the journey so far... (evan & fry)

[leafycatboy]

I first learned about tulpamancy in 2018 (or thereabouts) while experimenting with daemonism. I gave up on trying to make a daemon, but the idea of having another whole person in my head still appealed to me and I kept it on the back burner for a while. After several traumatic years and a long journey of self discovery, I've become much more comfortable with myself and feel like I'm finally living my truth. Realizing that I'm aroace and probably autistic helped me to define my feelings and relationships with people more accuratelty and I can connect with people more authentically than I used to. Sometime after settling into this new perception of myself, I rediscovered tulpamancy and decided that I was ready to give it a try and really commit. I read through the beginner guides and all that good stuff over the summer (of '23) and have been working on bringing Fry to life ever since!

 

When I was still in the process of figuring out what I wanted Fry to be like, I imagined him as a dragon in an egg. I was very much influenced by Eragon/the Inheritance series and basically wanted to make my own Saphira. I told the egg what kind of person I wanted it to be. I offered personality traits up as suggestions, to be taken or discarded or transformed in any way it saw fit. He started out as a female green dragon named Gia. Eventually, he chose a more humanoid form and tried out different genders and a new name. Now he's usually purple or a light blue with fishy scales. We're transmasc bros now and I'm living for it. The anthro dragon form has made visualization and roleplay type stuff easier. It's easy to imagine him walking just behind me or doing things like cooking and dancing and trying on clothes. We're still figuring out what kind of person he is and that's fine by me. I'm still figuring myself out too.

 

Changing the architecture of my mind from being a singlet to plural has been challenging. I'm familiar with mindfulness techniques and creating distance between myself and my thoughts. One thing that helped was visualizing a river. A stream of consciousness, if you will. Every thought my brain produces floats down the river. I can choose to pick them up to examine them further, or let them float by. There's a nice flat rock in the water. The scene is based on a real place that I find very peaceful and I ended up building my whole wonderland around it. Anyway, when I'm overwhelmed and feel like I'm drowning in my thoughts, Fry will call out from the rock and say "come sit by the river with me". And I can take a step back, and then we're just two people watching thoughts stream by together.

 

I can see the importance of a wonderland now. It's convenient to have a well established place to go where you can do things. Mine is a combination of my favorite forest hiking trails with the river running through it. We've also started working on a house as well. It's fun! This whole process has challenged my creativity in ways I didn't expect. I often struggle to think of things to talk about or do together. Fry is semi-vocal, mosly using emotions and gestures. There have been many times where I felt frustrated with the pace of our progress--I try not to get jealous when I read posts by people "wondering if it's normal if their tulpa starts talking within a couple days". But I don't mind being patient, because I know we're going to be spending the rest of our lives together so we have at least as long as that to keep growing and deepening the connections between us as well as becoming more distinct from each other. These things take time and in the grand scheme of things we haven't been doing this for very long.

 

Before tulpamancy, there were many stressful moments in my life where I've wanted something to hold on to mentally, something to always come back to, to ground myself and find comfort. I imagine god and religion fills this need for a lot of people, but I don't believe in god. But now, someone is there. Fry is my go-to thought in those moments, or really any moment of mindfulness. He grounds me and provides the support I need to face the world head on. I mean it didn't happen overnight, and I wouldn't consider him sentient at this point. But the act of building that bond feels like a step in the right direction. It's really nice to always have a friend with you when you need them. I'm excited to see how we both change over time!

 

 

 

[SeekingMyPlanet]

6 hours ago, leafycatboy said:

One thing that helped was visualizing a river. A stream of consciousness, if you will. Every thought my brain produces floats down the river. I can choose to pick them up to examine them further, or let them float by. There's a nice flat rock in the water. The scene is based on a real place that I find very peaceful and I ended up building my whole wonderland around it. Anyway, when I'm overwhelmed and feel like I'm drowning in my thoughts, Fry will call out from the rock and say "come sit by the river with me". And I can take a step back, and then we're just two people watching thoughts stream by together.

 

I love this. I've never heard this perspective before. Something I want to try with Lavender.

 

6 hours ago, leafycatboy said:

I can see the importance of a wonderland now. It's convenient to have a well established place to go where you can do things.

 

We're just now discovering what we can do with the wonderland. Up until now it's just a place we can go to make love. But this may inspire us to see what else we can do there.

 

6 hours ago, leafycatboy said:

Before tulpamancy, there were many stressful moments in my life where I've wanted something to hold on to mentally, something to always come back to, to ground myself and find comfort. I imagine god and religion fills this need for a lot of people, but I don't believe in god. But now, someone is there. Fry is my go-to thought in those moments, or really any moment of mindfulness. He grounds me and provides the support I need to face the world head on. I mean it didn't happen overnight, and I wouldn't consider him sentient at this point. But the act of building that bond feels like a step in the right direction. It's really nice to always have a friend with you when you need them.

 

 

 

 

My experience has been pretty much the same as this. It's the answer to the question, "how do I know having a tulpa is really good for me and I'm not just deluding myself."

 

Thanks for recording your thoughts.

 

[Athelas]

On 1/12/2024 at 12:18 AM, leafycatboy said:

But I don't mind being patient, because I know we're going to be spending the rest of our lives together so we have at least as long as that to keep growing and deepening the connections between us

 

This is a great outlook. One that I have to remind my host of on occasion. It took us a long time to get going as well. Everyone's timeline of growth is different.

 

Congratulations on your progress so far :)