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How Powerful is Switching?


TB

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I have struggled to successfully utilize exposure therapy. It is too exhausting to maintain forever, and time doesn't seem to make things better. Being in anxious situations doesn't seem to make it any less anxious for me no matter how many times I experience it

 

It is at that point that I wish my therapist had some sort of advice. They don't seem capable of going beyond just bringing up that exposure therapy is a thing that exists, which googling already presents me. When saying I am not sure how to make it work out and that I struggle with it, they don't seem to have much to say. When I hear about examples of successful therapy, it seems to involve a lot of understanding the client on a deep level and pointing out insights to them to help them learn to work with themselves and finding out actionable strategies and maintaining accountability. When I actually go to therapy myself, it seems like they just cycle through repeating like 3 or 4 basic cbt coping mechanisms like some fortune cookie and shrug when it doesn't work. I really am not sure what the years of university was there for because a basic AI or a google search could do the same thing, it is frustrating.

 

Switching will hopefully be a way to bypass it so life can get started while I figure out what to do, since I don't know how long it will take to heal, and to what degree it is possible in unhealthy environments

Edited by TB

Creation for creation's sake.

 

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I gotta be honest, your therapist just sounds bad at their job. I have never discussed a topic with my therapist where he gave off the impression he "just knew the concept existed". He's always been very well researched. And ironically, he's only in his mid 20s, so it's not like he's some aged veteran of psychology - just good at his job.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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One of the more insightful things I've been told by a person (not a therapist) was that my attempts of exposure therapy end up being aversion therapy and just reinforce my fears, and that exposure therapy has to be done extremely carefully. I wish I knew how to meet a therapist that knew how to help me with that, which is what I thought they were for. I never felt like a therapist has understood me on a deeper level or is able to work with me or help me work with myself in any way. They usually just act like a wall to rant to and then say sympathetic words that don't have anything useful to actually make a solution to a bad situation or problem, then remind me of progressive muscle relaxation and creative visualization for the 30 billionth time and then the hour is over. It is miserable. I can see why many think it is a scam. I guess you really have to get lucky and find a good therapist, but it seems that isn't easy at all. I've been through half a dozen and haven't found one that isn't similar to what I just said or some variant. Currently stuck in a 200 person waiting line to see a new one, so maybe in some several months I'll find the one I need, or they will be the same as the others and I will spend months trying to find another...

 

The best therapist I've had was a group therapist while at day hospital, but she wasn't my personal therapist unfortunately, and my insurance won't pay for me to go to day hospital anymore anyway. They are the only therapist to tell me something insightful that actually felt like a piece to a puzzle of myself.

Creation for creation's sake.

 

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Resident Dojikko

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I guess getting a good therapist really is just luck, or maybe something far more complex like the area you live in and how they teach therapists-to-be there or something

 

(We're pretty off topic by the way)

Edited by Luminesce

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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I guess the question of how powerful is switching has been answered with primarily that it varies based on system, tulpa, and what kind of traits it has to overcome, as far as I understand

 

I guess what I wonder now is if there is any way I can make it as effective as it needs to be so things can change, and to maybe know what blending is and how to know that is happening?

 

I guess I am confused in that I do not know how to tell if I am succeeding in a switch with Rena or if I am blending or something

 

Mirichu seems believe that I am switching I think, but that I am expecting too much, and I should learn to be comfortable with fact Rena may feel a lot of anxiety and perhaps my inhibitions while switched in, I think. I hope I am not misunderstanding or misrepresenting it. The things Ranger has said would also imply this may be the case

 

If this is the case, does everyone else agree as well? Or is it possible I haven't successfully switched and maybe in some weird mixture state where I can't get out enough to stop affecting things? I don't want Rena to have to claim emotions that aren't hers if necessary, and I find it disturbing to think it doesn't appear she has these emotions normally, but simply being in control of my body would force her to have to be that way. It makes switching a huge bummer and makes it difficult to see what is good about it

 

My mind has developed more questions about switching, too, but I wonder if they should be separate threads as to try to avoid cumbersome mega posts with too much to go through in a single place like my past thread, as I feel that may have been unintentionally toxic

Creation for creation's sake.

 

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Resident Dojikko

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What you described about ''feeling like Rena'' sounds like how our switching works so yeah, but you're right in that you're expecting too much from her. Sadly, we don't ''blackout'' so if that's what you want, I am not sure how to help. But we already talked about this.

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On 1/16/2021 at 9:27 PM, TB said:

I guess I am confused in that I do not know how to tell if I am succeeding in a switch with Rena or if I am blending or something

 

Did you write about the experience somewhere and I just missed it? Actually I'm not sure where you're at with Rena since that big thread in December.

Host: YukariTelepath

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2 hours ago, YukariTelepath said:

Did you write about the experience somewhere and I just missed it? Actually I'm not sure where you're at with Rena since that big thread in December.

 

Here are the two posts in my PR related to switching.

 

https://community.tulpa.info/topic/15066-rena-notes/?do=findComment&comment=256759

https://community.tulpa.info/topic/15066-rena-notes/?do=findComment&comment=257072

 

I haven't read them in a long while. Yeah, it appears my first experience with switching was a lot more profound and different than mostly all the others. In that one, I think it seemed I really was dissociated from my anxiety and triggers, thoroughly a different person.

 

Any time I try it now, it is similar to the failed ones of the second post. An uncomfortable sense of Rena being there but being pushed and pulled in the toxic way my mind normally pushes and pulls me, and anxiety and other negative emotions not only occurring, but having a stinging bite to them, where in the first switch, to any extent there was negative emotions, they felt like I (Rena) knew of them but wasn't affected or controlled by them. If that state was true and could be replicated to a strong and consistent degree, it seems like it would be possible to do things that are otherwise impossible. These other switching experiences are miserable though, and would provide no enjoyment for Rena or sense of a break for me, and have little to no application. I can't accept my current attempts to be successes without damaging perhaps both of our psyches and making her no longer know of herself.

 

I would have hoped that my first accidental experience would have been the beginning, and future ones would have been even more surreal and powerful and better, but it seems to have been opposite, and my last two attempts have been perhaps the worst attempts and experiences with it that I have had (which I performed yesterday and today). I do not know what to do about it.

 

It also is hard to believe it was a year and a half ago I first did that. I wish a large portion of the last year+ of my life could be deleted and redone

 

 

Creation for creation's sake.

 

More of my drawings

 

Resident Dojikko

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