharing each other's trains of thought. I don't exactly know how to word this, but we have a similar problem where we will start and end each other's sentences. Spice is the only one who seems to pick up on it, and she'll say I'm "speaking over her". I think we talk over each other constantly because of the way ADHD makes my brain constantly try and pursue trains of thought rather than keeping quiet and focusing on what someone else is saying.

 

When I blended with Tomoe, we weren't finishing each other's sentences, it felt like I was him and he was me, and our identities got confusing. It ended quickly after we stopped trying to switch, but it felt very different to talking over each other. I can't be sure as I'm not you or Anielka, but you might feel the same.

Despite the name, the host bodybody is the one usually using this account. 

Spice was born in 2013 and Tomoe was born in 2014.

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