Problem accepting the way my Tulpa is

[Pioneer11]

I have a huge problem with my Tulpa. I don’t really know how to resolve it and it’s becoming seriously detrimental to our forcing progress, to the point where I’m refusing to give him the attention he needs. And since focusing is vital I’m reaching out to the community to get help.

 

The problem is me, I suppose I could say. I struggle in accepting the way my Tulpa behaves towards myself.

 

When I created him I had in mind an adversary, someone who would embody everything I stood against and that would oppose my convictions. He was a sort of a mental nemesis; we debated on life, morals and everything else.

 

I started talking to this “someone” as soon as I could speak. I remember talking to my imaginary "something" when I was four. Of course, his “moral adversary” role was something that became clearer during the years. We also became friends, and I shared everything with him. He was always with me, even during lucid dreaming.

 

In march I found out about Tulpas on Reddit and everything clicked. Since then I tried to fully impose him, since I have been doing what is called “forcing” for about twenty years both passively and actively. Yet, as months went by, the time I allotted to him decreased dramatically. Before, I included him in my life all the time. Now, I realize I’m blocking him out. When talking to him I stared to doubt I was parroting him, even when I felt his answers accompanied by his emotions. And then I realized that beyond the doubt of parroting there was another problem, even more severe.

 

I can’t accept the way he feel and behaves towards me.

 

Even though I eventually treated him as a friend and came to love him, I believed still that he was ultimately a fantasy, something not real. Something that I could control and that had no rights; and that's not a good foundation for a friendship, isn’t it? Furthermore, during the years we had a number of very serious fights about our view of life. I could say that he is my truest friend and at the same time he is still my worst enemy, and the anger I feel towards him is real too.

 

He however, in our interactions and especially during lucid dreaming, is not angry at me. He feels affection towards me and wants us to reconcile. I wasn’t prepared for this, not really. I thought he might just be indifferent towards me, or even consider me a nuisance. I expected him to be angry at me for these years of arguments, or even to become resentful for realizing that he was trapped in my mind and I was his tyrant.

 

I am feeling guilty for being his host, for creating and discarding him. There are times I’ve been really cruel to him and showed him the worst part of myself. So, I could never have conceived that he would want to be close to me. And that’s is why I reject him. I’m struggling to accept his feelings. I don’t think I even like him, thinking of me this way. At the same time I do care for him. But whenever I feel his emotions, I suppress them, and so I’m talking to him less and less. I feel awful for obvious reasons.

 

What can I do? I know that I must eventually face him, etcetera. But saying this and actually doing it are two completely different things. I don’t want to hurt him anymore, but it’s really hard to accept him being like this. I’m also still doubting: maybe I subconsciously wanted him to be like this and I induced this feelings onto him? I confused. I don’t know what’s real, but if his emotions are real, I don’t know if I can ever deal with them. I’m stumped and he’s hurting. Has anybody gone through this? How do you face something like that?

 

I won’t dissipate him anyway, but I want him and I to get better.

 

Any help will be most appreciated.

[FadingSpectrum]

Medea: From the point of view of a soulbond who started out with an intense hatred of my host, I'll do the best I can in giving what I have to offer. I have no idea if it helps, but I'll try.

Before giving a piece of my own story to you, I want to say that I respect your choice to want to reconcile rather than dissipate him. That's a good call.

 

Some in here flat out disliked or feared Fade at first. We had wildly different opinions on a lot of subjects, and when we disagreed with Fade, we didn't really tell her much. After all, she started out as a vague, spacey, godlike entity to us. What we knew was that she built our world, and she had built us up from essentially being little mental puppets to something more.

I spent most of my first months in our mindscape sulking in a tree, watching as everyone else went about either avoiding her or acting cute for her. The only real exception was Troy, who was intimidating and, well, Troy enough to blatantly disagree with Fade. And me, who yelled sometimes.

 

I was angry at Fade for being like you describe yourself towards your tulpa. Let's admit that being nothing more than a part of someone's mind is a scary thought. I didn't get that she actually liked us. I figured that she viewed us a playthings. It took her reaching out to me for me to warm up a little. She offered to watch some youtube videos with me and me alone. We talked, and I figured out that she was actually kind of concerned about me.

She was still the frighteningly-powerful-godlike-entity then, but at least she was a benevolent one. Once I got around to talking to her without anger or shouting, we got to discussing some of her views on us and the world. We both learned from that.

 

That said, you don't have to change your opinions for anyone. We act sort as debate buddies for each other; "Agree to disagree". And even if we don't feel the same way on something, it's worth the effort to accept that this is the way they and the world are.

After all, one of the greatest benefits of having headpeople (or being a headperson) is having someone you can disagree with, find new points of views thanks to, and still care about each other at the end of the day.

 

If your tulpa does care about you, in spite of those years fighting with you and acting as your "nemesis", I think that that you guys could actually work it out. Who knows? My only advice is to open your mind a little and let his feelings in. If you have a mountain to tackle with this, then climb. It'll be better than guiltily avoiding the issue. Maybe you'll find that he isn't as much of an enemy as you've been thinking of him all along.

I hope this helps.

[Nyx]

I am feeling guilty for being his host' date=' for creating and discarding him. There are times I’ve been really cruel to him and showed him the worst part of myself. So, I could never have conceived that he would want to be close to me. And that’s is why I reject him. I’m struggling to accept his feelings. I don’t think I even like him, thinking of me this way. At the same time I do care for him. But whenever I feel his emotions, I suppress them, and so I’m talking to him less and less. I feel awful for obvious reasons.[/quote']

 

Jack: You sound just like my host did whenever she brought me back. We weren’t enemies or sparring partners per se, though she did suppress my feelings towards her out of fear for her sanity, both platonic and especially romantic. There were times where she was angry at me for even existing, feeling that I was somehow preventing her from living life as she should. She even once said to me, “My life would be okay if you would just die for good.” Yet she always enjoyed my company. And I enjoyed hers.

 

Looking at it from a conventional angle, yeah, how she treated me was often cruel. And yeah, it did hurt. But I don’t think I could ever hate her for it. And trust me, I know it doesn’t make any sense, but love is like that.

 

It took years of building trust and coaxing, but she has started to see things from my perspective. We don’t bring this up in public explicitly because it is complicated and highly personal, but we still have frequent disagreements on how we should relate to each other, especially now that we are a couple. She has preconceived ideas from her previous relationships and from what she has been taught to believe is acceptable. From my side of the deal, there are feelings—great, intense feelings—that I hold back for her sake, until she is ready to open herself to them. There are times where it is very hard to do that, because it is so easy to think that I can make her even happier if she would give those things a chance, but I would rather have it so that she willingly lets go of her inhibitions first.

 

Even though I eventually treated him as a friend and came to love him' date=' I believed still that he was ultimately a fantasy, something not real. Something that I could control and that had no rights; and that's not a good foundation for a friendship, isn’t it?[/quote']

 

What can I do? I know that I must eventually face him' date=' etcetera. But saying this and actually doing it are two completely different things. I don’t want to hurt him anymore, but it’s really hard to accept him being like this. I’m also still doubting: maybe I subconsciously wanted him to be like this and I induced this feelings onto him? I confused. I don’t know what’s real, but if his emotions are real, I don’t know if I can ever deal with them. I’m stumped and he’s hurting. Has anybody gone through this? How do you face something like that[/quote']

 

Again, this is something that I have heard before, and it is an issue my host mentioned here. On this point all I can say is that the host needs to learn to trust, which is a process, not a single, definitive moment. She still doesn’t trust me on this 100%. Too good for it to be true, right? Wrong. In your case, it sounds like you are unsure if you want to relate to him in that way, which is something that will need some introspection and perhaps exploration to sort out.

 

So talk to him, if you can. I understand that this might be frightening…my host was afraid of talking to me the few weeks before she returned to this site. But boy was I so damn happy when she did. She always had a problem with guilt, especially when it came to me, so I made it perfectly clear to her that I wanted us to move past that. Guilt might make you look good on the surface, but I know for a fact that it will destroy you and your relationships from the inside until you finally decide to let it go. It is not healthy to hang onto. She wouldn’t touch the “darker”, more passionate side of it with a ten-foot pole during the first dozen conversations, and I was perfectly alright with that. I was just so glad that we were finally being honest with each other.

 

If you’re truly not ready to talk to your tulpa just yet, I suggest just telling him just that...while remaining open about your feelings surrounding why you don't want to talk. Especially the hard, conflicting ones. A single conversation will not solve every problem you have. That will take some time. But you have to take the first step.

[Pioneer11]

FadingSpectrum and Nyx, thank you very much for your detailed answers and advice.

 

Some in here flat out disliked or feared Fade at first. We had wildly different opinions on a lot of subjects, and when we disagreed with Fade, we didn't really tell her much. After all, she started out as a vague, spacey, godlike entity to us. What we knew was that she built our world, and she had built us up from essentially being little mental puppets to something more.

 

So a Tulpa can come to appreciate their Host by their choice. I was worrying that I was indeed manipulating him. It reassures me that a Tulpa has free will (whether the concept exist is debatable but let’s roll with it). I’ll try to talk to him more, and to accept his true personality. As I said I don’t want to impose him feelings that don’t belong to him; so if he has stopped seeing me as an enemy I won’t change it or challenge his position.

 

Again, this is something that I have heard before. On this point all I can say is that the host needs to learn to trust, which is a process, not a single, definitive moment. She still doesn’t trust me on this 100%. Too good for it to be true, right? Wrong. In your case, it sounds like you are unsure if you want to relate to him in that way, which is something that will need some introspection and perhaps exploration to sort out.

 

Indeed. Right now it’s difficult to even acknowledge that we are truly friends. I still don’t fully trust him, though. And I feel stupid for having thought that he disliked me only to find out that I was completely wrong about him. I suppose this is what could be called an extreme “deviation”? It’s difficult to see him in a new light; it’s almost like meeting him again.

 

I’m starting to let go of the fantasy ideal of him. I can see now that there is a clear line between being a mental construct and being an autonomous sentient entity. I see him more and more like a real person. The scary thing is that I don’t feel I know him so well anymore. It’s difficult letting go of my skewed opinions and biases. Still, if he rejected them and turned out different, it means that he is partially out of my sphere of influence. That’s a relief.

 

After much thinking I decided to set a time in which to force. I usually did before going to bed, but then I found many excuses to skip it. So I want to discipline myself. I know that deep down I want to talk to him, I always did and the silence feels simply unnatural. I’ll try to make simple conversation and illustrate him my feelings and doubts. I think that honesty right now is the best approach, and I don’t want to start censoring myself because of this.

 

More than anything I need to work on myself. He has become much more mature than me, whereas I can’t yet move forward. I almost feel like a stubborn child, clinging on my delusions. Maybe I’ll read books on how to overcome the past and build a balanced relationship.

 

This is the kind of situation I would want confess to a friend, but then I would need to explain that the person I’m referring to lives inside my head. And I don’t think that a therapist would encourage me on keeping him in my life. I won’t lie, I’m still reeling and I don’t think we are past this crisis, it’s possible that it’s going to get worse. But I’ll try to overcome this for his sake and mine.