SOS: ways to stop forcing for a bit without damaging your tulpa

[lotusick]

hi. i need a break from forcing zelda. i know this sounds cruel, especially with how vocal she’s become in the last few days… but i recently discovered i was seven weeks pregnant. i had never been more overjoyed, or scared, in my life. 

 

i don’t have a stable job, i’m trying to get into college, hell, i’m not even twenty yet. but i was happy, lovingly calling my unborn child “chicken pot pie”, because i could only imagine just how small my little baby was. until yesterday. 
 

i had so much hope for this baby— i was going to be a mother… i didn’t tell anyone about chicken pot pie yet, not even the father, because i knew that there was still a chance i could lose them— i did.

 

i don’t intend to give up on zelda, i only need a month long break to recover from this… but i don’t want to damage her progress. i just can’t force like this… i’m still heart broken.

 

is there a way i can take a break without hurting her in any way?  

[Luminesce]

Oh, that's awful - that was a roller coaster. Don't feel bad at all about anything you have to do for yourself here.

 

You probably don't need to worry about "hurting" Zelda by taking a break. People tend to say tulpas never really fully disappear, which while a subjective not-always-true statement, is referring to the true statement that a tulpa is less like a person that will die if they don't eat for a couple weeks, and is moreso a whole bunch of neural connections in your brain. They can get stronger or weaker with use or disuse, but it's very difficult for those connections to disappear entirely, especially the stronger they've become at any given point. Think of old nostalgic memories that get blurrily pulled back up (and then refreshed/strengthened) when experiencing their origin again later in life.

 

A tulpa like one of mine is with me probably for life, or at the very least could go a decade or two completely inactive and still be brought back by doing all the things we did to develop them in the first place. My tulpas being around 13 years old at this point (although I think they've qualified for this statement for 5+ years now)

Other tulpas will of course vary from being weeks old to months or a couple years. Basically interpolate the relative times according to how long they'd be inactive for. I think a few-weeks tulpa could maintain their same general feeling/sense of self for anywhere from a few months to a year or so depending on just how strong of a presence they'd gained in your mind, how strong the connections that make them up are. Basically, the better you know them, the less likely your brain will forget them.

 

So for you guys, that should be a clear "OK" to take a break for as long as you need. A few days' break may have no noticeable effect, a few weeks' may require just a session or two of interacting again to bring back their vocal clarity (and maybe your visualization clarity, if that tends to fade for you - if you can even visualize in the first place), and months+ I think you just enter the wide gray zone of "You'll probably need to ~develop ("force") them again the same way you did to begin with, but it should be easier and faster than the first time". I think it really does take a long time to leave that zone and get to "They might not feel the same as they used to after this point", though I would say not to worry so much about that - our own brains are growing and changing over time, and it might not even make sense for an old tulpa to be how they were back then anymore.

So for sure, all in all, don't worry about it at all. And if you really want to prevent as much short-term-progress regression as possible, you can easily spend just a minute or two every so often talking to your tulpa, and that alone will slow down the process or even stop it entirely. But, the overall takeaway is pretty much "Tulpas shouldn't ever become harder to 'bring back' than they were to create"

Edited October 9, 2023 by Luminesce

[Guest]

Thoughtforms really don't degrade that much if you don't force them, so relax. Also, congratulations!

[lotusick]

2 minutes ago, Ashley said:

Thoughtforms really don't degrade that much if you don't force them, so relax. Also, congratulations!

on my miscarriage…?

[Luminesce]

(She missed four very quick but important letters in your post, "- I did", I had to reread that myself at first because there was so much behind those quick 4 letters)

[Guest]

2 hours ago, lotusick said:

on my miscarriage…?

 

Oh whoops, I totally read that wrong, I thought you said you got pregnant and were taking time off to let that set in. Sorry I totally mis-read that one. Then I thought you were talking about potentially losing your tulpa and so... big reading comprehension issue on my part.

 

I suppose it makes a lot more sense now that Lumi started with "that's awful." We were distracted during reading your post in the worst possible way.

 

So, don't worry about the tulpa, just mourn and I totally agree with what you want to do. I'm sorry you had to go through that it's awful.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Ashley