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Are Intrusive Thoughtforms Relatable?


Ranger

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(edited)

Pretty much since day one for us, we have struggled with intrusive thoughts or what we call "intrusive thoughtforms" due to our anxiety and depression. (I define what an intrusive thoughtform is in more detail in this thread.)

 

We figured that other people probably had similar experiences, but we realized that the experience of an "intrusive thoughtform" seems pretty unique to us. Even though walk-ins are becoming a more common problem, most people don't report their walk-ins being malicious outside of being threatening and troublesome for about a day or two and then settling down.

Here is a summary of what we experience:
 

Spoiler

1) An intrusive thoughtform appears as a clone of Gray or myself and acts to belittle, harass, or stress us out. Some are violent towards us or towards themselves to provoke anxiety, but the main tactic they use is verbal abuse.

 

2) Intrusive thoughtforms act like walk-ins and can even be made into tulpas. This is how Moltosha and Red Gray, my headmates, were created. Over time, both have decided to either keep or reject intrusive traits. Unlike the example I mentioned earlier where a thoughform would have intrusive behavior and then the next day or two settle down, both maintained their intrusive thoughfrom behavior until they decided to deviate on their own.

 

3) While I was uncomfortable to talk about it in the past, I have had multiple experiences where I was replaced with an intrusive thoughtform. Back in 2018, Cat asked around if people had experiences with their tulpas threatening their host, possibly having evil tulpas, etc.

Normally this would look like Gray calling out to me and instead getting an intrusive thoughtform clone of me or I would be there and an intrusive thoughtform would spawn. Sometimes it happened seemingly out of the blue or because of something a little bit more obvious. However, a large amount of stress is always part of the story.

 

These two examples stood out to me:


A) Gray once made a big and emotional step forward in healing and for some reason when he went to talk to me about it, he ended up talking to an evil clone of me instead. It took Gray a couple hours to figure it out and it made him really upset. I felt guilty and confused the next day, unaware Gray struggled with this.

B) A few months ago, I felt consumed by anxiety and Gray watched me slowly get replaced by an intrusive thoughtform. Gray locked the clone in a safe prison cell so the clone couldn't hurt itself. After about 30-45 minutes, the intrusive dissipated and I felt tired and weak. I slowly started to recover, and after some time I felt fine again.

 

Later we realized that this was a byproduct of anxiety, but we are not clear on why this only seems to happen sometimes. Our current suspicion is being more developed makes you less prone to having this happen.

This has caused Gray to wonder what would happen if I were switched-in and this happens or if that's even a possibility. Gray also wonders if he is prone to turning into an intrusive thoughtform when he's switched-out. So far, we believe that if it could happen, being switched-out makes you more vulnerable, but we are not certain about this.

4) The other Shadows, our headmates, feared being corrupted and turned into intrusive thoughtforms in the past. The fear is mostly gone now because we rarely experience them anymore and Gray has made a lot of progress towards respecting himself. I don't recall any of them turning into intrusive thoughts for a long period of time though, possibly because they hid away or we realized what was happening quickly and prevented the intrusive clone from doing anything.

5) Our "Subconscious Representative", an older tulpa who wants to be one with the unconscious mind, has multiple experiences with being corrupted and turning into an intrusive thought. This has made him uncomfortable and conflicted between embracing the chaos of the mind and protecting us.

6) Wonderland symbolism is a good indicator if intrusive thoughtforms are at risk of spawning.

Sometimes our wonderland gets "corrupted" where everything visualized seems sparatic, glitchy, or lurid. Visualization tools or symbols we use tend to spaz out and not work. For example, we have a visualization tool used to help us associate and also get a better sense of pain being experienced by the body. Instead of getting a few warning symbols, the whole map would be polluted in warning symbols and an annoying beeping noise may play over and over. In addition, visual intrusive thoughts tend to spawn. This is along the lines of stuff like a picture of Pennywise the clown suddenly being shoved in your face.

If Gray talks to our Sub. Rep., there's a good chance there's just an intrusive thoughform version of him there. Gray has also observed in this state, our headmates are at risk of being replaced by intrusive thoughts, so he usually doesn't talk to anyone until things are normal again.

Another example is sometimes a certain piece of wonderland can be more prone to intrusive thoughtforms. One time a random "tree" with a rock wall around it appeared in wonderland out of the blue and intrusive thoughts spawned in that place. After a few days, the tree just vanished as randomly as it appeared.

Oddly enough, we can be stressed and have our wonderland behave normally while other times our wonderland suddenly gets corrupted for seemingly no reason. However, we do know that a large amount of anxiety has to be present, regardless of where it came from or who was generating it.


Given that, we thought we had some kind of expertise with this topic. However, some help threads like this one made me rethink how common this experience is and if sharing this advice can be unhelpful or even harmful for others.

For instance, what if it turns out the system is a traumatic system and the "intrusive thoughform" is actually a persecutor? What if having trouble with these thoughtforms is a sign of some kind of other mental health problem?

I'm curious how you guys feel about this. We always believed this was just a weird, under discussed topic in tulpamancy, but maybe there's more to it than we originally thought?

Edited by Ranger

I'm Ranger, GrayTheCat's cobud (tulpa), and I love hippos! I also like cake and chatting about stuff. I go by Rosalin or Ronan sometimes. You can call me Roz but please don't call me Ron.

My other headmates have their own account now.

 

If I missed seeing your art, please PM/DM me!

Blog | Not So Temporary Log | Switching Log | Yay! | Bre Translator | Art Thread

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There's always a risk in assuming other people's minds work the same way yours does. We have never had intrusive thoughtforms, but we do get intrusive thoughts, imagery, and stray vocal responses that don't belong to me or Yuka. Nothing persists for long, it's very easy to set everything intrusive aside. 

 

Yuka: I wouldn't tell someone who fears their tulpa has said something mean to them, that there's an impostor talking to them, it seems like a harmful idea to give. In many cases I'd say a host's low self-esteem might cause them to fear rejection and then that idea is carried out. Rather than entertaining the idea that there's an evil thoughtform there, they should step back and try to reconnect with their tulpa (maybe after getting into a better mental state). But since we don't deal with intrusive thoughtforms we may not be able to relate or help if someone's mind works very differently or there are other things going on.

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(edited)
20 minutes ago, Aya said:

Yuka: I wouldn't tell someone who fears their tulpa has said something mean to them, that there's an impostor talking to them, it seems like a harmful idea to give. In many cases I'd say a host's low self-esteem might cause them to fear rejection and then that idea is carried out.

 

There's a difference between a tulpa being a jerk, a tulpa criticizing their host, and an intrusive thoughtform. Usually a tulpa who's being a jerk or is simply criticizing their host is upset about something or wants to get something out of it. Most importantly, they know it was them. After an intrusive thoughtform who replaced me comes and goes, it's always news to me when Gray can call me back and explains what happened. When I'm angry with Gray or arguing with him, both of us are aware it's me and not something else.

I can see how this can be confusing without that important clarification however.

 

20 minutes ago, Aya said:

Rather than entertaining the idea that there's an evil thoughtform there, they should step back and try to reconnect with their tulpa (maybe after getting into a better mental state).

 

That's what we have to do. Calm down and if it's still there, wait it out and ignore it. The problem is calling for the tulpa gets associated with calling the intrusive instead, and that trigger doesn't always go away until it's dissipated. In the past, Gray had trouble with calming down, and two hours later finding the intrusive thoughtform still there or waiting until the next day. Now, we believe there's a low risk of that happening and it will dissipate within an hour.

Edited by Ranger

I'm Ranger, GrayTheCat's cobud (tulpa), and I love hippos! I also like cake and chatting about stuff. I go by Rosalin or Ronan sometimes. You can call me Roz but please don't call me Ron.

My other headmates have their own account now.

 

If I missed seeing your art, please PM/DM me!

Blog | Not So Temporary Log | Switching Log | Yay! | Bre Translator | Art Thread

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From what I understand about the thoughtforms, it sounds almost like it could be the 'Invisible Counselors Technique', which I guess could be a type of plurality depending on perspective. It could be worth considering the reasons and figuring out what future inner dialogues with "intrusive thoughtforms" could mean

 

And my reflection about intrusive thoughts. Well I think it's safe to assume that that the brain do think a lot in the background every time, and you may end up experiencing brain noises like you can't seem to control it. Then it might just be the thoughts drifting away. You always communicate with the subconscious in some ways so there's weird brain stuff that can happen without you even being aware of how it happens

 

That's just my way to accept that the brain does weird things out of your control sometimes. It's like how it's pretty much impossible to naturally turn of thinking processes without exchanging them with others. Like how you can't get over addictions without switching them out

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Intrusive thoughts are often caused by paranoia, expectation or some other underlying issue. Example: 'my tulpa doesn't want to be with me anymore' -> bunch of intrusive thoughts in the form of the tulpa's voice about how they don't want to be with you.

 

There was a time where our host went through a pretty bad episode of doubts and everytime we were inactive, she'd get tons of intrusive thoughts mimicking us. But we found out that it is so easy to distinguish them. Brains are good at simulating conversations with other people because they know how it goes, but often, it feels different to have a conversation with whoever you're imagining and talking to your tulpa. And not really because you expect one to be real while the other isn't.

 

When we imagine fake conversations with someone else, it feels automatic and really smooth, almost like thinking in concepts. It's basically just the brain carrying the conversation by itself. But when talking to another headmate, it feels like there's another thought stream besides yours. It isn't automatic, you both have to put a little effort to keep it going.

 

Back to trying to talk to the tulpa, but facing a clone of them. This is exactly what our host experienced long ago, not exactly by trying to contact us, though. She'd be doing something and then our voices popped up when we were supposedly inactive. This gave her a lot of anxiety, 'if my brain can simulate my tulpas like this, what keeps me from believing it does that all the time and they're not really sentient' so the thoughts kept appearing whenever the topic came up.

 

However, if she tried to keep a conversation with the ''intrusive headmate'', it was able to only say so much before it became obvious it was just an intrusive thought and not us. Asking yes/no questions? sure, easy to simulate. Complex, not one-sided conversations? oopsie, the intrusive thought can't keep up.

 

It's not a coincidence intrusive thoughtforms are practically non-existent when the mind is at peace...

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