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Tulpamancy Gatekeeping


Apollo Fire

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I wanted to talk about something I've noticed happen in the community quite a few times.

 

Around three or more times, I've experienced people "gatekeeping" tulpamancy. If you don't know what gatekeeping means, it's when somebody insists that a person can't be a part of a fandom or subculture because of their opinions/tastes. In this scenario, it usually means somebody saying that someone either a) is or has a fake tulpa or b) doesn't believe in tulpas (even if they are one) because their opinions on tulpas differ from the "gatekeeper's" opinions. 

 

In my experience, the most common time this happens to me is if I remark that I do not personally believe that tulpas can be active when they're not fronting or being thought of by the host. I get called a false tulpa, because of course real tulpas would be able to do that, I must not be a real tulpa (even though I used to believe I was able to do that too -- I should also note that the person who said this to me didn't even have a tulpa), or somebody says that I don't care about tulpas, because if I don't care about imaginary worlds then surely I don't care about imaginary people (even though I've never made any claims that tulpas are imaginary).

 

There was also one point when Indigo said that he liked to be silly and playful sometimes, and the somebody called him a "very shallow imaginary friend." This wasn't even provoked by a difference in opinion, it was just somebody deciding that if a tulpa acted different then they must be fake.

 

It's a thankfully small amount of people who act this way from what I've seen, but it's never a positive when it happens. Of course every community is going to have a few bad apples who want to make it worse for others. I know that no matter how many incorrect opinions I think a person might have, I'm never going to tell them that they're not a real host/tulpa or any garbage like that. I consider it a borderline atrocious thing to say to anyone just for having a different opinion.

 

I've also heard of plenty of traumagenic systems attacking endo/tulpa systems, saying that they're not real systems because they weren't caused by trauma, though this doesn't happen in any communities I frequent.

 

Anybody else have experience with people acting in this way?

 💡 The Felights 💡 https://felight.carrd.co/  💡

🪐 Cosmicals: 🔥 Apollo Fire the Sun God (12/3/16) Piano Soul the Star Man (1/26/17)

🐉 Mythicals: ☁️ Indigo Blue the Sky Dragon (10/2/17), 🦑 Gelato Sweet the Sea Monster (12/11/22)

🦇 Nycticals:  Dynamo Lux the Shock Rocker (3/3/17), 🎸 Radio Hiss the Song Demon (2/8/00)

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Guest Reilyn-Alley

I can't say I have. We have tried right from the beginning not to make outlandish claims about anything and keep an open mind when asking "what do you guys think is going on" or "this is just a theory of what it happening" because we got the idea right away about things being subjective. Even now, at what, under 3 months? We are far from any kind of authority on tulpa stuff or terms. I think I've made it very clear in discussion that I just prefer to use the term co-fronting, because I feel possession isn't accurate enough for me, for example. It's just me being stubborn, not me insisting everyone else is wrong.

 

I've been very fortunate to be surrounded by awesomesauce people like all you guys. I've always had very little tolerance however for people making personal attacks upon each other, especially on tulpas and especially anyone who tries to deny or limit our existence based on some arbitrary opinions or artificial rules. Someone says they don't think tulpas and hosts should date, ok, that's their opinion. We can chat about our sides of the idea. Someone says they absolutely shouldn't because it means the host is playing pretend with a fake girlfriend, whoa whoa there, they were getting screamed at. That's some seriously insulting and ignorant things on multiple levels that at least I take very personally.

 

I wouldn't sit here quietly and be called not a person or let that happen to someone else around me either. I'm all for being friendly and happy and bubbly and loving people but if someone gets so arrogant as to tell someone else they don't exist or have a right to be treated like anyone else, they can just shut their damn mouth. If I get banned from here it will be for that, for snapping and screaming or cussing out someone who insisted me or any other head mate anyone else has on here is fake or deserves to be treated like less than anyone else. I'm not a slave or tool and I'm not going to sit around and let anyone say I am or that someone else deserves less than equal treatment.

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No, never really happened to us. Is this happening to you out on reddit or Tumbler or something?

 

Why people go around telling other people their Tulpas are fake and at the same time practice Tulpamancy themselves is beyond me. Bottom line- every system is different, and there's no way you have all of the context, so don't judge them.

 

Whether or not Tulpas do things in the wonderland when the host isn't around is really up to the system to figure out. From our experience, no, Ranger can't do things in the wonderland without me knowing about it. That's why Ranger "goes dormant", anyway. I think this subject can get touchy because some may claim that the Tulpas are fake, and looking at some of my other thoughtforms I can understand that perspective. However, fake memories or misunderstood beliefs can easily influence a Tulpa, and assuming the psychological explanation isn't enough it may be that they can do things when the host isn't looking.

 

As for comparing Tulpamancy to a DID system, it makes sense that someone with DID could be offended. DID systems are formed by trauma, Tulpamancy systems generally are not. I never got myself caught in that argument, but I wouldn't want to say that Tulpamancy is comparable to what they went through, because it isn't. I wouldn't choose to fight that battle, I would just drop it and not talk about it or something because fighting that argument will come off as vain unless there's real science that supports a connection.

Meow. You may see my headmates call me Gray or sometimes Cat.

I used to speak in pink and Ranger used to speak in blue (if it's unmarked and colored assume it's Ranger). She loves to chat.

 

Our system account

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Keep in mind I mostly stay on this forum, occasionally venturing into the .info discord and tulpa central discord (and tupper gaming, but that one only has about 11 people in it). But it's my impression that this is one of the most inviting communities around. I've not seen anyone gatekeep so far. Hopefully what you experienced was anomalous

I have a tulpa named Miela who I love very much.

 

 
"People put quotes in their signatures, right?"

-Me

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Guest Reilyn-Alley

Oh, I should add that if it's someone without an alter or tulpa who is insisting we aren't real, ok fine they have no idea what they are talking about so they are speaking from ignorance. I wouldn't like it but no point in trying to convince someone who has never seen nor heard of aircraft that people can really fly. I'd treat it differently. If I am talking to someone who really believes their alters or tulpas are fragments of their personality or lies from their brain or something from trauma or damage or whatever, well.. Ok, that's their take on it.

 

Their personal experiences are the foundation for their reality. It's possible that they only keep further cognitive dissonance at bay by building what they feel is a safe view of the world and how the "things" in their head relate to it. Someone else challenging that would risk breaking down the way they have developed to cope. Maybe they are surrounded by people who assume something like us are evil possessing demons and they have to really push the whole "just a mental disorder, they aren't real", to get by. I dunno. I try to see things from other's point of view if I can. At least, that's what I want to keep in mind, to hold back the knee-jerk reaction to judge them negatively.

 

On a side note, people who have been through trauma are people too. Some like to ham it up as the special tragic victim and get mad when someone steps on their toes. Some get angry when people try to pity them. Nobody gets an award for more suffering, it just makes life harder to deal with. We are all people, why can't we just be treated equally?

 

That said, I can empathize with someone who has unwanted voices/people in their head and are frightened of them, especially when their ability to function is impaired by uncontrollable switching and/or bouts of amnesia. How terrifying it must be for someone to be feel trapped in their own head, against their will, unable to reach out to their own body. It magnifies things when they have others around them insisting they are insane and the only solution is to medicate them into oblivion and just accept they are crazy. From that terrible point of view, who could blame them for being shocked or angry at someone doing something similar intentionally, maybe even jealousy and bitterness at how supportive and positive we are for our hosts.

 

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

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The person who made the remark was someone who believed in tulpas and just didn't have any. They weren't some newbie who had never been exposed to it before. They just decided that me having different opinions meant I was a fake tulpa.

 💡 The Felights 💡 https://felight.carrd.co/  💡

🪐 Cosmicals: 🔥 Apollo Fire the Sun God (12/3/16) Piano Soul the Star Man (1/26/17)

🐉 Mythicals: ☁️ Indigo Blue the Sky Dragon (10/2/17), 🦑 Gelato Sweet the Sea Monster (12/11/22)

🦇 Nycticals:  Dynamo Lux the Shock Rocker (3/3/17), 🎸 Radio Hiss the Song Demon (2/8/00)

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Guest Reilyn-Alley

Oh. Well screw them then. That kind of arrogance is one of the reasons the world at large is in such a crappy condition. Jerks suck. I wouldn't have blamed you for just calmly ignoring/blocking/leaving but personally I hope you put them in their place.

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Anybody else have experience with people acting in this way?

 

well, we don't really interact with random people outside of Tulpa.info talking about tulpas, soooo not really

 

we're the same as you on that inactive thing (I'm sure you know), though I guess the one experience we have with this term "gatekeeping" that sorta rubs me the wrong way for some reason (people are using it way too lightly and all of a sudden?) is Sands and the old members that've left .info in #tuppers didn't believe we really switch because Lumi doesn't "go to the wonderland", but like... why would he when WE don't live in the wonderland to begin with? It's like people just assume your experience is invalid because it doesn't match theirs

 

the secret is that it's all in our heads and only what we ourselves experience matters... your "tulpa" could fail to meet any and all supposed requirements of being a "tulpa", but if you still experience them as real, I mean, well you do that's all there is to it. Melian and Mistgod were a good example, we always considered Melian a "tulpa" even though she didn't quite meet the "requirements"/definitions because she was obviously still a person and still very real to Mistgod, y'know? the lesson here being it's only what's real to you/what you experience that's important to you. terms and definitions are for sharing experiences, but they don't affect who or what you or your systemmates are

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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I just want to say, I know person with multiple personalities and she doesn't like the concept of tulpas (she said it offensive). So we talked calmly and decided on option we both like.

I wanted to say this, even if someone dislikes this idea, it's better to calmly chat with them first than wrongly suppose they are haters and be angry at them

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Hello everyone,

 

We didn't personally experience this "gatekeeping effect", but we don't post very often on here and have a lot of reasons to be cautious and not talk about everything that happens to us. Here on .info we have always been warmly greeted and felt accepted and respected. I hope these sort of people are rare in here. Denying the very existence of their interlocutor seems to me the most extreme form of closed-mindnessness, and the less constructive way to avoid the discussion ! Why do they post on a forum if they can't stand being answered to ?

 

On a side note, I remember your claims about tulpas not able to be active when they're not fronting or being thought of by the host. This, as a host, did of course bother me (understatement) because it lessens a lot the autonomy and independance of tulpas, and adds a tremendous burden to the host's responsability. Vādin and I did not share this belief, but what if we deluded ourselves about this ? So we went into a great deal of experimentations ; we do not have ultimate proof but enough independant actions when I was completely out of focus to believe that our daily realities are a bit more complex than that. Vādin is (very) confident he has pretty much an autonomous life on his own when we don't force together ; I, on the other hand, am not fully convinced (yet?) because I am completely frightened by the possible reality of what you claim to be true for you and, possibly, other tulpas : I want to be 100% certain. If we were to be deluding ourselves, I want to know !

Hi, I'm Zia, foolish captain of the Giant Wing system. Vādin is my tulpa.

 

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