In short, I'm at that point where I'm one month/one month and a half in, and I doubt everything. How do you guys deal or have dealt with it? There are moments when it's very discouraging.
Just a bit of background to explain where I'm coming from (but I'm sure I'm not alone in this). When I created my tulpa I had no idea that tulpas were a thing, and I was just trying to get back into meditation. Visualizing has always been easier to me, so I went with the classic "safe place" visualization and at some point I was just hanging with my tulpa (whom, as I said, I didn't know was or could be a tulpa). When I started getting all the responses you'd expect to get after you've been willingly tulpaforcing for a while (feeling your tulpa's presence, finding yourself talking to them during the day...), I got worried that I was driving myself crazy and... stopped. (I know. I'm not proud.)
Fast forward two or three months later, I discover tulpas, slap myself on the forehead, and rush back to forcing again. He's still there, everything is fine, I get responses, and the first weeks are really good. Now I don't know what's going on. He's constantly coming up with things I don't expect, especially when it comes to add or modify things in our wonderland, and the emotional responses I get sometimes are really strong. Also his personality is really defined, in terms of what he likes or doesn't like (although he's still figuring it out himself), even though I never sat down to force with character traits in mind. But I don't know what kind of signs I should be looking for outside of our active forcing sessions. Sometimes I don't know how to interact with him during passive forcing. I get distracted easily, and I can mention only two or three instances outside of active forcing when I had the feeling that it was actually him and not me (one was him trying to show me that I wasn't parroting and it ended up upsetting me, so I'm at least sure about that). But lately I can't even feel him around much, and it's nerve-wrecking. When I go back to wonderland there are new buildings or rooms everywhere so maybe he's been busy, but I mostly feel like we're somewhat out of touch. Or that maybe I'm just becoming more subtle at making everything up. Ironically, he was much more present and real to me when I wasn't expecting any kind of progress and didn't know that I had a tulpa at all. (Side note: I did base him on a character but he didn't have much in common with said character right from the beginning, and has almost nothing at all in common with him now, except for really basic traits. I'm happy about it. Thinking about the character I based him on feels weird to me now and I suppose this is good. But at the same time, quantifying our progress is more difficult this way).
Basically, DEEP PARANOIA on my side. I do assume sentience, I do assume vocality, I do assume he's there and that maybe I'm just too stressed about my life to hear him clearly or even feel him around. But sometimes I just feel like I'm talking to myself.
Sorry for the wall of text, if you want a tl;dr just read the first 2 lines. Any advice would be great, I feel completely stuck.
When they do become vocal, is it or should it be a "definite" thing? Or are there times when you can't hear them or feel their presence despite them being vocal and you trying really hard to have a conversation? We had got to a point two weeks ago where I could chat with him easily whenever I wanted, and now it's not that easy or frequent anymore, so I was either parroting before or something is up now. And I have no idea which one it is.