Selective somatization?

[Guest]

We've been having horrible somatic symptoms these last months, but it was while Mirichu was fronting. She experienced lots of pains that had no medical explanation (other than somatization), the most obvious one being a constant feeling of suffocation that still persists. However, when I'm fronting, I can breathe perfectly fine, I don't feel like I'm suffocating, and Mirichu was shocked by this. When she switched back in, the feeling of suffocation came back instantly.

 

Can only one headmate experience somatic symptoms? Does anyone else have similar experiences?

[GrayTheCat]

That's really unusual, I'm wondering if it's some kind of imposed symptom or weird sensory experience based on fronting behavior.

 

When I switch in, sometimes I feel a little nausea. I'm thinking it's stress related, but it goes away quickly. On the other hand, I or Ranger can experience a sudden surge of physical anxiety symptoms if one of us switches in anxious.

 

Sometimes I feel pain after Ranger was switched-in and walking with better posture, but I also wonder if I only notice that after I have stood for awhile cooking something. In general, I start to ache from standing around and I get tired easily though.

 

Ranger has observed there's a sensory difference between him possessing the body and him switching with the body. When I full-body possessed Ranger for a single amount of time, I felt really uncomfortable because it didn't feel right to me. Everything felt numb and my train of thought felt clogged. I wonder if it's possible Mirichu is struggling from a sensory absence and imposing a sensory experience or if you are shielded from what Mirichu is experiencing.

 

As another side thought, is Mirichu breathing funny? Is she holding her breath more? At the very least, I tend to feel like I can't get enough air when I'm worried about my breathing. I avoid breathing based meditation for this very reason.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Ranger

[Yakumo]

Hi Miri!

 

Stress can cause the weirdest psychosomatic pains so I'd say them being tied to a headmate is not too implausible. I think quite some people have reported their tulpas suffering significantly less from mental conditions than the host. It always seemed unbelievable to me but hey, so are many things in this world.

 

What does therapist say about this, assuming you're still seeing her?

 

Luckily we're not dealing with anything like that but my pain threshold has significantly increased since doing this. Probably an effect of exercising dissociation plus bleeding from tupper who is very detached from body sensations on purpose. So she experiences strong emotions but little somatic feedback from the body. We're not good at switching so that's all there is to say.

As mentioned, feeling numb or weird is pretty normal but somatic pain is unusual. Hope you find a way to deal with it, I'd guess it's about the underlying stressors. Taking a break from fronting every now and then might help Mirichu, I mean she appears to have shouldered a lot of burdens.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Yakumo

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Yakumo said:

I think quite some people have reported their tulpas suffering significantly less from mental conditions than the host.

 

100% accurate for us. As in, my anxiety, stress, depression, etc had zero effect on any of them, and you remember that we learned to switch precisely by having Ashley or Darlene throw me into watcher position as they deftly handled the situation without a care.

 

As I theorized before, conditioning is imprinted mostly on the one who fronted. It's entirely possible to have trauma as a fronter that doesn't effect non-fronters and from what we heard of others, headmates generally don't inherit prior conditioning.

 

Since your mind is constantly generating this condition, it seems it would affect the fronter and spare the non-fronters, and the effect doesn't seem to be permanent since you (Miri) are now more resistant than Mirichu.

 

The answer, until you figure out the root cause, could be to rotate fronters as it seems you are doing naturally.

 

Good luck on your search.

[Jamie]

Absolutely yes, and although this is a little roundabout/pedantic, you should be glad if a symptom is selective. The more selective it is, even, the more it means it's not deeply emblazed in your genetic code or anything like that. If some of the system can do it/be free of the symptom, the others can learn from them. 

 

Usually it's all about detachment and anxiety levels. Some headmates will be more detached leading to less anxiety leading to less somatization. Or sometimes some headmates will have more fears or be more aware of certain things or more attached to certain traumatic events and neurosis than others. 

 

I just spent like 10 minutes writing out personal examples only to decide I don't want to share, lmao. 

 

I'll say a stupid one is that Gavin has worse jaw pain just because he has the habit of holding tension there. Cassidy has a sensitive tummy moreso than us two and he can't handle spice or very sugary things. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Cat_ShadowGriffin said:

As another side thought, is Mirichu breathing funny? Is she holding her breath more? At the very least, I tend to feel like I can't get enough air when I'm worried about my breathing. I avoid breathing based meditation for this very reason.

 

She worries a lot about her breathing, but even when worrying a lot, sometimes she can breathe, other times she ''can't'', while I always can.

 

46 minutes ago, Yakumo said:

What does therapist say about this, assuming you're still seeing her?

 

She doesn't know yet, we plan on telling her next session.

 

37 minutes ago, Bear said:

Since your mind is constantly generating this condition, it seems it would affect the fronter and spare the non-fronters, and the effect doesn't seem to be permanent since you (Miri) are now more resistant than Mirichu.

 

31 minutes ago, Jamie said:

Usually it's all about detachment and anxiety levels. Some headmates will be more detached leading to less anxiety leading to less somatization. Or sometimes some headmates will have more fears or be more aware of certain things or more attached to certain traumatic events and neurosis than others.

 

I am guessing it could be related to who endured X situation? like a headmate being trauma-free but the other suffering from its consequences I'd assume.

[Reisen]

I think it probably has to do with what she's associated with her "identity" - for example, Tewi's very clear and serious mental state comes with her switching in. That's because she knows it's "her" and subconsciously expects and promotes it while fronting. Same for various interests of ours, feelings about things or activities and all - it's all part of what we call our "identities", the collections of all the stuff in our brain that comes with "us".

 

I don't think it's very hard at all to associate various kinds of stress or mental habits with your "identity". Just the subconscious expectation that you will now be worrying about or experiencing something when switched will do it. And while working on yourself to change these things is generally the answer, and makes sense with our "identity" model, it's not at all a tulpamancy-related phenomenon and is in fact just how all people work. But, being able to see yourself versus not-yourself in your same brain helps you get a handle on the parts of "you" that can change, at least.

 

So yeah, I don't know exactly what to tell you guys to do, just that you can both absolutely change these associations with yourselves, as well as aspects of yourselves if you work at it. Hopefully, just knowing that the symptoms are self-enforced through expectation is at least a start to figuring out how to deal with them and make them go away.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Reisen

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Miri said:

I am guessing it could be related to who endured X situation?

 

That's my theory anyway.

 

In our case, they were able to train me to overcome certain things through exposure therapy without me having to suffer the exposure. That's a neat trick.