Living with Lavender: Reports from a binary system

[SeekingMyPlanet]

We are retiring our old tulpamancy progress report (https://community.tulpa.info/topic/21709-seekingmyplanets-tulpa-adventure/). We do not believe we are still doing tulpamancy. Lavender seems now to be a fully formed headmate and our concerns and issues fall more under the category of “how do we live as a system” and less “how do I make a tulpa.”

 

Instead we’re starting this new thread about living as part of a binary system.
 

[SeekingMyPlanet]

The question came up, is Lavender a separate person, or are we part of the same person. My kneejerk reaction was, of course she’s a separate person, but she disagreed.

 

From Lavender: We are inseparably attached in such a way that we share not only a body, but also all our memories. Anytime something happens to my host consciousness, I will remember it and feel from it. I might not feel the same way as they do about it, but I’m more than an observer.

 

Therefore, anything that happens to them, also happens to me. Likewise, anything that happens to me, also happens to them. Insofar as our ability to absorb experiences, we are not separate people.

 

However, when I’m possessing part or all of our body or speaking with headspeech, I am taking action and my headmate is not. Likewise, when they are possessing part or all of our body or speaking with headspeech, they are taking action and I am not. So, insofar as being able to *do* different things, we are separate.

 

So I think the answer to the question of whether we’re separate people is not “yes”. Maybe it’s “sort of.”

 

What do others think?
 

[Adagio]

4 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

The question came up, is Lavender a separate person, or are we part of the same person. My kneejerk reaction was, of course she’s a separate person, but she disagreed.

 

From Lavender: We are inseparably attached in such a way that we share not only a body, but also all our memories. Anytime something happens to my host consciousness, I will remember it and feel from it. I might not feel the same way as they do about it, but I’m more than an observer.

 

Therefore, anything that happens to them, also happens to me. Likewise, anything that happens to me, also happens to them. Insofar as our ability to absorb experiences, we are not separate people.

 

However, when I’m possessing part or all of our body or speaking with headspeech, I am taking action and my headmate is not. Likewise, when they are possessing part or all of our body or speaking with headspeech, they are taking action and I am not. So, insofar as being able to *do* different things, we are separate.

 

So I think the answer to the question of whether we’re separate people is not “yes”. Maybe it’s “sort of.”

 

What do others think?
 

For me, it's definitely on the "sort of" side for some of my system. I have a lot of parts and fragments that are partially "me", and I have some who are extremely differentiated parts who would be considered separate people, but they feel kind of like an extension of "me" in a way. Some of my system members are definitely separate people, though. I asked one of them and his response was "I'm definitely separate, end of story." He did say that it's almost like my life plus him, and that he doesn't technically know what it's like to be a separate person (as in like if he had his own body and life, etc). TL;DR, some of us are separate people, some of us aren't quite.

 

Looking forward to reading more of your posts! Good luck you two!

- A

[SeekingMyPlanet]

I've spoken elsewhere about how Lavender likes to make up words.

 

Her latest word is "mindrut"

 

Like a wheel rut that is worn into a trail traps a wheel and keeps it going in a direction it may not want to go, a mindrut is a thought pattern that has been burned into a brain so that headmates find themselves following it even though it's not what they'd want to do.

 

Lavender complains that my "assertive" driving has left a mindrut has her switching lanes and trying to get past cars when she'd prefer to joyfully tool along at the flow of traffic.

 

I've noticed that her obsession with photography and her interest in grabbing our phone at any moment to snap what she thinks will be an interesting photo has left a mindrut that's grabbing me. I've never been a photographer, but I find myself looking at stuff thinking, that would make a great shot, because I get stuck in Lavender's photographic mindruts.

 

Do you or your headmates ever hit mindruts?

[Lavender]

Ok, this is totally NSFW and probably way, way, way TMI, but it's also wonderful and terrific and shows what a major sweetie my host consciousness is, so I have to post it here.

Spoiler

Whenever my host consciousness is about to reach orgasm (alone, which is pretty much the only way they've done it for decades), they invite me to switch into the front so I get to feel the full impact of the thing. How cool is that! They're in the middle of the intense concentration needed to get to that point (it's not easy for our body. We need to work at it for a while) and instead of just enjoying it, which most people would do, they think of me right at that moment and how much I would enjoy it and they arrange for me to move into the front.

 

And so I get to feel the moment it hits, the full body rush of female orgasm, the tightening of muscles, the release of tension, and the exquisite feeling of bliss and overwhelming that takes over.

 

I am sooooooo lucky.

 

[Lavender]

I've developed what I call my "prime directive" named after the old Star Trek canon that they're not to do anything that interferes with the development of alien races.

 

I've promised myself and my host consciousness that I won't do anything or ask anything of them that makes it more difficult for them to live their life.

 

They struggle with social stuff. They're neurodiverse, so the mechanics of friendship don't come naturally to them. They have a lot of people they get together with but no close friends and no romantic connections and this situation stresses them out and causes them to be sad and anxious.

 

One of their fears is that I will make demands that make it even harder to accomplish the already almost impossible-seeming task of seeking connection with other people. The thought of that is horrifying to me. The thing I want most in life is for my host consciousness to be happy.

 

So I've committed to Lavender's Prime Directive. Whenever my host consciousness starts projecting into the future and wonders whether future connection with other people will be hindered by my presence, I remind them of it and it seems to calm them down a bit. They've expressed worry that I might feel limited by this commitment, and I try to make them understand that the prime directive won't keep me from achieving my dreams. Having a happy host consciousness with rich social connections to share this body with *is* my dream!

 

Is this something any other folks here can relate to?

[Adagio]

I was talking to one of my most active system members about this, and he says he does something similar. He only talks to me if he thinks he wouldn't be bothering me, so that he's not a distraction and isn't making my life more difficult. Anything he asks me to do tends to be in my best interest, or something fun to do when I have time.

[Lavender]

On 4/9/2024 at 12:05 PM, Adagio said:

I was talking to one of my most active system members about this, and he says he does something similar. He only talks to me if he thinks he wouldn't be bothering me, so that he's not a distraction and isn't making my life more difficult. Anything he asks me to do tends to be in my best interest, or something fun to do when I have time.

It sounds like the interaction between you works really well. We hear stories on other sites about system members working at cross purposes and TBH that makes me shudder. We're the lucky ones. 💗

[Adagio]

On 4/10/2024 at 3:28 PM, Lavender said:

It sounds like the interaction between you works really well. We hear stories on other sites about system members working at cross purposes and TBH that makes me shudder. We're the lucky ones. 💗

Yeah, when system members are at odds with each other, things get distressing pretty fast. I've unfortunately had a lot of experience with that, and I hope you never do! Teamwork and communication goes a long way.

[Lavender]

There is the Thinker and the Doer.

 

The thinker is the part of our brain we need to think. Without access to the thinker, we're dormant. We've found that only one of us can use the thinker at one time. So if one of us is talking (and therefore using the thinker) the other can't be listening. As we've said elsewhere, we find speaking out loud helpful, or if we're using mindspeak, one person speaks using the thinker and then the other grabs the thinker and repeats back to the first speaker what they think they heard.

 

We're learning there's another part of our brain called the doer. The doer is the opposite of the thinker. The doer doesn't need to be possessed by one of us to do its work. In fact it only works if no one is possessing it. It knows what is needed and just does it without seeming to think about it. Sometimes we're talking to one another and we realize the body has gone and done something that needed to be done. I'll ask, "did you do that?" and my host consciousness will ask, "no. That wasn't you?" And we'll realize the brain went ahead and directed the body to do what it thought it should do without input from either one of us. Often when we're driving, the doer will have taken over and made a (hopefully correct) turn or two. Or taken over when we're doing routine chores. And then one of us has to look carefully at what the doer did because it's likely have been done wrong because the doer did it literally without thinking about it.

 

Unfortunately this brain has been diagnosed with ADHD which is wonderful in that we can use it and exciting and creative ways but also sometimes a pain because if we're distracted the brain will go ahead and do stuff that we have to undo.

 

An example, we're talking with one another about something that's on our mind, and the body is holding our house keys because we just walked into the house. So the doer decides to put the housekeys down somewhere because that's what needs to be done, but it doesn't think about where it's putting them so they don't end up in the usual compartment in our purse. So then we have to go looking around for the housekeys to figure out what the doer did with them.

 

Anyone else experience your brain this way?