[focus & concentration] Voices

[dragon cake]

I have an issue that I am certain is not a common one, or at least I haven't heard others mention it. I'll try to be concise.

 

One of the symptoms of my schizoaffective disorder is hearing voices. It wasn't a symptom I even cared about because it paled to others (mostly involving paranoid delusions), and was easy enough to ignore. One might think this would make it easy when it came time to hear a tulpa, but it's caused nothing but issues.

 

First, I had trouble because I instinctively stifled her thought voice because I'd gotten used to stifling other voices in my head. I think maybe I've overcome that, but now I have the opposite problem in that when I started breaking the habit of stifling her, I started getting the others again. In fact, even though Kyoko has eliminated virtually every other symptom of that disorder, the chattering voices have gotten worse. Like I said, they're easy enough to disregard if I just don't want to hear them, but when I'm trying to hear my tulpa, they get in the way.

 

I'll give an example below.

 

Yesterday when I tried to force during meditation, I attempted to hear her thought voice. Instead, all I heard was a crowd of other voices. Imagine you're in a crowded room with everyone having different conversations, but you can't make out any one conversation clearly, and that's what it got like in my head, dozens of voices all chattering at once. When I did make out what they're saying, it was either complete nonsense sentences like they're just throwing random nouns and verbs into a sentence, or they are demeaning me angrily in a fashion that I know Kyoko would never do. The only thoughts that I heard during the session that I thought was her were an occasional "Can you hear me?" or the like as if she were trying to get through the chatter. Eventually I felt her completely withdraw as if too frustrated to keep trying at the moment.

 

Has anyone had similar issues? Does anyone know something I might can try? I used to take medication, but Kyoko is terrified of the medication because it makes it hard for her to maintain awareness. I tried 'negotiating' with the crowd, but I don't think I'm dealing with an thoughtform that can be negotiated with or 'chased away' like my paranoid symptoms; it's more mental static. It only got really bad over the last few days, but I feel like I need to do something now before it gets worse.

 

I don't know if that made sense but I hope it does to someone. I'm nervous about posting because of the poor luck I've had trying to get help.

[Breloomancer]

Maybe work on making your tulpas voice more distinct so that you can tell what they are saying apart from the crowd, then once their voice is distinctive enough then you can work on running out all the voices except for your tulpa.

[Cat_ShadowGriffin]

I'm sorry you had a lot of trouble finding answers to your questions. I know right now I can't offer any useful advice, but I would love to help you regardless.

 

I would like to do some more research on schizophrenia to give a more informed answer, but I don't know how long I can be online due to Hurricane Florence and I wanted to at the very least open up some discussion and bump the thread.

 

I have Asperger's Syndrome, Anxiety Disorder, and ADHD. My main problems with forcing came from difficulty focusing and intrusive thoughts distorting communication and visualization of my Tulpa. I know that none of the above can be comparable to schizophrenia, so I don't want to start talking about that stuff if you don't think it will be helpful for you.

 

In general, I am more than happy to come up with ideas, but I am concerned I may unintentionally use stereotypes or use bad conclusions because I don't know enough about schizophrenia to make any good ideas.

[dragon cake]

Maybe work on making your tulpas voice more distinct so that you can tell what they are saying apart from the crowd, then once their voice is distinctive enough then you can work on running out all the voices except for your tulpa.

 

That is something I've been trying, listening to voice clips of the character Kyoko is based on to give her an idea, but so far she still doesn't sound a lot different. Also most of the voices sound different from mine so regardless of what Kyoko sounds like she isn't likely to stand out by tone alone.

---

I'm sorry you had a lot of trouble finding answers to your questions. I know right now I can't offer any useful advice, but I would love to help you regardless.

 

I would like to do some more research on schizophrenia to give a more informed answer, but I don't know how long I can be online due to Hurricane Florence and I wanted to at the very least open up some discussion and bump the thread.

 

I have Asperger's Syndrome, Anxiety Disorder, and ADHD. My main problems with forcing came from difficulty focusing and intrusive thoughts distorting communication and visualization of my Tulpa. I know that none of the above can be comparable to schizophrenia, so I don't want to start talking about that stuff if you don't think it will be helpful for you.

 

In general, I am more than happy to come up with ideas, but I am concerned I may unintentionally use stereotypes or use bad conclusions because I don't know enough about schizophrenia to make any good ideas.

 

https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Schizoaffective-Disorder is a good summary I think. Of course generalities like 'disorganized thinking' and 'disconnect from reality' can refer to so many different things. Ironically one of the few things it doesn't include are multiple personalities, in spite of so many people thinking that is the same thing for some reason.

[Cat_ShadowGriffin]

 

https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Schizoaffective-Disorder is a good summary I think. Of course generalities like 'disorganized thinking' and 'disconnect from reality' can refer to so many different things. Ironically one of the few things it doesn't include are multiple personalities, in spite of so many people thinking that is the same thing for some reason.

 

Thank you, I read the article. I'm sorry for saying "schizophrenia" and not Schizoaffective Disorder.

 

When forcing my Tulpa Ranger, I have the risk of exposing myself to all of my anxiety-driven crap. Sometimes it's bad enough that I either wait it out or I get the sense that I need a break. Ranger is really good at helping me stay calm and help work me through it if the anxiety is not as bad, to the point where it's no longer a concern.

 

Ranger and I had to come up with our own method for dealing with my anxiety, and I'm hoping that because you can ignore the other voices, that you may be able to focus on maybe a handful at a time or more optimistically be able to isolate Kyoko.

 

When first reading your question, I had the weird idea of making a thoughtform for each voice. I thought that it might make them easier to interact with and control, but I honestly have no idea.

 

I also thought maybe making a more open room with doors where random voices can move out of the room and maybe circle back in, so at the very least the population standing in one room is less than 5 or so.

 

Sometimes both of us will talk to the thoughtforms I end up creating. However, I don't know if this would be helpful for you. All of these are just random ideas I came up with.

[dragon cake]

 

Thank you, I read the article. I'm sorry for saying "schizophrenia" and not Schizoaffective Disorder.

 

When forcing my Tulpa Ranger, I have the risk of exposing myself to all of my anxiety-driven crap. Sometimes it's bad enough that I either wait it out or I get the sense that I need a break. Ranger is really good at helping me stay calm and help work me through it if the anxiety is not as bad, to the point where it's no longer a concern.

 

Ranger and I had to come up with our own method for dealing with my anxiety, and I'm hoping that because you can ignore the other voices, that you may be able to focus on maybe a handful at a time or more optimistically be able to isolate Kyoko.

 

When first reading your question, I had the weird idea of making a thoughtform for each voice. I thought that it might make them easier to interact with and control, but I honestly have no idea.

 

I also thought maybe making a more open room with doors where random voices can move out of the room and maybe circle back in, so at the very least the population standing in one room is less than 5 or so.

 

Sometimes both of us will talk to the thoughtforms I end up creating. However, I don't know if this would be helpful for you. All of these are just random ideas I came up with.

Thanks for replying. It's fine getting them confused. Honestly not even I understand how the two are different since one is just a combination of the other and something else, but my therapist insisted that they are two different things. It's an issue that I don't think even psychologists understand why the disorders cause the effects they do; we just don't know enough about our brains.

 

Making a thoughtform for each voice would work if it were a particular voice, but it's more of a 'no two voices are the same' thing. There are none that I hear often enough to identify individually other than Kyoko, and honestly I'm not even sure how I pick her out as often as I do. If I tried that, I think I'd just end up with a pile of thoughtforms and no fewer voices than before.

 

What do you  mean a more open room with doors? If you're referring to my Wonderland, mine is already large enough to house a castle, a forest, and two small villages, and Kyoko's house that she made herself. It's also almost devoid of servitors though so it's a lot of emptiness mostly, like not even wildlife. If there was a way to turn the voices into the population of my wonderland that would be a creative solution, but it'd have to be done as a whole rather than one at a time because of the reason stated above. I don't know how I'd do that, but the idea probably has merit, so maybe you or someone else will have something to add to it.

[Breloomancer]

Perhaps you could try some sort of non verbal communication while you work your way though hearing her through the rest of the noise. Such as communicating derectly through thought, or through head pressures.

 

I don't really know what would work, I'm just throwing ideas at the wall and hoping one of them sticks

[dragon cake]

Perhaps you could try some sort of non verbal communication while you work your way though hearing her through the rest of the noise. Such as communicating derectly through thought, or through head pressures.

 

I don't really know what would work, I'm just throwing ideas at the wall and hoping one of them sticks

 

I have communicated with her through other means off and on, but the goal is to get things verbal. I feel like she's more than developed enough to be verbal but this is getting in the way.

[Cat_ShadowGriffin]

Thanks for replying. It's fine getting them confused. Honestly not even I understand how the two are different since one is just a combination of the other and something else, but my therapist insisted that they are two different things. It's an issue that I don't think even psychologists understand why the disorders cause the effects they do; we just don't know enough about our brains.

 

Making a thoughtform for each voice would work if it were a particular voice, but it's more of a 'no two voices are the same' thing. There are none that I hear often enough to identify individually other than Kyoko, and honestly I'm not even sure how I pick her out as often as I do. If I tried that, I think I'd just end up with a pile of thoughtforms and no fewer voices than before.

 

What do you  mean a more open room with doors? If you're referring to my Wonderland, mine is already large enough to house a castle, a forest, and two small villages, and Kyoko's house that she made herself. It's also almost devoid of servitors though so it's a lot of emptiness mostly, like not even wildlife. If there was a way to turn the voices into the population of my wonderland that would be a creative solution, but it'd have to be done as a whole rather than one at a time because of the reason stated above. I don't know how I'd do that, but the idea probably has merit, so maybe you or someone else will have something to add to it.

 

When I was thinking of the "doors", I was thinking about giving an excuse for the voices to go away and make them easier to ignore. I thought the idea of keeping the door open to let some voices flow in would be a good idea because trying to completely stop the voices (or at least in my case my anxiety) may not end well. My thought was this could hopefully reduce the number of chattering voices in your head and make it easier to isolate Kyoko's voice.

 

When you described the crowded room analogy, I took that too literally, I'm sorry.