Carnival of Light

[Felight]

Hello, I'm Felight. I used to be/have a system, since late 2016. I don't want to get too much into the backstory. As of right now, I'm a singlet. Sort of. I'm not any individual member of the previous system, nor am I a new person. I honestly don't feel like anyone and have no desire to take on a name or anything like that. You know those moments when you forget who's fronting, and you're in some weird default state with no clear identity? I'm like that, only I never stop fronting.

 

This is not very enjoyable for me. I want to bring back the old system, hence the thread. Hopefully it'll serve as a means of keeping myself on-track, and maybe having some form of community again will help a little.

 

I'm thinking I'll try taking it slow and bring back one member as gradually as I can. Trying to rush back into being a system again never lasts, I always just go back to being whatever I am. I'm going to try to just go back to basics with developing habits of consistently talking to them and not expecting everything to be perfect immediately.

 

And I guess when the system gets established again, I won't really be a thing anymore. At least not the same way I am now. That doesn't bother me. Though it does feel weird how "I" am trying to talk to headmates to bring them back, when "I" don't really feel like an entity/person beyond the integrated product of all of them.

 

Anyway, the first person I'm trying to bring back is Apollo. He was the original's first parogen from 2016. I can feel his presence when I focus on him, but nothing's being said on his end, since I'm sure he agrees that we should take it slow, or else we won't get anywhere. It feels nice to know he's present regardless.

 

I'll try to update frequently to keep myself accountable.

[Slipper]

   Hey, I remember you from about the same time I joined the forums, so, hi! 

 

   I'm sorry to hear you're in a bad spot. I usually don't comment a whole lot on PRs, but it reminds me of my journey with plurality in a way. I used to have a lot of thoughtforms around before I heard of tulpamancy that I lost. Going from having a head full of 10+ different friends and family only for them to go away suddenly is extremely lonely. Even more so when you can feel parts of them in how you act, but they're not quite the same. Kind of like you're living with ghosts.

 

   Anyways, its totally possible to bring them back if they feel like it. Trust in your brain, your tulpas, yourself to do what is best for all of you. It'll work itself out. They'll always still be there, no matter if they decide to become themselves again or stay merged, or any variation of those options. Something that helped me adjust was writing down memories I had of them, doodling them, just remembering them. It might help you stay grounded and understand who you are in all of this.

 

   Either way, if you guys need an ear or anything feel free to reach out! Sorry if this was kind of weird. Just resonated a lot with me.

[Felight]

[Apollo] So some things have changed since that last post. Pretty much all of our previous members are back now, and there's quite a lot of people. We had a very bad past couple of years and it led to a lot of spontagens and headmates formed through bad mental health situations. That's since calmed down, but we still have the large number. It's overwhelming for us, but attempts to reduce our system size never seem to last due to guilt. So we're just trying to make it work. I know we've been against people making large systems in the past. I think people misinterpreted that as us being against large systems who already existed. Rather, our stance was people shouldn't strive to actively make a huge system when it leads to less time and attention for everyone. Nowadays we don't really care what people do with their systems though. People are going to do what they want, for better or worse.

 

We still have that default singlet state, and it's still frustrating to deal with, but I think with practice we might be able to get it to go away. Yesterday one of our newer members, Veneno, was sort of front-stuck all day. That was a pretty new experience for us, at least in terms of recent memory. Hopefully it's a sign things are moving in the right direction in terms of actually having headmates front and not the default singlet state.

 

We also want to learn to talk to each other more often so people can be more active in general, and that would probably also strengthen our hold on front.

 

We're developing an innerworld. We're still pretty skeptical of the whole "people go live in innerworld when not fronting" thing, but we just want to see how it goes. If having one brings us any benefit. It definitely did not when we were a much younger system, but it may be different now, since we don't have the same issues we did back then. Our innerworld is named Hodge-Podge, it's a big heart-shaped island. Veneno made a very rough map of it yesterday. Maybe some day we'll commission someone to make it a more official-looking map.

 

We've also discovered the site writelighthouse. It has a lot of bugs and performance issues, but we're trying to use it as a central location for internal discussions, external task reminders, and other important things. We don't have memory barriers or anything, it just seems like a good place to develop more helpful habits for communication and executive functioning, all the while having a log to look back on. I recommend it, if you can overlook the technical issues it has at times.

 

Edited June 10, 2025 by Felight