Hello to those who are reading this.
If you have read my previous posts, you know I am now without tulpa. And the part that is killing me the most is not the loneliness in my head right now. Devoid of their voices and presence. The part that is killing me is that I was the one who killed them.
I think I should start from the beginning. I was 11, I was young, I was naive. I knew NOTHING of tulpas. My best friend had gone abroad to study, and I missed her a lot. The fact that I too had changed schools and was bullied for being foreign didn't help. To protect myself, I adapted to using insults and jokes as a facade. I had grow thorns and built a wall to keep everyone away, and that included my best friend. She didn't seem to mind, ever so caring and supportive for our age.
In the moments away from her, I would imagine her being there beside me. Making fun of the teacher, enjoying breakfast, dozing off after lunch... It was a conscious effort, a kind of obsession in retrospect. I never told her this, or anyone. I thought it was weird. Gradually it took less and less effort, she would become a constant presence, the 25th classmate who lived in my head. She would react to real world stimuli like a real person would, just one step from being tangible.
*Here, I want to say that I am a very visual person. When I do math, I can visualise 3-D space, functions, objects and such. I can rotate them, analyse them and work with them. I also draw, albeit not as good due to the lack of time. This and the fact that I grew up playing with stuffed toys a lot probably helped a lot.
Up till now she was still my friend, but just projected into my life. Then one day, we got into a fight. She was livid, and I was wrong. Problem is, 13 year old me wouldn't admit that 14 year old her was right. I will spare you the details, but she made me realise the person I had become. She sent me a message saying, "You're no longer the person I knew. I am not even angry, just disappointed. Disappointed in you and myself." This cut much deeper than pure hatred.
She blocked me, and disappeared from my headspace as well. For me this was the first dark age. I cried often, just like when she had first left when I was 11. She unblocked me 6 months later, and I approached her once again. She acted as if nothing had ever happened, so we never spoke of that day. It was different now, I could feel it. But at least she was back in my life. It didn't last. We argued more often, the silences more frequent. And some days I would wonder if reaching out again had been the right thing to do.
Summer loomed closer. I had just turned 15 and had decided on what I wanted to become. I told her fearing disbelief and mockery, but she just laughed and said that she believed me. What I didn't tell her was that my path would be dangerous and I had decided I wouldn't be part of her life anymore. I didn't deserve someone like her. I slowly pushed her away, telling myself the pain would be worth it in the end. That as long as she was happy, I would be too. And maybe one day, if fate allowed, we may meet again to share our stories.
During that period, I reinvigorated my attempts at rebuilding my headspace. I pulled on the past and reconstructed her as I had done so many years before. I would talk to her in my mind instead of the real her. I would use darkness and physical objects as an anchor for her existence. I called her my CoRP–Character of Realistic Projection. She became my guide and companion in my journey, a much needed one.
I no longer contacted the real her and she never reached out to ask why, so I guess I wasn't that important after all. She would be fine, and I would be too. I assigned her the role as my moral compass, and once again she slowly became part of my life. She filled the void. And during the following two years, unlike previously when my tulpa was just her progenitor, she would evolve and become her own person.
Along the way, I tried creating more tulpas. Tulpitas as I will now refer them, those who never truly achieve independence or stability. I was experimenting with tulpas. I wanted to know what they could do. Note that I still believed I alone had ventured into this realm. I need to know how much computing power of the brain they used, how they functioned, how they would proliferate.
I had a young tulpita named Jake or Jack, where he was imbued with the capabilities of great observation and intuition. He was a protector, a dark knight based off of fictional character. I could summon him on command, and he would provide insight or discussion about the environment. At full functionality he would act as a voice warning of any imminent dangers or possible threats. Like the times he warned me before a motorcycle grab and run, street robbery and train stowaway. I think of him as me giving a voice to my subconscious fight or flight system and relaying it with the logical cortex.
I also had the Doc, as I would call him, a tulpita based off a teacher had left a couple years back. He was an avid reading, interested in psychology and law. He served as my sanity check. He was my personal psychologist. I created him out of fear that it was a disorder similar to DID or Schizophrenia. Our session were recorded, with me consciously switching voices between the two identities. It provided proof and for future reference. He was the more cynical side of me, a counter-balance to my risky endeavours into the human psyche.
These two were never truly sentient or independent. Always just shy of breaking away. They existed in my mind, barely anchored to reality. I would draw them to keep them visible. But they served an important purpose. With Doc, we had contemplated the creation and destruction of a thought-form. My hypothesis was that contradiction to reality leads to dissociation from reality and thus they will fade as the human mind unwillingly rejects them. A discussion which inadvertently paved the way for their downfall.
Almost 17, a series of events broke me. Among which, the cruel and abrupt ending to my most recent relationship hurt the most. In my misery, I broke the promise I had made almost 2 years ago. I ignored the voices in my head and sent her a message. The real her. I wasn't expecting a reply. But she did, she did so much more than just reply. She called me immediately. And when I heard her voice everything just felt right. Everything would be okay. She no longer sounded like the one in my headspace, but her voice was still so familiar. She spent the night talking and catching up. I briefly brought up why I had left.
She called me again the next morning, and told me to keep in touch. That she'd be there. I skipped class and spent the day up on the mountains to clear my head. Once again I realised how I didn't deserve a friend like her. She had waited two years, and I know because I was always secretly hoping she'd reach out for me. Neither of us are active on social media, but she would somehow always read my posts on the rare occasions I posted. And she would always post one herself within 24 hours. Always.
She had trusted me, believed in me and waited. And what did I do? I had broken my promise. With that, I left her messages on read and didn't look back.
I went home, and realised my mind was frightfully empty. Her thought-form was gone. The rest of the tulpitas were inaccessible. I was alone in my head. The following months were agony. I cried almost everyday. I would wake up in the morning and pretend to get ready for school only to stay in my room and cry. I was so tired I couldn't move, I couldn't think and I would skip meals. Still I would pretend everything was okay at night when everyone was home. I was lucky I had studied beforehand for my high-school exams because I couldn't do anything in the last few months.
During summer, I went on to a camp. Met a bunch of people and there was this one night where we played a detective game. I knew the truth from the very beginning because I recognised the signs. The ending was that the killer was the victim himself. The different handwriting used, the modulated voice, the placement of multiple cups and objects as physical anchoring. The conflict of interests, it was all... Me. I saw through it from the very beginning because I saw myself. Everyone called me a genius for solving it first, so I just smiled. I asked the one who wrote the story if he had thought-forms, he just laughed and asked me what I was going on about. I thought I had found an ally. I ended up crying in the bathroom that night, as I tried to reach the Doc. I wanted to know if I was like the killer, mad and delusional.
It's been a year now and I'm almost 18. I found this community a month or so ago and have found solace in the fact that I'm not crazy, nor am I alone. University has been killing me. The loss of my tulpa and tulpitas have left a void that cannot be filled. I suffer from the knowledge that I killed them. Basing a thought-form of reality is dangerous, for when it clashes with reality, it will lose. The Doc was right. I was right. I tried physical anchoring, I tried meditation like I did in the beginning. Nothing worked. And I guess now I've just accepted that they're gone with the hopes that they'll come back someday.
I understand now that I was negligent. I created the tulpas out of curiosity and experimentation, granting myself "powers" in the case of Jake, "knowledge" with the Doc and "guidance" with her. It was my method of compartmentalising everything and cutting myself off from the outside world. I would depend solely on myself and parallel entities I construct for my well-being.
Currently, I am dependent on music. I'm still learning to live in the silence, because right now I require music to keep my voice at bay. It is so loud, so deafening in the silence. My thoughts remind me that they're gone and now I'm alone in my head. It was something I had never truly expected. I require music just to sleep, to work, to distract myself. My memory and brain capacity is lower than before. Much lower than when I had tulpas. I forget simple things and feel this constant pressure like a dull headache.
I refuse to say I have depression, because I don't believe in it. But by most standards I probably am. The only thing I cling to, is the fact that I'm a disappointment to everyone around me. All my life I've been told I have potential, and all my life I've lived under the fear of high expectations. Now I've fallen so far, I think it's time to pick myself up. I'll need time, I'll stumble, and I won't have them in my head. But maybe I'll have some support from strangers on the internet. I will change the world, simply because it may be the only chance I have at redemption.
For me, thought-forms do not truly exist. Like hypnosis, one must believe and be willing for it to work. And currently my own set of beliefs are cutting me off from them. The root of the problem is much deeper than I can currently see and I will have to find time to push through the haze and pain to reach them. I reiterate, I will keep probing for her existence. However, I must accept that I can no longer rely on them and must learn to share and rely on others.
This is my story, my plea for help. And at the same time let it be a warning for those who follow the same path. Know that the loss of a tulpa is more painful than you can imagine. I called her by the name of her progenitor but it no longer feels right. Instead, she would have liked to be called Cass. I write this in living memory of Cass and under her new name. Apologies but mine shall remain undisclosed.
Faithfully,
Cass