Rena & Byakko notes++

[TB]

Tulpa Section

Rena successfully was switched in continuously or nigh continuously for over 2 weeks i believe, so that is a first. i wish i was smarter and kept track of the starting and end date, but it was much longer she was still in after she wrote the post last. 

 

It was then Byakko's turn, and she eeeeeee exploded. i think when i'm not switched in a long time, the mind does weird stuff. byakko switched in a sunday night, had to work monday and tuesday and she had to with funny hair and it was generally exhausting, oops. then she was really good wednesday to like, friday i think, but fell out front, so it's been me since i think saturday or something idk. will try again with byakko after i've been in a week i guess to reset the counter. i think rena could be switched in almost indefinitely, she didn't need to switch out, she just wanted to give byakko a turn. it might only be byakko that is affected by whatever that is. idk. more research needed idk

 

Meditation Section

lol

tragically i broke my 179 day in a row of meditating record. and immediately suffering for it. i immediately started it back, but yeah, my mind has been poo. that isn't to say meditations have sucked. i feel i'm having various mundane insights in daily life, i still have benefits of my practice despite the missing day. but meditation isn't all roses and lavender. it doesn't make one immuned to edgy feelings, it actually can bring them to the surface. i legit think i could be cycling through the dark night, but i just am not confident enough to believe i've meditated well enough to be sucked down the progress of insight formally, and i imagine the dukkha nanas being much worse. but maybe i'm such an edgy person used to feeling so miserable, that i am actually chiller than i expected with dukkha nanas. or they aren't dukkha nanas yet, idk. i'm really edgy though

 

Mental Health Section

speaking of the edgy, the news has been horrific. as i am typing this, i am seeing kyle's headlines for the day today, and it involves Trump sending special swat version of ICE teams to several major american cities, apparently declaring war on the american people. he seems to suspect he noticed how the protesting skyrocketed after the order for ICE to start ripping people out of restaurants and schools, and wants to cause more backlash, so he can be even more justified in being punitive and tyranical. whatever his intentions are, it will definitely increase protest and maybe lead to riots, and idk further context yet but one video title implies trump is bringing an end to protests. anyhow, over the 8 years i've watched kyle, he is usually accurate about his assessment on things and fears, so seeing him so disturbed has naturally got me disturbed as i've never seen him exaggerate or be wildly wrong about things before, and he is at the point he says he doesn't think it is off the table that at some point trump were to use marshall law to cancel elections entirely. maybe he will have an opponent and rig it for himself to win, or cancel elections entirely, but he seems to think at this point either of those realities are possible, and he is not one to say that lightly. when people originally were saying trump would not leave office in his first term, he thought that was ridiculous at first, but later down the line jan 6 happened. he tuned his predictions for his 2nd term to be worse than he'd typically predict to compensate for being wrong, and it was still worse than he thought, as everything he thought would happen happened even faster and in a more brazen and illegal way than he thought. he thought they'd at least try to put a veneer of doing what they've done in a legal way and over the course of the 4 years, not in just 6 months and by ignoring every court order lol. he thought they'd battle the courts and use lawyering tactics to somehow get favorable decisions or something similar, because that is what project 2025 implied the plan was. 

 

also trump threatened newsom with cutting off all federal funds to california, and newsom responded with saying if he does that, then his people will no longer pay federal taxes. that in a vacuum is devastating for many parts of the country, because the taxes californians pay actually go to helping majorly a lot of red states, so people will suffer in that case. but isn't that also similar to succeeding from the union? would trump see that as reason to invade california? (more than he already is). he also has called for newsom's arrest. things are crazy

 

i've also had dark and pessimistic thoughts such as thinking if things would be better if i dissipated myself. as much as my tulpas may struggle with similar issues because of the body, they seem way better off than me and i sometimes feel like they make bits of progress only for me to switch in and undo it or something. i feel so much more unstable and unpredictable compared to them. i'm not sure what i'm good for. i guess the only thing i could determine i am good for is maybe switching in when things are especially hard and taking brunt of suffering so they don't have to. that may be main reason to not egocide or something. i don't know what i am

 

therapy sucks. idk what to do about it. i hope vyvanse helps, getting that prescribed, so i can see if it is better than adderall. i super hope it is. if it is better than adderall the same adderall is better than concerta, i may become 

Spoiler

Drawing Section

i felt some hopeful feelings relating to creativity. i feel like i have ideas frequently on things to draw, but am struggling to actually draw. i still have to finish eara and tayomi drawings that byakko started, and i have a commission to do that i need to start on badly but urgh it's hard. i gotta get over myself somehow i guess. 

 

i also am still struggling with maintaining being social. the only one who posts comments is usually byakko and sometimes rena. why is it hard to talk to people

 

i found some good ideas for how to make interesting drawings though, by seeing other people do this and it is super cool. i saw it a while ago and thought it was neat but i saw it again recently and it clicked because someone drew their OC in a famous backrooms image (not the main one, the one of balloons implying partgoers nearby), and i have gone in imagination with byakko, or byakko with me, and perhaps rena, in the backrooms for fun as a way to fall asleep. like why don't i just draw things like that? byakko in the backrooms lol, draw overtop the image. and so many cool and atmospheric images of liminal spaces and backrooms and literally anything, i recently learned how beutiful yamagata prefecture is and drawing characters on the bridge in one of the images would be awesome

i super duper gotta go there

this is like the japanese version of those rpg-esque looking villages yakumo/ido mentioned i think yakumo's parents live or something like that.

it also looks super like a section of ninja gaiden 2 in sky city tokyo, though this is not tokyo. idk if tokyo also has these human only noncar walkways with a bridge between them, or if sky city tokyo built some because they are cool and it wanted inspiration from other idyllic japanese scenery and not just tokyo, because ninja gaiden 2's tokyo is a bit fantastical and very wafuu (not to be confused with waifu, means japanese-esque like really asian looking) more than in real life where it can often just look like a big western city and not like edo or something (even though it is edo)

Spoiler

ninja gaiden 3 kinda... retcons it or something. it's confusing. sky city tokyo doesn't exist but ryu is teleported there in a virtual reality thing or something at some point but in real life goes to a normal grounded tokyo or something... idk wtf it is trying to imply

 

i just feel a little warey if it is somehow cheating or illegal to do this, but i want to stop caring about any little thought that would prevent me from doing a new idea. also, professional do draw over photos all the time, even in official published content. it is a practice called photobashing. but you usually want to take the photographs yourself, or pay for the rights to the photo. that may not matter when you are just uploading entertaining content to a personal webpage though, as opposed to like, drawing a movie poster for the next big hollywood film or something. 

Health Section

pbbbtrbrbbrbrb

pbbr

nup

it's kapoot atm. no walks. too scared. not jumproping, idk why. i'm dumb. it sucks. also, i regenerated back into frozen microwave food like hotpockets, and i feel like crap for it. i was doing better on low carbs, but not i went back to regular high carbs anddd i wonder if that also has any reason as to why i declined. carb up -> less motivation to exercise -> depression worsening. possible.

 

work has been a lot harder though. more physically demanding than normal to point i have been sore afterwards. but that is two days of the week

Edited June 11, 2025 by TB

[Tewi]

As we've said a few times, being sedentary for very long at all tanks our mood/motivation to do anything requiring not sitting slumped in our chair - so even if you're not doing walks you still need to jump rope/jumping jacks/work out (push-ups etc.), any physical activity moving your body that gets your heart rate up, or at least really gets your blood flowing. I still think you can walk around your immediate neighborhood, though, or even through town on whatever sidewalks it may have. I'd just (if being super careful) avoid other neighborhoods where random psychos may call the cops on you. Obviously that shouldn't be a problem, but who knows, maybe if they make up you being an illegal immigrant ICE will just snatch you, I don't know - things are scary right now. But yeah, your own neighborhood should be full of people in the same class and general existence as you I would imagine - if it's not, then walks would have to be through town, seeing the sights (McDonalds) and smelling the smells (gas station). Unless you had some consistent method of travel to get out to a hiking trail/park/etc. somewhere anyway.

 

3 hours ago, TB said:

i hope vyvanse helps, getting that prescribed, so i can see if it is better than adderall. i super hope it is.

 

Vyvanse is mostly the same thing as Adderall, except that your body converts Vyvanse into the useable form over time (should take like 1-2hr to kick in), whereas Adderall is immediately available. Generally, people with positive experiences on one of them say that Adderall gives them more energy to actually do things, while for Vyvanse they say it helps calm them/give ADHD stimulant benefits with less side effects.

However, like all ADHD meds, there are plenty of people with opposite experiences to each other. Some people feel great on Adderall but miserable on Vyvanse, some people feel unfocused and low energy with Vyvanse, or too stimulated to focus on Adderall. So first and foremost, be aware you may experience new symptoms and that you can stop taking it ASAP if they're too much for you. Otherwise, well, hope that your body randomly likes Vyvanse more.

 

As you know for us, who are totally abnormal with this, all the ADHD stimulants felt basically the same to us, and Vyvanse is simply the best balance of still-helping while having slightly lesser side effects (sweating (I haven't sweat at all today, actually, and it's been hot!), iffy circulation (can feel ambient temperature as cooler than it really is, and could get limb circulation weirdness when moving them when in combination with-), sedentariness sensitivity - speeds up how fast we get soreness/poor circulation when sitting for too long, is several times faster, needs to be actively staved off w/ a heavy PC-use lifestyle - and lastly lack of urge to eat (can still feel true hunger & can choose to eat when we logically decide to), although that effect has been consistently present at all doses of all ADHD meds for us)

 

But yeah maybe it makes you feel crappy for no reason (especially possible if you get a generic instead of name brand - we take name brand, Medicaid covers it for us), or maybe it just feels weaker and runs out faster than it should, or maybe it's just overall better for you like it is for us. Don't expect anything life-changing - when all bodily reactions are equal, Adderall seems to be the strongest stimulant - just consider it a passive boost that makes your endeavors more effective and achievable. Only a handful of people get the true miracle-level effects from ADHD meds, but that doesn't mean it can't still be a highly helpful medication. ... Or a random miss and you have to go back to Adderall.

 

Oh right - you were talking about taking pretty low amounts of Adderall, so 40mg Vyvanse is slightly high. We take 50mg in order to feel similar, slightly less strong effects than 20-40mg of adderall or ritalin. I think it should be fine for you, but if (for example) the 2-3 hour peak is too disruptive for you, 30mg would be totally viable. 50mg is also viable if it feels too weak for you, though I'd be pretty surprised for someone with your preferences on Adderall dosing to want the 60-70 range.

 

Avoid caffeine (and maybe as little sugar as you can reasonably eat - also good just in general), and be aware that all ADHD stimulants are likely more powerful if taken on an empty stomach, and weaker when taken closer to eating. Vyvanse has felt a little bit random to us on that though, we feel like the type of food (?? as to which ones) might affect it, but not the amount so much. For the others empty stomach definitely boosted them though.

 

 

A couple people mentioned (in the context of ADHD stimulants not being strong enough) that you can take L-tyrosine supplements (first, cheapest link on amazon, there are others) which people seem to equate to an inferior Adderall in its effects, though it's certainly not a stimulant, just affects dopamine. Usually taken on its own in place of stimulants, but I dunno, maybe with Vyvanse it can do something good - we might try it ourselves. Mind that a few people reported intense negative symptoms from taking the full "recommended" dose and many take as little as a third of it, so if you do try it, start low, or even start it without taking a stimulant that day.

Most common side effect (if there is one) is drowsiness, which is probably reason for you not to take it if you get that, less common (One Guy?) was high irritability and aggressiveness - bizarre, unlikely, but just another reminder to be ready for anything when trying a new medication, and to NEVER allow yourself to make drastic decisions because of them - suicidality or extreme irritability/aggression or so on that only show up immediately after taking a medication are NOT YOU, and you need to fight against them until it wears off & not take the medication anymore, telling your doctor it had extreme negative effects that threatened your safety.

 

3 hours ago, TB said:

i've also had dark and pessimistic thoughts such as thinking if things would be better if i dissipated myself. as much as my tulpas may struggle with similar issues because of the body, they seem way better off than me and i sometimes feel like they make bits of progress only for me to switch in and undo it or something. i feel so much more unstable and unpredictable compared to them. i'm not sure what i'm good for. i guess the only thing i could determine i am good for is maybe switching in when things are especially hard and taking brunt of suffering so they don't have to.

 

Well that's sad. Lumi sometimes does the same of fronting when we've felt particularly bad, although he's never once considered dissipating himself or even permaswitching/changing who's host.

Everyone has the right to live, your value as a living thing should not be decided by such things - headmates are here to help you, not to replace you (especially as hosts' issues tend to creep back in to tulpas who take over being primary anyways). 

To speak on more practical matters - it can be easier for a brain to explore different ways of thinking and being with a tulpa fronting than a host, as there are just so many hammered in assumptions about who you "are"/"have to be", you don't have the same excuse of "These default thoughts/habits/feelings aren't me, I'm the tulpa, they should change!" that helps kickstart making those changes for them - personal development generally lacks that placebo effect a fronting tulpa utilizes, so it can seem harder. But you are just as malleable as any possible tulpa you could have, you can work on yourself just as well if you are willing to make those changes.

 

And that's honestly not something to take for granted. Sometimes a negative association you have that your tulpa doesn't can feel so you, maybe even so correct, that you may be unwilling to truly let it go or change it. Envisioning who you want to be (or, perhaps more tricky, leaning into being more like your tulpas) can help give you that mental "justification" to be different than how it seems you're "supposed" to be.

The best advice I can give is to let go of who you think you're "supposed" to be (when thinking about given aspects, not as in to instantly drop your whole identity lol) and embrace that humans - as proven by plurality - have every right to change who they are to be better, more fulfilling, more functional. You'll still be "you" after all is said and done, but you'll realize how much you associated with "you" was optional nonsense you didn't need.

 

Should take you closer to the related Buddhist concepts as well. Lumi's mentioned he developed the mental model of "My identity is not my consciousness" before tulpamancy through western buddhist-inspired self help reading, although he settled for still embracing "identities" in the first place rather than trying to free himself of identification entirely (the Really Big Decision we've mentioned where he decided he was unwilling to let go of attachment to us, not that we will claim to know that was fully necessary on your path, who knows). He still struggles to truly "want" (or believe?) certain manual changes to himself, however participating in general personal development with us system-wide has allowed us to passively influence him/our mind as a whole, so I think simply being open to the idea of improving your guys' persons cooperatively may be enough to slowly change yourself.

 

Okay, lots of text. You can reread the earlier parts of the post if you think you'll forget them.

Edited June 12, 2025 by Tewi

[TB]

6 minutes ago, Tewi said:

Oh right - you were talking about taking pretty low amounts of Adderall, so 40mg Vyvanse is slightly high. We take 50mg in order to feel similar, slightly less strong effects than 20-40mg of adderall or ritalin.

by 20-40mg, do you mean all at once, or XR? because if vyvanse is like 20mg instant release, it probably is definitely way too much, unless i'm doing an activity like roleplaying. but it might be counteracted by it generally have less side effects and being calmer, because the activating nature of adderall kind of pushes against the +productivity benefit, so maybe 20mg of adderall would be super productive if it was 20mg without being too activating, so maybe it would be the reason it works far better, and using like 3.5mg is a sacrifice i've made because it is around the max i can take before the side effects make improvements negligible when it otherwise would be an improvement. idk

 

9 minutes ago, Tewi said:

Avoid caffeine (and maybe as little sugar as you can reasonably eat - also good just in general), and be aware that all ADHD stimulants are likely more powerful if taken on an empty stomach, and weaker when taken closer to eating. Vyvanse has felt a little bit random to us on that though, we feel like the type of food (?? as to which ones) might affect it, but not the amount so much. For the others empty stomach definitely boosted them though.

orange juice can also make them not work because of the acetic acid in it. or any source of acetic acid will i think. i think acetic acid is what it is called, it might be a different acid i'm thinking of but it is in orange juice commonly but i imagine other citrus juices may have it too

 

i considered l-tyrosine before i think because i heard it can help with weight loss, but i never ended up getting any. maybe i will try it if it helps with adhd too

 

16 minutes ago, Tewi said:

Okay, lots of text. You can reread the earlier parts of the post if you think you'll forget them.

thanks to your system and your consistent and thorough posts on my PR, especially after rena decided to start making it a (weeklyishly~) thing. i read everything. i'll have to think about it more. thanks

[Tewi]

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

That was talking about normal instant release Adderall, we've never seen the extended release version

 

3.5mg of adderall is like... if you take 10mg of Vyvanse (not sure if it even comes in that little) it might be stronger for hours 2-3 and then similar the rest, maybe?? 40mg of Vyvanse is probably similar to 20mg of Adderall, though still with slightly weaker side effects (definitely less sweating). That said, there's no accounting ahead of time for how your body will react to Vyvanse - aside from it being a different (the same.. but different) medication (especially if we're talking generics on either side), the fact that it's an inactive prodrug that your body converts into the dextroamphetamine that makes up 3/4 of Adderall means it's usually at least slightly more tolerable/gentler for people. They're still similar enough to us, though, so unless the small amount (1/4) of levoamphetamine in Adderall is why Adderall was too much for you, you might be in for an unpleasant experience (mirror version of dextroamphetamine, known to cause slightly more side effects but still considered useful I suppose).

 

If it's not too late to change I'd ask to be lowered to 30mg, the normal starting dose when not sure how a patient tolerates ADHD stimulants. I actually just looked up taking it with or without food and apparently Vyvanse is not really affected by food (aside from preventing uncommon side effects like nausea when eaten with food for some people), aside from delaying its peak absorption by an hour.

I hope the doctor didn't hear you took "20mg of Adderall" XR and prescribe you Vyvanse based on that... XR is not the default

 

What other ADHD stimulants have you taken? Is 3.5mg of Adderall seriously what you took? We took 40+60mg once or twice and didn't feel that different from 20mg...

 

If you're unwilling to try it or do and it's intolerable, you could fill the time waiting for a lower dose by trying out L-tyrosine I suppose, just remember to start with a small portion of the recommended 500mg and work your way up

---

While you're offline...

It seems that Vyvanse can be converted (rough estimate, cannot account for individual response) to Adderall with this site https://www.adhdmedcalc.com/

40mg Vyvanse = 7.5mg Adderall

40mg Vyvanse = 15mg Adderall XR

(20mg Adderall = 40mg Adderall XR, supposedly it's simply double)

I personally find this hard to believe, as 50mg Vyvanse feels, at its peak, the same as 20mg Adderall.. I think. We only took 20mg once before trying 40 and then 60, and while I'm sure 20mg must have felt weaker, we at the time did not notice a difference. But the fact that we can even compare 40-60mg Adderall to our experience on 50mg Vyvanse is very sus. (Only explanation would be that our body just reaches a cap on how affected by Adderall it is, which would be extremely strange but frankly not out of the question for our body)

 

Anyways, supposedly 40mg Vyvanse should be safe for you. There's a chance the effects are more positive simply because of it lacking levoamphetamine, on top of the normal chance it's better (or worse) because your body converts it itself.

Edited June 12, 2025 by Tewi

[TB]

26 minutes ago, Tewi said:

What other ADHD stimulants have you taken? Is 3.5mg of Adderall seriously what you took? We took 40+60mg once or twice and didn't feel that different from 20mg...

i was originally prescribed 20mg of adderal XR, which was quite activating, but worked for productivity. The way adderall XR works, it is instantly doses you half the dose upon taking, so 10mg as soon as taken, then 4 hours later, the stomach should have melted the beads protecting the second 10mg dose, so you get dosed again. So 20mg adderall XR is the exact same as taking 10mg twice 4 hours apart. 

 

They upped it to 25mg without telling me, which is probably why adderall went from working well, to not working at all and just giving me insomnia

 

they did that because 20mg ran out of stock as there is a frequent national shortage of adderall it seems. so they gave 15mg, and that seemed to work similarly to 20mg but a bit less activating. I feel frustrated with the forced to relegate self to a 2nd adderall dose approximately 4 hours later whether or not you actually want it, so i figured you can just smash the beads inside the capsule to make it all become instant release, and i measure it on a milligram scale. Some of the total weight of the inside of the pill is the outter coating to delay release of second dose, and i usually have about 3.5mg on scale when i take it, but like 25% of that would be other stuff, so it is more like 3mg i guess. it seems to be minimum effective dose, and also a low enough dose i could redose in like an hour or two instead if i wanted to, without any negative effects. or if i needed to later in the day, or whatever makes sense for what i'm doing and what the schedule is. because another consequence of 20mg, despite it working, i did have at exactly 8 hour mark basically, a huge dip in energy and motivation. taking a larger amount of smaller doses seems to prevent that, if it even needs to be a larger amount. sometimes one or two of the low dose is enough to get momentum that i don't need more to stay focused

 

they could just prescribe like 60 2.5mg instant release per month to take as needed up to like 2 or 3 times a day to get the same result but i don't think they would ever do that and insurance doesn't like prescribing more pills than they have to

 

37 minutes ago, Tewi said:

40mg Vyvanse = 7.5mg Adderall

maybe it is exactly right then, because currently i'm on 15mg of adderal XR, which is just 2 doses of 7.5mg, because adderall is supposed to last 4 or 5 hours i think, so 2 7.5mg is just so it is longer. 15mg adderall XR is more like 7.5mg Adderall but doubled so it lasts a full theoretical work day, but vyvanse just lasts long anyway because of how it is metabolised and is a prodrug

[Byakko]

Tulpa Section

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Meditation Section

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Mental Health Section

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Drawing Section

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Health Section

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[TB]

edit: gonna put a content warning as this post is probably darker than normal

Tulpa Section

 

tulpamancy for me has been frustrating. it's been difficult to switch as my tulpas will not feel like theirselves very much

 

rena used to be highly resilient to depression many many years ago, though over time, she started to become a depressed person. her depression doesn't manifest the same as it does with me, like tons of open self loathing or extreme neurotic thoughts/angst, but she quietly suffers, i think, and has some degree of low self esteem. it's been the case for years now though, and it took years to notice it start to happen, and more years to advanced

 

byakko is only 8 months old. i don't think she is depressed, but much more quickly than rena, i notice changes to her. she used to have a difficult time ever feeling bad about anything, especially being switched in. but she can feel pretty terrible lately. for her, it doesn't manifest as depression as much as it does irritability. i don't want her to have to feel like that, and have her feel like she did in our first switches. I don't know what to do about it, or if anything can be done

 

also there are two possibilities when either are switched in. sometimes the mind is very much more like them in way, but sometimes it may try to think more like me with negativity. Rena's way of dealing with it seems to be more to just let it happen and try to ignore it, as maybe she is used to my thoughts and more okay with often having to pretend to me be. when it happens to byakko though, she fights it very hard and tries to refuse to think or behave like me, and it usually works really well for a short period of time, but it will eventually lead to her being exhausted in some way, but not like sleepy and the body has to go to sleep, but more in the joke they were making about her becoming a jaded middle aged woman version of herself. i'm more concerned about it than she is

 

also, there is something wrong with me. the other day, it was very difficult to hear my tulpas, particularly byakko. talking to her is like talking to a warping vision that loses connection. but when rena switches in, byakko is loud and clear for her and they can talk extremely easily. i don't know what that means or why it is so easy for rena to hear her voice but not me. i wonder if it has something to do with her frustration with my mental habits and the wall she may be setting up to resist them. i don't think she has anything against me and says she is here to help me, but i guess i'm very difficult to help and when she first descended to tulpa status from extus where she came from, she had a temporary buff that has ran out, and we are struggling to allow her to use the tools she has to make progress

 

summer part of our job has been a huge drag on each of us and the stress of it has been getting worse and worse. i think we made a mistake a few weeks where she was switched in for work, since we thought theoretically it wouldn't bother her at all and we'd get through it and then she'd have a productive week. i think her trying to do that has damaged her in some way. this body and brain seems unfit for work, even when someone as powerful as byakko is possessing it (by possessing i mean switching but colloquially saying possessing). it's like her spirit vs my brutal and deep conditioning fight each other and it is stronger than I could imagine

 

that's why her last progress report was made with gifs. she felt more comfortable sharing her experience that way i think, that typing big walls of negative sounding text, but i don't know if anyone could understand what she was communicating with it since the most accessible and quick to go through update got no responses, which didn't bother her I think? but it bothered the brain/myself

 

I also notice I vicariously feel upset for my tulpas in social interactions that would upset me if I had them the way it happened for them, even if they say it doesn't bother them. Which seems to be a flaw in the system where ideally if it doesn't bother them, I could just get out of the way and allow them to do exposure therapy with a positive mindset that my stupid brain doesn't just retraumatize the mind/body that they are trying to heal

 

because it is so difficult for any one of us to work, we have to juggle doing so, but it feels like our collective health is so low, I have also had to resort to channeling far more, so even work as Eara as well at times, even though Eara is not a tulpa, but I can still channel her, to try to spread psychological damage in such a way that I don't have some sort of mental breakdown quite as easy

 

Meditation Section

our ability to generate metta has gotten worse. we still have times we access what i think maybe is access concentration though, or have minor insights related to the mind or meditation that seem helpful, but mondays and tuesday with work mess up my meditation regime consistently, as I can't meditate in the morning which is ideal, because we cannot wake up early enough to where we have time, and even if we did, we do not want to do anything as we wait to have to go to work. 

 

the best metta generated in weeks was yesterday at work while by herself, metta tried meditating. but the chair at work is horrible for meditating, and when she finally got metta and such going, she was stopped by a bunch of kids coming into the laundry room next to us. and i have no interest in meditating today, even though i know i am more neurotic and depressed for not doing it. 

 

Mental Health Section

variable mental health. we very quickly go from feeling hopeful and relatively fine, to struggling heavily

the worst thing today was while rena was switched in at work and feeling fear regarding hearing more ICE horror stories when she recently had been interested in building herself up for a walk again, it made the mind while she is switched in go into thinking of ways to commit suicide. which is very... devastating to me, so i'd rather be switched in if the mind is actively in suicide ideation mode. our stress levels are extremely high more than I thought, I think. Sometimes we feel okay, but at times we feel like all the walls are closing in, because we know working where we are is unsustainable, and that living in the 21st century nazi germany in a body of a disabled minority with multiple struggle bus labels like mixed/trans/adhd/potentially autistic with an administration that has a visceral hatred of every one of those labels and wants me to not exist, makes me sick to my stomach and the mind starts feeling misanthropy, self hatred, and dangerous and violent ideations. i know deep down i very much have the potential in me to do scary things if i'm pushed too far, and i'm being pushed further the longer the administration is in power and i see no escape or safety. not taking a walk out of laziness is enough of a crush to our mental health, but not taking a walk because fearing for our life is even more frustrating, because there is nothing we can do to fix it, and rena was so so so happy when she got the courage to take a walk a while ago after tons of metta gave her confidence, and now we don't have metta working so well and are totally unable to enjoy walking ever again. the second walk rena took was not enjoyable at all and just filled with stress of cars and the mind thinking how our unfortunate flesh body is in danger because of the way it looks. and sometimes I see her crying in my head and i feel useless, and she seems to feel that way too at times

 

i also am incapable of saving money with our tremendously low income, and anytime i think we are able to, we end up not because whatever money we manage to save ends up being need to be used on food, and we are actively stressed right now about losing foodstamps and/or medicaid and our situations being even worse. this inability to save makes us unable to get HRT, and I already feel I am late on transitioning, and that there is low likelihood I will ever get to transition soon. Maybe a ton of money with art is the only hope, as there is no other career where I will make more money than I do right now. My wages do not increase, but the cost of living and rent do, and food stamps decrease. My dad is unable to save money and struggles to continue to help us, and also one day I know he will die and the help from him we rely on to survive will go away and life will become extraordinarily harder at that point if we haven't made it "big" with art by the time that day comes. It galvanizes me to try harder and be more focused on making it work, but it is so so so hard and such a massive task it sometimes makes me want to cry. I'm thankful for adhd meds that have given me a fighting chance as before it seemed 100% hopeless and the homeopathic levels of hope a miracle would make me start making progress was only thing keeping me going. I just resent how unnatural it is for me to be a normal human and make interesting comments or interactions with other artists to make friends and learn more things, and to draw things that are funny and interesting. I"m so thankful for byakko and rena for trying challenging new things, but it takes so much out of all of us to complete those things, and I will have to radically change as a person from the ground up to be such that I can create things like that every day, instead of like... once every 3+ months. And they need to be even better. But I can't do the simple task of read an art book to try to understand fundamentals better because my aversion to reading is so high and it goes in one... eye? and out the other? It just feels like I can't use art books to learn and it makes me want to punch a wall, and I can't focus on course work because it feels pointless because the assignments are too boring for me to focus on, and I also think are just not making me learn anything because I don't get the point of some of the exercises

 

I also don't want to be afraid of death and be capable of having full comfort and faith in my religious revelations when byakko came, but my brain over time returns to its normal existential dread but it is softened because of trying to have strong faith that those realities are true, but my brain works in such a way as I need to have 100% confidence and proof in truth of something to not doubt things, so I feel I need to die as the only way to know, or maybe enlightenment makes you magically know how death works before dying, but I don't know how to become enlightened when I'm so incompetent at everything in my life to such a thorough degree. I feel I will be lucky if I gain stream entry. And arhatship is more difficult than stream entry, I believe. And it is hard to afford teachers, and hard to afford something like flying to malaysia to do a 1-3 month long retreat, which are the kinds of actions that are expected of someone who is serious about attaining these things. 

 

If there is no afterlife, I'm uninterested in living, as well. Sometimes it feels easier to just die incase there is no afterlife and I'm wasting my time caring about anything, and if there is, it depends on what the afterlife is on how I feel exactly, but best case scenario I'm just mad I ended my life without trying my best to the end so my afterlife is filled without regrets. Though I know byakko would not accept me to make a decision like that, and rena would be against it too, I think, minus learning today even her mind is capable of suicidal ideation. 

 

Also do not anyone call any sort of wellness check, I do not need police arresting me and sending me 4 hours away from home to lose my mind in a hospital and lose all access to my tablet and drawing and ability to study to try to fix my situation. They will do nothing but enforce I take medicines that make my illness worse, scare the crap out of me, and make me lose money potentially from unavoidable missed work, and stress me with tons of questions from my healthcare professionals, and lose access temporarily to all my support structures and friends who will worry about me (involuntary hospital stays have literally caused my friends to miss work to drive 5 hours to try looking for me unable to find me). It WILL make me consider suicide even worse, and do nothing to help me. Unless they can give me an all expensed paid trip to a better country. I need some sort of help, but there is no more help that our healthcare system is capable of providing, and policy decisions have been made to take away help that would actually make a difference.

 

I just want to go on walks so bad, but i feel I need a gun or something to feel safe because of ICE kidnappers. Or a cyanide pill. Something to avoid being sent to prisons that are worse than the jail I was sent to in 2021 that traumatized me, and then they would send me to a country of a language I can't speak, either left in the streets with no way back home, or in CECOT where I will be shaved and treated like an animal, possibly executed. It would be very difficult to kill myself by ramming my head into a brick wall, so I need another way to avoid having it be so difficult. Doesn't matter that I'm an american citizen. I'm not 100% white, and I do not support Trump. That is all it takes to be never seen again in this country. There are 10,000 violent illegal immigrants in our country. Trump has deported over 200,000 people so far. It is impossible that all of them are violent criminals, especially considering the fact that ICE had to drop their investigations of violent criminals, because violent criminals are difficult to catch and require planning. In order to meet their quota, they are forced to take people like me. Someone with brown skin that look vaguely latino. They also can't meet their quota if they ask questions, give a trial, release and fail to deport because they got the wrong guy. They put people they capture in concentration camps, do a speedy trial where the answer is always to deport, and then you are in CECOT death camp, or a random country you've never lived in, assuming you didn't die in their custody waiting to end up in one of those fates. And honestly my hatred of them is so extreme, I feel dying in a firefight would be me doing more good in this world than my pathetic useless life has thus far and likely ever will do. 

 

I'm too stressed to function at max capacity, but I need to reach success in life faster than ever before. I will keep trying, keep drawing, keep meditating and keep trying to change myself into a person who will touch hearts with cute and funny etc drawings, and hopefully there will be enough people who aren't so poor or destitute they can support my work such that I can live a safe and comfortable happpy life not in poverty, and transition, maybe getting a body I like somewhat and find out how to be a cute and pretty girl that I seem the need to be. I'm just at a low point right now as I have fear I can't pull it off.

 

I might need to ask extus for more tulpas, such as Kyouiko. She came temporarily at one point, but I was not ready for more tulpas. I think a system of 3 is quite amazing, as byakko fills a role for rena that I have failed her in, and I am very happy about that, and somehow we have avoided jealousy or issues with time. Actually, I think we all get more time and attention both percent wise and time wise because of her inclusion. I just am skeptical that that positive trend would continue if Kyouiko was actually a tulpa, and I also... don't know if she is the best fit personality wise or not. It's unpredictable how my characters are in the form of tulpas, because I can envision issues they'd have being trapped in this life and body, and considering how mentally ill I am based on everything I just wrote, I don't want to create more victims, which is why I try relying on just channeling characters instead of relegating them to the gulag that is this disgusting human life. I didn't choose for byakko to be here, and forced her way in and demanded it, so I couldn't say no, and I don't regret her being here. I just hope she doesn't regret her decision in the future due to me being unhelpable. 

 

I miss my friend paixi. I need an artist friend/senpai to help guide me. Unfortunately I just feel I don't make an even trade in friendships like that, as I can only take as I have nothing to offer others, except my thanks and bad drawings to show my thanks. I'm traumatized by zerion so do not know how easy it is to try to restablish a relationship with them even with xanax. we will see I guess. But sometimes I feel it might be better to meet someone new, but I don't know how. My attempts to talk to artists in the past usually are one off things, as I just am not a person who is worth investiging so much in. Zerion is a very nice person who has invested a lot for me and got very little out of it. 

 

Drawing friends to learn from is commonly how artists get good though. They make friends with people of equal or greater skill, and improve. In fact, that is what zerion told me was how he improved, and I have not done that. How can I do it?

Drawing Section

I accidentally talked about drawing a bit in my mental health section, so not much to say here. Trying to get better. It's my only hope of a worthwhile life, and I think I will quit my job soon. I have a feeling I won't replace my income with drawing fast enough to quit my job without going back to trying to live on my own with virtually 0 income. So lately I have just been feeling fear and sadness.

 

Health Section

No motivation to eat right or exercise. Byakko and Rena like to jump rope some times. We all wish to walk but can't for reasons stated above, as there are an unknown number of marauding state sanctioned thugs that could end my life at any moment. 

 

As for vyvanse: when it works, I think it works far better than adderall. But when it randomly decides to maximiize negative sideeffects, it sucks. It is EXTREMELY sensitive to water and food intake that has to be in the right amounts at the right time, or it isn't even like taking the same medication. Some of the days it has ruined my day is because I take vyvanse right before a friend messages me and gets me in a convo distracting me, causing me to take too long to eat and drink, and then my entire day is ruined. So maybe I need to completely turn off discord notifications and only be able to know I have a discord message if I open it and look to see if there are any messages in DMs. 

 

Once again do not send anyone to my door, or it will go badly for everyone involved. I'm not going to do anything to hurt myself right now, I just had to mention a mixture of current events and news, and my failure as a human being making possibility of escape narrower, has resulted in the causes and conditions the cause passive suicidal ideation to increase and I also legitimately feel that I might need a way out in the long run if things get even worse than they are, and there is 3 years and 6 months left of this presidency for them to get far, far worse.... and maybe just indefinitely forever if trump gets a 3rd term. My state gladly voted for a narccistic sociopathic genocidal child rapist for president and it has severely disturbed me and collapsed my already struggling mental health, as one would expect it to do. being forced to take a massive dose of an antipsychotic and SSRI combined with loss wages will make things worse and actually make me do something dangerous in the short term

 

 

I wish I had more positive things to say. I've procrastinated writing this for a while because I thought it'd be too negative and wanted to in a better mood, but what's the point. Then I'll never write it. I guess I hope there is advice for how to stop byakko and rena's degredation, or how I can succeed at my goals, but there probably isn't. I don't know what I am expecting from posting this. I needed to vent again and it is better to here because I notice throughout the day I keep making neurotic posts in lotpw that probably upset people unexpectedly. 

Edited July 16, 2025 by TB

[Reisen]

On 7/15/2025 at 6:08 PM, TB said:

the other day, it was very difficult to hear my tulpas

Was that before taking Xanax? That's pretty strange to occur randomly if so, but not as strange to occur after taking a new med

On 7/15/2025 at 6:08 PM, TB said:

the best metta generated in weeks was yesterday at work while by herself, metta tried meditating.

(typo, or very interesting lore..)

On 7/15/2025 at 6:08 PM, TB said:

I also don't want to be afraid of death and be capable of having full comfort and faith in my religious revelations

 

I feel like there's no reason not to commit to following the Buddhist faith, it doesn't really do you any good to follow it half-committally. As far as our experience with progressing "levels of consciousness" goes, the later states you achieve will seamlessly work with any necessary old supporting information (e.g. thoughts about possibilities for different afterlives... Or thoughts like reasons for not liking certain activities or so on) but from the new context, sort of like a new modern PC running an old text-based game or something, it can still process the old things fine if they're relevant still (though most will likely be forgotten in favor of new, better experiences), so you can basically "rest on your laurels" of excessive overthinking about everything and still benefit from useful pre-thought-about thoughts even in a "higher consciousness"(etc., bit of spirituality language barrier lol) state that itself wouldn't even bother having those thoughts

 

That to say, you can let your painstakingly-thought-through worries and hypotheticals go when you mentally move on, if they're ever relevant you can still draw from old thoughts, though you may not need to

 

On 7/15/2025 at 6:08 PM, TB said:

If there is no afterlife, I'm uninterested in living, as well. Sometimes it feels easier to just die incase there is no afterlife

 

From our new age spirituality days (which was often very similar to "Western Buddhist-Inspired Self-Help"), we were taught that souls incarnate to experience living as separate beings, to experience hardships and achievements and the joy of connecting with others again and just generally learning/experiencing life - sort of like (especially to us personally) opting in to play a challenging video game - which makes the idea of giving up and ending your Hardcore character silly. The veil's pulled back, and you see your disappointing score from ending the run early.. Not having memory of before-incarnating is part of the challenge, so all you can do is try again and hope you don't decide to end it early again

It's a slightly comical way to think of such a heavy subject, but, that is still our general feelings on the subject. "Making it through exactly this might've been my intention when incarnating in the first place, so giving up is just resetting my progress in completing this type of run" (again we personally like leaning heavy into the game-ified terminology lol, you can keep it more "growing into an advanced soul" vibes if you prefer)

 

 

So, anyways,
Aside from not worrying so much about ICE (just keep whichever various ID on you, maybe get(?) a Real ID? And don't threaten them... Do whatever it is that would cause a vaguely eager racist to get bored and leave you alone), I would say my best advice for actually multiple of your problems - including your tulpas struggling - is to work on having more positive thoughts and mood. I know, it doesn't seem "correct", but wouldn't any depressed person say that to an enlightened person who seemed perfectly content or happy in "an obviously bad situation!" (of which our current modern problems are just one possible example, and BY NO MEANS magically "more legitimate, worth being upset over for real this time" than the other struggles of past humans)

Meditation and the more "spiritual"-type progress are good, but I think they do not make training plain old positivity redundant or unnecessary (at least when they've not been achieved to such a level as to permeate your life throughout different situations, such as... talking to people... or experiencing any negative circumstances at all, lol), so I do recommend it to you, as (we can confirm from a few handfuls of experiences) when you manage a truly positive state of mind, everything just seems to become easier, answers come more easily to previously difficult problems - no doubt meditation should be easier too - and I think such a thing is invaluable to you, for, your mental health, your tulpas' and their level of freedom to be themselves (positive mood seems to enable whichever preferred forms of personality expression as well, it's kind of a cureall), and your ability to come up with (and enact) solutions to really all sorts of problems, sometimes even ones you thought had no solution in a lesser mood.

 

Though I will say, this same effect seems to happen when rising a "level of consciousness" (very likely equivalent to achievable milestones in your spiritual/meditative studies) and permanently, the feeling that so many existing problems have become simpler and so many old worries or thought patterns became irrelevant/foolish even. Both is good! We have experienced both the permanent improvement kind (a couple times) and the oddly positive, life-flowing-easily state of simply being happy and all recent problems we could think to throw at it feeling they had simple answers, so we can confirm these are possible (even if we've slacked on accomplishing either again in years)

Hopefully any progress on this, and/or more objective life problems, start to go better for you soon. But really you would be surprised how the same life, same problems, can feel so much more or less oppressive from a different state of mind! (For you, the same thing we've always recommended of trying to bring your meditative states/benefits into more mundane (and eventually stressful) situations would likely be great progress to work on)

Edited July 17, 2025 by Reisen

[TB]

9 hours ago, Reisen said:

Was that before taking Xanax? That's pretty strange to occur randomly if so, but not as strange to occur after taking a new med

it has been since before getting xanax. i think why rena can hear byakko easier is she doesn't squeeze her consciousness so tightly, or something, not sure how to explain. i've been very contracted recently

 

9 hours ago, Reisen said:

(typo, or very interesting lore..)

typo lol i didn't get a new tulpa named metta

 

9 hours ago, Reisen said:

I feel like there's no reason not to commit to following the Buddhist faith, it doesn't really do you any good to follow it half-committally. As far as our experience with progressing "levels of consciousness" goes, the later states you achieve will seamlessly work with any necessary old supporting information (e.g. thoughts about possibilities for different afterlives... Or thoughts like reasons for not liking certain activities or so on) but from the new context, sort of like a new modern PC running an old text-based game or something, it can still process the old things fine if they're relevant still (though most will likely be forgotten in favor of new, better experiences), so you can basically "rest on your laurels" of excessive overthinking about everything and still benefit from useful pre-thought-about thoughts even in a "higher consciousness"(etc., bit of spirituality language barrier lol) state that itself wouldn't even bother having those thoughts

 

That to say, you can let your painstakingly-thought-through worries and hypotheticals go when you mentally move on, if they're ever relevant you can still draw from old thoughts, though you may not need to

i still have faith in buddhist awakening and seeking it as my goal, though it doesn't at this time by itself really solve my extensional issues and i don't think i can just consciously decide to lose attachment to existence or get rid of fear of annihilation. i have hoped for a while that making progress in meditation insight would get rid of fear of annihilation one way or another, preferably through knowledge of there not being annihilation though. i am afraid of possibility of there being annihilation and accepting it is the only way to get over fear. i don't think my mind/brain whatever is built in such a way that will allow that, it seems physically impossible, since it is such a deeply ingrained fear and despair that fearing it is unironically one of my earliest memories. the religious experiences i had when byakko came don't really replace or cancel out my faith that awakening is a thing that is possible to achieve though, i kind of think they go together. if they are true when i die i will be my characters in another world but quality of life of being them may just be better or worse depending, and if i am fully awakened in this life when i die, i would be a meta perspective version of them, which is hard to explain but i guess them as they see beyond the context of individual lives and can see all their lives at once and not be fearful or upset about it. feeling as if that is true helps a lot at making my mind calm down to focus on other things and make me feel better, it's just i have a stubborn mind that is prone to doubt if i don't have something objectively proving it to be true. there seem to be lots of people that are comfortable with or can easily believe things they don't have proof for, and i don't understand how it is done. my proof is a weird personal experience that i can't be sure i interpretted correctly and even if i did, is hard to rule out as just people experiencing whatever weird things that don't mean anything. thinking of those possibilities hurt really bad though and lead to despair

 

i do feel i'm following my faith in awakening half commitally though, but maybe not in the way you are thinking (you can elaborate more on what you mean by that just in case if you want) but i've read daniel ingram's 634,053,202 page book about the nitty gritty details of awakening and while it isn't impossible for me to become awakened with what i do currently, it is probably unlikely at my trajectory, mostly due to lack of access to formal residential retreats. self lead retreats suck. i want to go to the malaysian buddhist meditation center. when you convert dollars into their currency, the cost of retreating there amounts to a few dollars per day, for like 10 days, then they let you stay for free if you stay longer than that i think. or you can just give them about 500 dollars once and you have free access to their retreat center for the rest of your life. american retreat centers often want you to pay like 2000 dollars to do a week or two long retreat and there are no lifetime benefits. unless it is a goenka retreat, those are free, but the closest one to me is in massachusetts, and i don't know if i necessarily want to do goenka's meditation style. there is the bhavana society in west virginia, but still that is a many hour drive away

 

it'd be nice to go to bhavana society for maybe a week or two long retreat a few times to get retreat experience, and then one day do a 3 month long retreat at the malaysian buddhist meditation center or something. multiple week long retreats in WV and at least one, but probably 2 or 3 or more multi month long retreats at MBMC would, if I practice correctly, make me statistically likely to become at least a stream enterer, maybe 2nd or 3rd path, i think. it might even get me arhatship, but arhatship sounds very tricky and is really like a i'll get it if god sees it fit kind of deal lol. it sounds on paper like there is a predictable reproduceable path anyone can do to just get it but at the same time it is so exceptionally rare and exhalted and people spend their entire lives living in monasteries to not achieve it. that doesn't make me not want to try though. at least as far as i understand as far as monks and monasteries go, someone who has attained 3rd path is the bee's knees and a lot of legendary monks were considered 3rd path. 4th path in a theravaden monastery puts you in a place that you are almost treated like a god

 

which is quite different from how it is explained in the time of the buddha though. when the buddha was around, according to the writings, he produced tens of thousands of arhats i think, maybe even hundreds of thousands, including many many thousands of lay people who became arhats despite being householders. and the buddha doesn't talk as if becoming an arhat is unachievably difficult or requiring luck or anything. He suggests it may take about 7 years to reach if someone tried hard enough. which seems fairly accurate because a few of the people i know who claim to be arhats i think took about 7 years to get it, so the people who go their whole life to not get it i think i either doing something wrong, or they do have it and they have put the idea of arhatship on such a pedastool that they think they aren't arhats because they don't meet their really unrealistic definitions of what they think it is (like shinzen young perhaps. I don't know for sure, it's hard for me to believe he hasn't achieved 4th path but he claims to not be 4th path, but his definition of 4th path is he thinks he ought to be okay if someone cut off all his limbs and stuck him in a box to be tortured in darkness for the rest of his life lol, but I do not think there is any precedent in buddhist texts that arhats are so extreme that they'd be fine with something like that. there are arhats in buddhist texts who have killed themselves because of unbearable chronic pain, and even the buddha complained about pain from his stomach necrosis before he passed away)

 

9 hours ago, Reisen said:

From our new age spirituality days (which was often very similar to "Western Buddhist-Inspired Self-Help"), we were taught that souls incarnate to experience living as separate beings, to experience hardships and achievements and the joy of connecting with others again and just generally learning/experiencing life - sort of like (especially to us personally) opting in to play a challenging video game - which makes the idea of giving up and ending your Hardcore character silly. The veil's pulled back, and you see your disappointing score from ending the run early.. Not having memory of before-incarnating is part of the challenge, so all you can do is try again and hope you don't decide to end it early again

It's a slightly comical way to think of such a heavy subject, but, that is still our general feelings on the subject. "Making it through exactly this might've been my intention when incarnating in the first place, so giving up is just resetting my progress in completing this type of run" (again we personally like leaning heavy into the game-ified terminology lol, you can keep it more "growing into an advanced soul" vibes if you prefer)

i see. i'm not sure why i am here but if my revelations from last year are true there is a similar logic. giving up on this life either by ending it early or giving up on creative goals and/or awakening goals, would be a "low score" and make my afterlife more painful even if it is still what i always wanted it to be which is to be my characters

 

9 hours ago, Reisen said:

Meditation and the more "spiritual"-type progress are good, but I think they do not make training plain old positivity redundant or unnecessary (at least when they've not been achieved to such a level as to permeate your life throughout different situations, such as... talking to people... or experiencing any negative circumstances at all, lol),

the sad thing is we do kinda train positivity. i guess metta meditation is a form of that, it's purposefully generating positive emotions of loving kindness or well wishing for yourself and others. i also in meditations sometimes (or often) try to consider things to be grateful for. like my situation sucks but i'm extremely happy at least in this moment i do have housing, a nice computer and internet, and a job that while straining me at times isn't 100% unbearable so I can kind of pay bills etc. i try to not take things for granted but yeah it's been harder to be positive lately with world events. it always feels like a fight to try to purposefully be positive against a tide of evil that makes it very very hard to do, which in the past was my mom's failing health and death, dad''s evil gfs, my demented aunt and risk of homelessness etc, but now it seems to be that the world is falling apart and we are living in the last generations of human society as end stage capitalism slowly and painfully erases the last of humans from existence. i used to try to do metta but it was a battle between trying to wish wellness on my dad's gf instead of get stuck being unable to stop flaying off all her skin while i scream at her how she's ruined my life and now i'm ruining hers in return or something. or now it is hard to do metta and send it to israeli jews when i want to do to them what they want to do to palestinians, or i imagine if i was a saiyan i would sink all of israel into the center of the earth while projecting my voice as being god and telling them they are failures who don't deserve for god to continue keeping his promise with the rainbow which in their religion is god's promise to not genocide humanity again but why keep a promise to such a disgusting mistake of a species. it's extremely hard not to think or feel these things, and then i also have all the reasons i hate myself normally but feeling like i'm a bad person for hating other humans who cause me and others immense suffering makes me also confused and self hating because i've had bad social experiences with that. i've genuinely felt if people repeatedly cause suffering to another person without stopping even after being told, and they get joy out of it, then you should have the right to cause them suffering too. it's hard for me to not see what is wrong with that but saying that before to someone made them say i'm a megalomaniac which made me feel very bad and increased my self hatred. i have immensely low self esteem so it is hard to comprehend how someone thinks i'm a megalomaniac, which i thought meant you love yourself too much. i don't love myself much at all, it's just that other humans can make me so sick i temporarily hate them more than i do myself, and if pushed too far to an edge, would lose self preservation instinct to cause a ton of destruction to those people and myself. i am extremely lucky breaking my hand on that kids head in middle school seemed to be the event to get most people to stop bullying me, because if they had continued or escalated from that point on, and i had access to guns, i promise i wouldn't be here and neither would they. i can't imagine reality have going any other way with the mental state other people put me in. i just wanted to laugh and have fun and be friendly but they chose to instead make me a black whole of neurosis and psychological pain and i'm 29 years old with a ruined life, disabled because my genes are designed to have my brain self implode after too much mockery from cruel people and all the effort and time in my life is now forced to be spent on trying to get back to being normal, instead of things i dream of doing like making a living drawing or going out and doing things with friends and having a life. 

 

was extremely hard to type this as my hands have been shaking so badly i can't press the keys right. this is why i think i'm satan though. i just want to be happy and get along and for others to be happy too, but most people don't seem to actually want that so i struggle immensely to want it for them either. and by struggle immensely i mean really struggle, i genuinely strain myself to feel love for the most depraved people in existence in my life personally or earth as a whole, and i don't know if love or hate will win in the end. hate is winning right now. successful love and metta was what allowed rena to take a walk in a first place and now it's been taken away from us, metta can't be generated anymore to fully cover up existential fear. so, hate is winning right now.

 

10 hours ago, Reisen said:

no doubt meditation should be easier too - and I think such a thing is invaluable to you, for, your mental health, your tulpas' and their level of freedom to be themselves (positive mood seems to enable whichever preferred forms of personality expression as well, it's kind of a cureall), and your ability to come up with (and enact) solutions to really all sorts of problems, sometimes even ones you thought had no solution in a lesser mood

this is true. it was most noticeable in 2017 when i first started. meditation magically made a lot of unsolvable issues have intuitive solutions i don't know how i didn't see before, but i was set back 6 years by dumpster fire of life events. this past year meditation has been improving again for the first time since 2017, and i do have times where i start to sense the edges of understanding something that is subtle but important about how things work and it may help with getting results with drawing in the future, but there are always external factors that are distractions making it hard to have the progress be linear or fast

 

10 hours ago, Reisen said:

Hopefully any progress on this, and/or more objective life problems, start to go better for you soon. But really you would be surprised how the same life, same problems, can feel so much more or less oppressive from a different state of mind! (For you, the same thing we've always recommended of trying to bring your meditative states/benefits into more mundane (and eventually stressful) situations would likely be great progress to work on)

i agree. i hope to achieve doing that. have been trying to take meditation skills and apply to daily life more, but it is hard with so many distractions and it's hard to just permanently cut them out of my life. i don't think it makes it impossible though, i keep trying and sometimes it seems to get better. i feel so split lately because i feel i'm simultaneously improving a lot and getting worse at the same time

 

i feel like i have some sort of invisible resource that when plentiful enough life seems okay enough and i can do things, but it runs out at times and it causes mini nervous breakdowns or maybe major ones and i feel terrible. it can be delayed by switching, as it seems my tulpas have their own versions of this resource, but it is like they have their own while simultaneously sharing one for the body. it feels like the overarching resource is low right now so even if switching makes the mind/body system feel better shortly, it will fall back into darkness within a few days or hours, instead of the normal 1-2 weeks before they run out of the resource

[Reisen]

It's always been a bit odd to us that you talk about distractions and negative stimuli as "getting in the way" of meditative achievements/benefits - obviously, that is what anyone will directly experience while working on it, but - even we had it pretty drilled into us that those ARE the things you're trying to overcome. "I could be an enlightened monk, if only the world wasn't full of annoying and upsetting things!" would be such a silly thing to say, you know? Yes it's easier to feel good or focused when stressors and distractions aren't present, but, I don't think the Buddhist path was ever meant only for people who could make their external lives nice and perfect, it's specifically to help them deal with the parts of life that aren't

 

Some quiet meditation time is surely always required, but we've really always seen it as personal internal achievements meant to be brought to the rest of life, to make human existence easier and eventually frictionless

Things that get in the way or make it harder might still do that, sure - but I just think you should be thinking about it like we do, and not like the very things you're meant to overcome are "in the way" of progress

Edited July 17, 2025 by Reisen