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Harm caused by tulpas in direct/indirect ways


J.Iscariot

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I would like to know about the harm caused by tulpas in direct/indirect ways. Basically, your personal experiences regarding harm that your tulpa caused after planning, directly, or perhaps a long-term effect negative effect of tulpamancy. Or maybe your tulpa harmed you in some ways to keep you from doing something.

 

I think that this is a topic that needs more discussion. Tulpas are people, people commit mistakes, and I'd like to hear about those. If you haven't gone through anything of the type, no need to post about how you did not go through that kind of stuff.

A wise man once said: 'Before judging a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? He's a mile away, and you've got new shoes.'

 

Graced are those who could avoid this phenomenon. This is perhaps the worst expression of evil in humanity's history, but who am I to judge?

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Guest Anonymous

In our case, unhealthy obsession and escapism from the real world caused my hostie to not function well. That would be indirect I guess.

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Luna got me into this mindset that I should have a girlfriend because it would make me feel better about myself. Didn't really realize it until one of my Skype friends pointed it out to me. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc. etc.

"Science isn't about why, science is about why not?" -Cave Johnson

Tulpae: Luna, Elise, Naomi

My progress report

 

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Guest Anonymous

Luna got me into this mindset that I should have a girlfriend because it would make me feel better about myself. Didn't really realize it until one of my Skype friends pointed it out to me. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc. etc.

 

We tulpas always mean well and are always trying to help our hosties. ;-)

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Might as well have written "No Lumi's Allowed" in the OP. There's not a single way they've "harmed" me because anything bad they could do would still be greater than if they had done nothing at all. But, I feel like I can contribute to the thread anyways. I've certainly been around long enough to learn how it goes for others, too.

 

 

 

For starters, there's a pretty obvious one: potentially (but certainly not always), creating a tulpa may decrease the amount of social interaction you seek out with real humans. Often times the opposite is true however, and some may argue that it's not even truly a bad thing. But, generally speaking, it is unhealthy to have a very low amount of social interaction, and your mind can only simulate so much of it itself. You require new sources of input and experience to keep growing, and a tulpa can only give you what your brain is already aware of to some extent. Which can be a lot, but.. Anyways it's not good if it happens.

 

I suppose I'll list the possibility of being hurt from others finding out about your tulpas, directly from you or not. I don't think this usually harms people but there have definitely been cases where things have gone poorly for the host who discussed their tulpas with someone they shouldn't have. Not necessarily asylum-bad, but friendships have been lost, parent relationships strained.

 

And I don't mean to speak for/of you, Iscariot, but there is the chance for someone unprepared that doesn't know what they're getting into, that the very existence (perhaps questioned or doubted) of their tulpa can cause them distress. Maybe your relationship doesn't go as well as you'd hoped, maybe your tulpa doesn't enjoy living, maybe they don't like others living with you.. Just as a tulpa may generate seemingly new ideas and positive thoughts from the recesses of your brain, they could potentially generate bad ones. Generally your tulpa won't just straight up be a scumbag and make it their goal to hurt you, but there's nothing stopping them from having negative views on things like any other person could have. In most cases tulpas seem either neutral or more positive-minded than their hosts, but there are definitely cases where the tulpa can purposefully or not support negative beliefs or even instill them. In most people this is avoided by simply meaning to create a positive or neutral minded tulpa during development, but for those already inclined to (or with a history of) such negative views or ways of thinking, they may unconsciously end up manifesting in the tulpa.

 

I still think a host and tulpa can work out most of their problems together, though.

 

Honestly, before this next one I feel the need to point out that the majority of negative tulpa-related problems (not like questioning their legitimacy, but actual negative influences) occur in people with a history of unhealthy thoughts in some form. Whether it's someone with schizophrenia or a-little-too-susceptible-to-invasive-thoughts, or with depression or a slightly-less-positive-outlook-on-life-than-normal, tulpas do not generally cause serious problems spontaneously in healthy minded people. While we don't completely discourage those people from making tulpas, and while it's definitely not their fault, just keep in mind that if you have any form of difficulty controlling what goes on with your mind, creating a tulpa can be dangerous.

 

So, there's an infamous one: a tulpa taking over their host's life through switching or something similar. As far as I've heard this is almost always with the host's permission (or at least without their protest), but that doesn't make it any more healthy. Most often (often being a relative term, remember) it's in hosts who suffer from depression, and no longer want to continue living. On the bright side, knowing their tulpa's life depends on their own may prevent them from committing suicide. But on the other side, this can leave in the mind one person who wants to live, and one person who doesn't. And that's usually where "permaswitching" happens. Although I almost exclusively see the tulpa doing their best to help their host and taking control reluctantly, which we even saw on the forum recently, it's still seen morally as very, very not okay. Very uncommon though.

 

One related to people with schizophrenia and similar mental disorders is the attachment to their tulpa, when their tulpa is just as subject to becoming a hallucination outside of their control as any other thought. Unfortunately, if you suffer from uncontrollable thoughts or an inability to differentiate imagination from reality, a tulpa doesn't just override that. And if you become emotionally attached to your tulpa and they end up "betraying you", "dying" or otherwise leaving, you could be even worse off than you were before. Again, this is a dangerous scenario to create a tulpa in. Make sure you've thought it out.

 

I feel like adding on to that one about lessening social interaction. In similar cases of usually requiring an unhealthy mindset, one may become obsessive over their tulpa, which I suppose could turn out in a multitude of ways. You may care more about enriching their life and neglecting your own, or you could just suffer from the normal problems that come from obsession with anything at all. Also not remotely a tulpa-exclusive problem, this could happen in any relationship. So I suppose you can just include most possible relationship problems here too. But I'd assume a thoughtform from your own mind is less likely to do any of the many things the messed up people in the world can do to you.

 

 

 

Well... I think I've written enough here. I don't want to make people think creating tulpas is dangerous and likely to go wrong, it really isn't unless you meet one of the scenarios I listed above. But there are things that could be dangerous or go wrong, so at least for the sake of this thread I'll discuss them.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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Guest Anonymous

I forgot all about the insomnia! Eek! I sometimes cause Davie to not sleep so well cause I am very active and chatty in his mind and I want to do Melian Shows. This can go on almost all night and sometimes more than one day in a row, and sometimes more. I can't help it. I love me! I like to talk to Davie too in the day dreams and stuff and junk.

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'Some of their emotional stress bleeds into my own string, sometimes taking me down with them, but I can't recall a time where they've deliberately harmed me. They've generally done good when it comes to pushing me in the right direction, but sometimes their advice isn't as stellar as I'd hope.'

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For starters, there's a pretty obvious one: potentially (but certainly not always), creating a tulpa may decrease the amount of social interaction you seek out with real humans. Often times the opposite is true however, and some may argue that it's not even truly a bad thing. But, generally speaking, it is unhealthy to have a very low amount of social interaction, and your mind can only simulate so much of it itself. You require new sources of input and experience to keep growing, and a tulpa can only give you what your brain is already aware of to some extent. Which can be a lot, but.. Anyways it's not good if it happens.

 

.... Yeah I'll put my hand up for this one. In truth I think that having a tulpa does reduce reliance on social interaction for me, somewhat. And that probably does decrease the amount I get, at least in terms of face-to-face. Although that's not to say I don't stimulate myself as such. If anything I probably profit from it on net, since I'm not, like, a hermit.

 

 

I suppose I'll list the possibility of being hurt from others finding out about your tulpas, directly from you or not. I don't think this usually harms people but there have definitely been cases where things have gone poorly for the host who discussed their tulpas with someone they shouldn't have. Not necessarily asylum-bad, but friendships have been lost, parent relationships strained.

 

Yep and yep. Seriously.

 

 

So, there's an infamous one: a tulpa taking over their host's life through switching or something similar. [...] Although I almost exclusively see the tulpa doing their best to help their host and taking control reluctantly, which we even saw on the forum recently, it's still seen morally as very, very not okay. Very uncommon though.

 

I've seen it happen both ways. Sometimes a tulpa gets shafted and stuck with living even though they don't want to. The funny part being that that's the same condition as the host was in before, but the injustice seems to lie with the tulpa. Well, it's still a dick move in that case. As for whether doing it consensually is "unhealthy", I guess it is in some sense. Still, as an escape route it definitely causes far less harm than physical suicide. So you have to toss those up.

 

 

And I don't mean to speak for/of you, Iscariot, but there is the chance for someone unprepared that doesn't know what they're getting into, that the very existence (perhaps questioned or doubted) of their tulpa can cause them distress. Maybe your relationship doesn't go as well as you'd hoped, maybe your tulpa doesn't enjoy living, maybe they don't like others living with you.. Just as a tulpa may generate seemingly new ideas and positive thoughts from the recesses of your brain, they could potentially generate bad ones

 

I've also seen this happen a lot. More specifically, the questioning or doubting. Or, similarly, lack of success. Some people don't meet with success, or are constantly beset with worry. It nags, and it's distressing, like you said. And if there's no happy ending, I think you'd guess that it's a bad thing overall for those people.

 

So yeah Lumi, I'd basically agree with what you've listed there.

 

 

Another kind of obvious thing that I'd add is about imposition. In truth I think that people who've gone and done imposition don't get this much, but still, ending up with something like uncontrolled hallucinations as a side effect is probably not a good thing. Maybe others can corroborate.

 

 

Since you asked for indirect ways too, I'll point out that spending way too much time here on the forums or IRC can be an issue. Hey, you can judge when you have a "problem", if you do. But, you know, talking for hours on end about tulpas instead of forcing is something that I think has harmed people.

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Great points.

A wise man once said: 'Before judging a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? He's a mile away, and you've got new shoes.'

 

Graced are those who could avoid this phenomenon. This is perhaps the worst expression of evil in humanity's history, but who am I to judge?

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Well... Vris made me cut a long time friendship. This didn't harmed me, but made me feel really guilty.

Vriska: She was bad for him!!!! Their friendship was toxic and dangerous!!!! (And besides she said I didn't existed, and he payed me back of taking one of my friendships too).

And Rin has given me headaches, jejejejeje.

Rin: What?!? No!!! Oh, that. Well, I was just a teenager... Jejejejeje

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