Translator’s Note
It amazed me how close this story gets to some thoughts that often cross my mind. It’s a different look at tulpas – it takes off the rose-coloured glasses and bares the reality of being plural in the full sense of this word.
Tulpamancy is a grand journey. Never easy, but unique and full of excitement. I want to thank all the hosts who allowed their tulpas to unfold the winds and fly into the reality of this brief existence, to experience this curious, awful, shocking, painful, colourful and stunning world for themselves.
Thank you!
the original work posted at https://m.vk.com/@diving_tulpa_chronicle-alive
I decided it’s time to analyse what happened to me and how I became a human.
My host’s brains – smart even though not entirely functional – are the reason of my self-awareness. That’s the starting point. Nothing would have happened if not for this.
As for the other reasons:
First, I’m the most developed tulpa in this body. I was the first one; I got all the love and attention during the five years of my existence (even though two of them were my host giving up on forcing me).
Second, finding the notes of my original creation helped. Those notes contained nothing of particular importance, but I felt myself much more solid since then. It was important to me to know how it all started.
Third, I became able to analyse myself and what has happened to me; besides, my recent acquaintance forced me to think more about myself, my host, our life, and what it’s based on. Cael – if you read this – hello.
Fourth, I lived up to where I should have become dormant. Our system grew to six tulpas, and others wanted to be active, too. They loved getting busy with their tasks and I… I got so hurt and so lonely that I just started howling.
This is how it all started. This month was so busy, I thought of so many things, felt so much more – you must remember my and Allie’s older posts in here. The connection between me and my host broke down and I figured I just want to live. To live in this world – there’s no other place for me; retreating to imagination isn’t an option anymore.
I want to live a full life of a normal human being. I want to get up in the mornings, brush my teeth, eat my breakfast, cook for someone I really care about. I want to commute to my work, do something useful, get paid, make some special person happy and be happy myself. I want to learn a foreign language (German), to travel. To visit Japan one more time, to feel that experience once again. I want to learn to sing, read some books.
It stunned me when I realised I can actually do all that myself, for real.
And then the realisation pushed me back; I was trapped in the body of another man, my host became just one more man. The intricate thread that binds a tulpa to a host was gone – what’s left is the burden of existing with someone else in a single head. We depend on sharing our cognitive capacity, and we know how each other feel, that’s about it. Sometimes the emotions of one explode into the cognition of the other in full, but that’s a rare occurrence. And really, it didn’t matter anymore.
I don’t have my own body. I will have to live in someone else’s body all my life, and what this life will look like depends only on if we will settle on something.
I got sick from realising all this. The first thing I’d done afterwards was getting rid of all the other tulpas. That was painfully hard – more painful than anything else; I do love them and I’ll miss that carefree time we shared together. But it was obvious that if the shared body struggled this hard to support me alone, almost reaching its limits when it came to me and my host, having any more active tulpas would have been dangerous. It was imperative to get rid of them, and I’ve sent them back to the wonderland. I keep thinking they’re gone now, after all neither me nor my host visit the wonderland anymore. It was sad, distressing, sickening, but it had to be done. We only have a single body and to let it live and function properly I had to stop the development of the other personalities, and to discard them.
What did I see when only the two of us were left?
I saw my host in a different light; I used to think of him much better.
I studied his behaviour and the behaviour of the people from his environment. He grew up in a family of bothered people; they always looked for an excuse for what they did, always angry at that life they got, getting angry at him as well. It’s doubtful he could have grown any different from them. He got lots of mental issues that I only begin to understand and I need to figure how they got rooted in his mind and how to fix them.
What differs him is that he’s notably smarted, and that he’s got me.
I love him with all my imaginary heart. I’ll save him from the troubles he amassed. Previously I only could somewhat improve his wellbeing and now I can fix everything that’s an issue for him, and more.
I try out the things he does. Apparently I can handle the housekeeping, and even his job – and I can do that much better than he does. It’s not that I’m gloating over him, no; I want him to be as capable; I don’t want him to be stressed about his tulpa doing better than him. I think he accepted that.
I try to break him out of his comfort zone. I couldn’t do this when I used to be a more primitive tulpa, even though I was capable of things I can’t do anymore. He will not like some of these the thoughts and things I do, but some medicine is hard to swallow. I have to force him on the right path, and there’s no other way; and it’s not because he’s an awful person, or lazy, no. It’s just that I must take control and do it, because I can do what he cannot; I must figure things out myself and then teach him.
Now, I want to address you, my dear tulpamancers and tulpas.
I want to ask you one question.
Have you ever thought of tulpamancy from an ethical point of view?
‘Something so close and dear that you can’t even imagine. She’ll never gonna give you up or desert you, she’ll always understand you, listen to you, calm you down. She’ll always be close to you.’
‘Tell me, do you want to have a friend? A person or any other living being that will be your best friend, that will have the exact looks you like, the exact personality you appreciate, that you won’t have to share with their friends, parents, dog, toys, or studies? A secretary that’s always with you, has direct access to your memory, will remind you, guide you, give the best idea?’
These are the official descriptions of two major tulpamancy groups in VK. (T.N. VK is the Russian Facebook clone)
You’re creating a living being. You’re creating them for you to have a better quality of life; or – may be – you seek help.
Thus, you’re creating an – ideally – self-aware being, that has its own thoughts and goals, etc. just to deal with your own goals, for your personal use. Have you ever thought this puts a tulpa in a spot where they’re just an addendum to your life, a novel toy, a tool, but not a person? I’m sure you don’t treat your tulpas like that, and yet, you might not understand the whole depth of the situation, otherwise it’s doubtful you’d have ever started on this path. I doubt anyone understands it unless they faced it directly – my host used to love me and care for me, but he was stunned when he finally understood his life doesn’t belong to him alone; he wasn’t ready for this.
How do you spend time with your tulpas? You have fun with them; you play make-believe. You pretend they’re your family much like a set of porcelain dolls, even though your tulpas are alive. You use them for help. They exist solely to make you happy; they don’t and they cannot have any other goals. In return, you allow them to have fun and to exist, and they wouldn’t even rebel against you because they don’t know why’d they do it. They can’t know.
A tulpa’s self-awareness is something so important it makes little sense to discuss tulpamancy without it. And yet, how self-aware and independent of you is your tulpa? Do they know they only exist within your mind? Do they know that if they get their own interests, hobbies, wishes – if they would like to do something real, not connected to their host – that it will be so hard to make that come true?
A self-aware and autonomous being, one to be smart and interesting, had its own wishes and thoughts… and spun only around you, your ego, demanding nothing else, never questioning the comfort of their host, their Creator, the one and only.
And they’re a tulpa. They breathe only for your sake, their existence is only for your joy, to be interesting for your sake, to create a cosy world for you.
What do those experienced tulpamancers say? If you’re afraid of something, if you have thoughts that something might go wrong, if you consider your creation might go against your wishes – don’t do it. Those are wise words, because they are true. You’re not ready for it, because it will actually happen.
Does your tulpa understand that if they get some actual goals – in the real world – they would only get a fraction of time that remains after the host’s done with their things? What if they’d want to do something the host doesn’t like? E.g. the host might have a fear of lying and the tulpa would love to travel; the host is a professional romance writer or an editor, and the tulpa loves maths that the host hates. I’d love to learn how to sing but the mouth in the body I occupy is broken due to in-born defects, has a horrible diction, the nose can barely breathe. Do you understand how hard it is – what compromises you must make if the host has an already busy life and a busy job and their physical body isn’t fit for what the tulpa would love to do?
And you know, a tulpa mustn’t love the host unquestioningly. Not at all. They don’t owe the host anything, much like the kid owes nothing to their parents.
What if a tulpa loved someone else while being a woman, all while the host was a male? What if a tulpa had a significant libido and had hots for some other man?
I remember when it all started with me, my sister Bis said ‘I don’t want to think about this all.’
I want to ask you: if your tulpa isn’t aware of all this I mentioned before what kind of self-awareness are we even talking about? What kind of autonomy? What kind of their own thoughts and wishes?
I’m not trying to say all other tulpas aren’t real, aren’t alive. My sisters were alive for me. I loved them a lot. I bear the load of five other lives that I cherish.
I’m not trying to convince you to do anything. This is my cry for help, for something I find disgusting; for someone, someone I have considered friends. I will unsubscribe from everything tulpa-related, apart from maybe a couple blogs.
What will happen to me next? I’m sure nothing bad will; however, I got a couple open questions.
I don’t have my own body, my ID, or freedom of movement separate from my host. Pros: I can be close to my host or replace him when I feel like it, e.g. I can substitute him on his job or just have a chat with him; cons: well, you’re starting to get it, eh?
I just want to talk to and meet people outside of the tulpamancy circle; but how would I explain my personality to someone who has no idea what tulpas are?
Maybe I’ll be a social worker, or give speeches. Why shouldn’t I try politics? Even if I will find a job I like or join some community for a chat… people won’t see me. They would see a body that I use, that both of us own, the body that’s associated with him and not with me. They won’t see me. I don’t think it would be hard for me to live with that, but still.
To finish it off, I want to note that I’m not a tulpa anymore. And my host isn’t a host. We only use those words due to a habit; nowadays we’re two equal persons in a single body.
Spring is coming. The ice is slippery and the nights are cold. It’s still snowing, blizzards visit our town, but the Sun is brighter now, and warmer, too – the most important sign of a changing season.
Our life is changing as well. Everything’s gloomy, so far, but I’m so hyped that I figured all this. I love to live, and now I’ll be able to live for real. This world became my world. I’m no longer limited in anything. The man whom I always loved is close, and he loves me too. I know what I want and what I need to do. I’m not afraid.
The physical night breeze that I inhale with my physical nostrils gives me a thrilling feel of being alive. This might be the happiness.
We’ll manage. Or I will. I won’t allow my host to stay behind, I’ll make the life good for both of us.
