Unable to make any progress on tulpa after 9 years (ADHD)

[Thaki]

Hello,

I've known about tulpas for quite some time now and ever since i first found out about them i knew it was something special. I set out reading all the guides, interacting with the community, on the IRC's, Discord (but i have only lurked on forums), etc and even by chance met another person irl who has a tulpa (cool coincidence). I've been forcing on an off for the past 9 years, and pretty much never went for too long without at least thinking about tulpas. 

I have an ADHD diagnosis and constantly have intrusive thoughts, and pretty poor control of directing them. Visualisation skills are really good (i guess), but i can't focus whatsoever, or have any sort of meaningful conversation. All my attempts to talk with my tulpa are basically along the lines of "Hi....uh.....i am breathing.....nice weather today.....i am not hungry currently.....uh lets see what else...." like i am mechanically just trying to think of things to say as if its an awkward date, never getting into the flow, and then at most 30 seconds later my train of thought goes somewhere else completely and i forget i was even forcing. Actually maybe its better that it's not sentient (or at least never got the slightest hint of it), because with these sort of conversations it probably wouldn't be very developed. You can imagine how frustrating it is to want to do this for so long, but being unable to forget it and move on either, i have to succeed at this point. 

I wonder how negative of an effect the forcing being spread out over such a long time produces, but jesus the effort to do even this much is big already. I tried setting schedules and making myself say things, but my brain just feels like its grinding gears out of defiance. My latest is just going to the beach where there's less things that could distract me, but just on its own the thoughts drift away and i forget im supposed to be forcing at all. Maybe my style of thinking is just incompatible with "dialogueing" with someone and i just zone out. I think the hardest part is the fact there is no reply, so there is always a feeling of monologue. So if i ask a question, i have to either move on without an answer making the question meaningless, or i have to answer it myself, risking parroting as well.

Despite my good visualisation skills, i cant even "decide" on a form, and feel bad that i should determine and force it upon a tulpa at all, so i left it up to the tulpa (but if you leave the from and personality blank in the hopes it will fill on its own wishes, then you arent even. Besides, i get random violent intrusive thoughts so it's kind of scary to visualise anyway, its pretty distressing.

I live in a shithole EU country without even any good ADHD meds licensed, and doctors who either deny it exists or only perscribe benzos, anticolvusants, and sleeping pills for ADHD. I was thinking i should move out to some other country so i can hopefully improve my mental state enough to be functional. I dont know, i guess its more of a frustrated post, im just confused why is this so complicated. I see creation posts on the timeline of weeks to months, but over 100 months with not the slightest hint of anything? I feel like a tourist every time i visit the community because im unable to be a part of it so to speak, and members before have been surprised at this surreal timeframe it took to accomplish nothing. Maybe its just survivor bias and the people who make it in weeks/months stick around and these are the ones you see. Maybe most people fail and move on and i just happen to be unable to give up on the idea, so i seem like an anomaly. To the tulpas on here, what factor of forcing was the most important in "giving sentience"? Interacting by visualisation in wonderland? Narration? Personality building? Just the abstract concept of the host thinking you're sentient while doing anything? Ok...sorry for the long post i guess, i hope i'm not breaking any rules. I just decided i'm tired of frustratingly being stuck in the same spot and need to undertake more measures, any measures, because i dont even know what im doing wrong but it clearly must be something. 

[Glaurung26]

Hi! Sorry that you're having trouble. Maybe rather than trying to wing it you can write your thoughts down. I think the stressing out over it could potentially block your attempts. It's one of those silly Zen things of doing something by not "trying" to do it. I've had more luck with the natural growth style. Just sifting through what comes to me. Quieting my mind and just listening. You don't have to sit cross-legged on a mountain top in nothing but a robe to meditate. Just find an activity to busy yourself or something that relaxes you and just imagine welcoming a friend over for snacks, games, movies, tea whatever. Someone might show up! Think about about what kind of tulpa you want. Personality, appearance, whatever and write it down. Come back to it on another day and make any changes you want. Then a third day. Then a fourth day. If your thoughts keep running away write them down. Tether them. Write stories and see if certain characters keep popping up. Let go of the expectations and the timelines. That's just contributing to your stress. Just do the work and let it happen in its own time. It's natural to get frustrated just don't cling to it and let it rule you. If you're having a hard time with conversation topics then talk about whatever pops into your mind. How was your day? Movies/games/events your excited for? Find something to debate about. Vent about your work/friends/family. Just do you. Some Tulpas like to listen. They're just as unsure as you are. Give them something to work with. If you can't keep it in your mind, just write fun ideas to talk about as you think of them. Sentience is a thing that's going to have to grow over interaction (probably). It's going to be specific to you and your tulpa when that happens. Make them feel welcome and at home and they'll keep coming back. If the intrusive thoughts are a thorn in your side check out the topics on them, sharing your situation if need be. Lots of folks here are willing to help.

[Lucilyn]

Lumi wrote a post recently on the basic facts of how tulpa creation starts, which miight help you? But first I want to say that, for someone who's tried so long, you really don't have to make a tulpa, you know? Having a tulpa doesn't fill any needs in life that something else (or someone else) can't, there's lots of other things you can do even in the realm of self-help or such like journaling, or if tulpamancy isn't working out, even just imagining scenarios and stuff - there's also always the chance that accepting "I'm just going to imagine talking to someone(s) with no expectations for them to be individually autonomous", with time, ends up making a tulpa lol (but it could also permanently feel like you're "responsible" for what they're saying too)

 

But! if you still want to keep trying, here's my host's post talking about initial vocality

  

On 7/23/2021 at 11:01 PM, Luminesce said:

I do think that's the hardest part of tulpamancy. Some people somehow just accomplish vocality pretty quick and go from there, but they're very lucky. Even in our case, after spending months of focusing on Reisen and really feeling like she was there, she still couldn't really talk. My first tulpa to talk was either Flandre or Tewi (I don't remember this time in my life super well), and that was only because I had already set the precedent in my mind for another person to exist with Reisen - but she still couldn't talk yet, and it was one of the other two who just kind of appeared that talked first. Later on, they told me it was me stopping her from talking, because I was too scared she wouldn't be "perfect" if she talked in a way other than mindvoice/feelings. Weird quirk, but the point is, like basically everyone else struggling with vocality, it was pretty much my fault as the host for not accepting my tulpa being able to talk, out of fear of it not being real enough.

 

Unless you're one of the lucky ones, first-vocality is by far the hardest part of the tulpamancy process. That's because your brain hasn't learned how to have a tulpa yet, and your tulpa is (most likely) not going to sound exactly like themselves, fully separate and obviously different from your own thoughts. At the start, they'll sound similar to you, and that's why host doubt is so crippling to the process. Your tulpa needs practice talking, being treated and accepted as being themselves actually saying things, in order for your brain to start building upon that. Then they start to gain skill with vocality, develop their own voice over time, and eventually (the timespan varies immensely by person of course) their voice is so obviously theirs and separate from yours, you could wonder how you ever doubted them.

 

But I think people tend to forget how hard it can be, right at the start. Looking back, one might think, just let your tulpa talk! Stop doubting them! But, that's because they're used to their tulpa having an obvious, separate mindvoice from their own. That's often not how it is. Your tulpa may well start out sounding very similar to your own thoughts or voice, and it may feel like you're speaking for them if you try to accredit that speaking to them.

 

But I assure you, this is how the process has to start. Your brain needs a basis for "Your tulpa's voice/speaking" - once it has a basis for what to even focus on, and what the goal is, then it can start creating the (mind)voice of another person. You tell it, "That's not me, that's my tulpa, trying to talk to me" - and your brain starts forming this new experience. Eventually, their vocality is fully developed - and creating another tulpa is often significantly easier now that your brain understands the concepts already - and it'll never even cross your mind to doubt "if it was them" speaking. But unfortunately, to get there many people will have to go through that very doubtful phase. Just keep in mind your goal, and your desired outcome, when interacting. You want to hear your tulpa, you want your brain to clearly present the two of you as totally separate people. It might not know how at first, but allowing it practice while keeping your desired outcome in mind should be enough to shape the experience into existence.

 

[Etna]

You may benefit from going about it from a completely different directions. I'm honestly not sure I could manage to do the "traditional" way of forcing and getting a Tulpa that way, for reasons similar to you. I don't have an official ADHD diagnosis, but it's safe to say I fit the criteria very well, so I know where you're coming from with the troubles you're having. Granted, when I started I had no idea about Tulpas, and therefore didn't know what was happening, but perhaps it's an approach that might work for you as well?

 

tl;dr: Create a Tulpa by deliberately not trying to create a Tulpa. Instead, focus on creating a character you'd enjoy spending time with. Hyperfocus on them for however long you need and do passive forcing to until they become second nature and leap off the page - i.e. create a Soulbond.

 

Long version:

 

What I did was to create a character. He was created for a tabletop roleplaying game, and normally I don't put much effort into their backstories, because frankly it's never been that important to the games we've been playing. And at the beginning the same went for this guy. Then one of the other players and I got into plotting out their backstories, as the player characters are all related and very close. We started figuring out why they were so close, who their families were, where they came from, and who our characters were. Basically, we started writing backstories for them to get to know our characters better. Suddenly they had a past that really shaped who they had become. They had hopes and dreams and personalities. I wrote about what actually happened during a pivotal moment in his past, and from there we even ended up basically writing fanfic about our own characters! And in doing that, we got to know them even better.

 

After a particularly troublesome roleplaying session, I felt like I couldn't concentrate (not like that's entirely unusual, all things considered 😅) because my character was a bundle of anxious energy in my head. (Normally my RPG characters and their issues only bother me while I'm actually playing them, not days afterwards. That should have perhaps been the first clue something was different.) I thought back to The Sopranos and thought maybe my character could do with seeing a therapist as well, so I started writing conversations between the two of us, me acting as his therapist, where we hashed out what was bothering him. After I started doing that is when he became an almost constant presence in my head. We'd talk about food, we'd discuss scenes we thought would be interesting to do, theorise about what was happening in the game, and so on.

 

I've also been reading everything I come across that relates to him and his life: his part of town, its history, local landmarks, where his parents come from, their culture and traditions, food and drink, language, music, time period (clothing, architecture, technology, design, historical events) ... ADHDers tend to hyperfocus, and it can be both a blessing and a curse. In this case, it can be used to your advantage! This also depends on the character you go for, of course. Some come with more opportunities for hyperfocusing than others, and in my case the character concept came from the game's setting. Like, if you create a character from the same town and time period as you, that doesn't lend itself to hyperfocus as much as if it's someone from a town/region/country you've never been to, a culture you're unfamiliar with, and a specific time period. (And oh boy did a lot of stuff happen in the 1920s in the USA!)

 

By the time I was introduced to the subject of Tulpas, I (unsurprisingly) soon discovered I already had one. I had never sat down and done any active forcing to achieve him, but I had spent over six months passively forcing him without realising that's actually what I was doing! So maybe a similar approach might work for you? As in, create a character you like as a person and hyperfocus on everything related to them to the point where you start writing down conversations. You're not waiting for a Tulpa to present themselves, so you don't have to wait for a reply, you're only writing down a conversation between yourself and the character you've created, like writers and roleplayers often do with their characters. (You can find long lists of "questions to ask your character" online. I've always got stuck trying to answer them before.) So by the time you come to the "talking to them" stage, you already know who they are, so you're not trying to pluck stuff from thin air, if that makes sense?

 

After realising he was a Tulpa, we have been doing things more deliberately to increase the Tulpa/Host bond. Instead of trying to figure out scenes and such limited to the game/writing, we talk to each other about all kinds of things. We also watch TV together - he was especially fond of the therapy sessions when we watched The Sopranos! 😉

 

Admittedly, it will probably work best if you're into creative writing or roleplaying, because it really helps when you hyperfocus on them. But yeah, those are my two (very long) cents. Don't try to create a Tulpa, but instead create a character you enjoy finding out more about, and hyperfocus on them and use passive forcing until they become a Soulbond.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Etna

[neo]

5 hours ago, Thaki said:

and then at most 30 seconds later my train of thought goes somewhere else completely and i forget i was even forcing

I had a similar problem, my fix for that was to write down the objective of the exercise and then use a TTS with a voice that isn't too annoying to remind me of what I was doing. Like you can record it and set it to loop from time to time on the headphones. It's very freeing, it allows you to not worry about keeping track of the objective constantly and just relax. 

[mattx]

The community has always made tulpaforcing a bigger deal than what it actually is.

You're not supposed to do anything fancy, if you want steady progress just integrate your tulpa into your daily life.

Whenever something happens, I immediately get a response from her and we start talking about it, it's almost like having a companion/assistant with you 24/7.

[Ice909]

Good point, Matt. 

 

I must admit, I'm the anomaly. I'm diagnosed ADHD and yet initially making Esper was shockingly easy. Before the day was even half way through, he was vocal. Unfortunately this natural affinity more-less led to an inflated system size, though that's besides the point. 

 

To Matt's point, tulpaforcing is made to be a bigger deal than it is. Let's dive into that statement, though. There are many different types of forcing, both passive and active, but in my experience both personally and in helping others, narrating seems to be most effective. Instead of trying to have a conversation to your tulpa fledgling, try to simply describe what's going on. Your surroundings, what people are doing, what you're doing, what you're thinking, why you're thinking that, why you think others are doing the things they're doing, etc. Mentally talk to the would-be tulpa, almost like you're narrating a first-person book and the tup is your audience. 

 

It will take some getting used to, but I think it's tremendously effective. Try to really shift your thought process from "I am thinking" to "I am thinking in tulpa's general direction." Mind voice is just the way you think. Direct those thoughts to the tulpa. It'll take some getting used to, but perhaps when used in conjunction with some of the above methods(ie, use some sort of TTS thing to remind you what you're to be doing), it'll put you on the right track :) 

 

Remember-- We're all here to help. Always have been, always will be. If you haven't been discouraged after 9 years of trying, I believe you will be able to see it through. 

 

Best, 

Bryan, Host of System Re:Body 

[Illupepsi]

I agree that the whole creation process can be made out to be more complicated than it really is. The most important thing in my opinion is to just keep your tulpas presence in mind as much as possible and talk to them all throughout the day. The more you acknowledge your tulpas presence and talk to them, the more they will grow. It really doesn’t matter what you talk about, especially early on. Make your tulpa want to tell you to shut up some, or maybe they’ll enjoy endless rambling, who knows. I just feel as though narration is a very important thing to focus on. It’s what helped us out the most. There was a decent amount of time where we did no active forcing and just chatted throughout the day, since I basically didn’t have the energy to active force. But since I was still giving my tulpa attention and talked with her, everything turned out fine. 
 

I completely understand having terrible attention and losing focus though. I know my attention is still awful and it took a bit for the feeling of forgetting to narrate and awkward conversations while doing it to fully go away. I’m not sure what would help you with fixing your attention issues, but I do feel like attempting to get past and narrate more often that would be a huge help to making progress. I wish you good luck with your progress! 

[Thaki]

Thank you for the replies everyone, there's actually some pretty great ideas here. I've been reading the thread in chunks the past 3 days, i've been struggling because i just read a couple of sentences over and over and forget what i was reading before that and so it was pretty slow to process it all up to now.  There's a lot of different approaches mentioned in the thread that i have to digest and think about how i could implement them in my life.  It's pretty overwhelming to reply to everything and it took me 2 days to write this reply even though it doesn't seem like much, but i'll try to reply to some parts

On 8/6/2021 at 5:59 PM, Glaurung26 said:

Hi! Sorry that you're having trouble. Maybe rather than trying to wing it you can write your thoughts down. I think the stressing out over it could potentially block your attempts. It's one of those silly Zen things of doing something by not "trying" to do it. I've had more luck with the natural growth style. Just sifting through what comes to me. Quieting my mind and just listening. You don't have to sit cross-legged on a mountain top in nothing but a robe to meditate. Just find an activity to busy yourself or something that relaxes you and just imagine welcoming a friend over for snacks, games, movies, tea whatever. Someone might show up! Think about about what kind of tulpa you want. Personality, appearance, whatever and write it down. Come back to it on another day and make any changes you want. Then a third day. Then a fourth day. If your thoughts keep running away write them down. Tether them. Write stories and see if certain characters keep popping up. Let go of the expectations and the timelines. That's just contributing to your stress. Just do the work and let it happen in its own time. It's natural to get frustrated just don't cling to it and let it rule you. If you're having a hard time with conversation topics then talk about whatever pops into your mind. How was your day? Movies/games/events your excited for? Find something to debate about. Vent about your work/friends/family. Just do you. Some Tulpas like to listen. They're just as unsure as you are. Give them something to work with. If you can't keep it in your mind, just write fun ideas to talk about as you think of them. Sentience is a thing that's going to have to grow over interaction (probably). It's going to be specific to you and your tulpa when that happens. Make them feel welcome and at home and they'll keep coming back. If the intrusive thoughts are a thorn in your side check out the topics on them, sharing your situation if need be. Lots of folks here are willing to help.

Trying to make it less of a formal conversation and more spontaneous might decrease the distress and move better than when i force forcing is what im gathering out of it. Not a bad idea, this is making me evaluate more about how i (host) operate as well, what are my capacities for these things and such...interesting stuff.

On 8/6/2021 at 6:47 PM, Lucilyn said:

Lumi wrote a post recently on the basic facts of how tulpa creation starts, which miight help you? But first I want to say that, for someone who's tried so long, you really don't have to make a tulpa, you know? Having a tulpa doesn't fill any needs in life that something else (or someone else) can't, there's lots of other things you can do even in the realm of self-help or such like journaling, or if tulpamancy isn't working out, even just imagining scenarios and stuff - there's also always the chance that accepting "I'm just going to imagine talking to someone(s) with no expectations for them to be individually autonomous", with time, ends up making a tulpa lol (but it could also permanently feel like you're "responsible" for what they're saying too)

 

But! if you still want to keep trying, here's my host's post talking about initial vocality

  

 

Yeah...i know i dont have to, and im not filling any "need" per se  (i.e some sort of coping mechanism (althought i have considered, could it make coping with ADHD easier if a tulpa helps keep you on track with tasks? etc) but the concept just really appeals and interests me. Could you split the workload and do multi-threading in your brain? Follow more things at once? Have an internal checker for everything you do? A faithful ally? Could it awaken more interesting thoughts? Could it act as a proxy to the subconscious? Maybe i could even have multiple, hyper-specialised ones, that do particular functions far better than I as a host could. Of course i don't want it to sound as "tulpas as a tool" kind of thing, absolutely im also interested in the companionship aspect, but im just thinking about the possibilities. I feel like not being a system is a somewhat limited mode of being but simply the default because of lack of awareness of the concept. But i would have to see first hand, which is why i dont think i'll ever stop trying. 

Lumi's post is also good, to think that i shouldn't be looking for something clearly differentiated from my own internal voice at first, and to doubt less. I remember Lumi and Reisen, i think replying to her thread was one of the first (any only) posts i posted on this forum, way back in 2014-2015. Then i saw some thread with someone trying to make a tulpa of their mom, trap it into a crystal, and then jerk off on the crystal or something and i stopped going to the forums.. 

On 8/6/2021 at 7:28 PM, Etna said:

 

tl;dr: Create a Tulpa by deliberately not trying to create a Tulpa. Instead, focus on creating a character you'd enjoy spending time with. Hyperfocus on them for however long you need and do passive forcing to until they become second nature and leap off the page - i.e. create a Soulbond.

[...]

After a particularly troublesome roleplaying session, I felt like I couldn't concentrate (not like that's entirely unusual, all things considered 😅) because my character was a bundle of anxious energy in my head. (Normally my RPG characters and their issues only bother me while I'm actually playing them, not days afterwards. That should have perhaps been the first clue something was different.) I thought back to The Sopranos and thought maybe my character could do with seeing a therapist as well, so I started writing conversations between the two of us, me acting as his therapist, where we hashed out what was bothering him. After I started doing that is when he became an almost constant presence in my head. We'd talk about food, we'd discuss scenes we thought would be interesting to do, theorise about what was happening in the game, and so on.

 

 

That's pretty interesting, it's another thing to consider. I think this would be a pretty good and organic way of doing that, if one had the capacity for it. Thanks for the idea

 

On 8/7/2021 at 12:13 AM, IceCreeper909 said:

Instead of trying to have a conversation to your tulpa fledgling, try to simply describe what's going on. Your surroundings, what people are doing, what you're doing, what you're thinking, why you're thinking that, why you think others are doing the things they're doing, etc. Mentally talk to the would-be tulpa, almost like you're narrating a first-person book and the tup is your audience. 

 

It will take some getting used to, but I think it's tremendously effective. Try to really shift your thought process from "I am thinking" to "I am thinking in tulpa's general direction." Mind voice is just the way you think. Direct those thoughts to the tulpa.

That's sort of to what my forcing has resorted to, after i couldnt have a "formal conversation" i would just end up "thinking" but with a focus on there's a presence here, there's a tulpa listening to me. But yeah, i dont know, i feel like at least some part in some way i have overcomplicated. Probably my condition and thought flow and everything just made things more complicated but it's good to have a reminder to put things into perspective and not get too hung of on guides and such.

Im reading the answers to this survey now to see what really helped and detrimented the progress of different people's tulpa's  

 

[Etna]

5 hours ago, Thaki said:

Yeah...i know i dont have to, and im not filling any "need" per se  (i.e some sort of coping mechanism (althought i have considered, could it make coping with ADHD easier if a tulpa helps keep you on track with tasks? etc) but the concept just really appeals and interests me.

 

I can't answer to the multi-threading and such, because I'm not sure we're doing that yet or not, but he does help to keep me on track by giving me mental nudges. "How about getting dressed? That'll make you feel better." "It's 2am now, you should really go to bed." "You wanted to achieve X today, should we maybe get started on that now instead of scrolling through Facebook again?" And like a lot of people, I find it easier to get housework done if someone's there with me ("body doubling" as it's called) and he helps with that. And he doesn't mind me being scatter-brained either. 😅 But right now he's pointing out what time it is, so I will stop procrastinating going to bed and actually do so.