Tumgik
#every opinion counts even opinions that tell me im fake fakey mcfakerson actually
hardcolorfest · 7 months
Text
✨️ AM I PLURAL? ✨️
Please help me, I have gone back and forth on this for years, at least 10 years which is literally like a third of my life so far!
Please, I am desprate for ANY outside views and opinions, I feel like I need others to read my experience and help me understand why I keep on getting into this cycle of "this is plural/no actually its not."
EDIT: this is LONG and I ran out of energy near the end so the writing gets really sloppy so I added a timeline of events up top. I'm so sorry, this ended up turning into more of a vent towards the end, but if anyone wants to read my life story and give me... uhhh........ feedback? I'm sorry words hard now I'm so tired.
I'm getting tired of the doubting and accepting cycle, the "is this normal and I'm just attributing it to a plural thing" floating around in my head constantly. I'm going to try and keep this short, but I'll need to lay everything out so anyone can get a full picture of what I'm/We're working with.
First of all, sorry this is posted on a random empty blog with a title and description totally unrelated. I was going to use this blog for something else but the crisis in my/our identity keeps getting in the way of doing much of anything solid for the last like year now. That's how bad this has gotten now, I hardly feel like a real person anymore and I don't know what to do. Secondly I'm really sorry if there are typos or anything like that. Sometimes my phone autocorrects something and I won't notice that it's changed it to something really weird, like it sometimes switches "I" to "you" and so on for like literally no reason so idk.
Now on to the meat.
🌲
The timeline so far goes > 2012 discover systems > understand I'm not one even though I'd like to be > follow and watch systems online while reading any resource or information posts > learn about tulpas > "make" first tulpa > seemingly gains sentience and gets angry > leaves > 2016 reset > 2016 does not care about being a system > fuzzy memory bullshit here, none of it has to do with this posts topic > 2019 reset > mostly uninterested in being plural > in 2020, 2019 me decides to try make a tulpa again > goes surprisingly well, much faster than last time (which I barely remember at this time) > he eventually talks without my focused effort > I doubt his existence being real > he gets angry, we argue for weeks > eventually he disappears, vaguely sometimes feel like he's "checking in on me" > the 2021 fuckery (more trauma) > homeless and feeling alone > now have stable housing > vaguely refer to self as plural and make a pk and list out like 6 headmates including yourself as one and the past tulpas > goes well and smoothly for a while, everyone's pretty happy despite acknowledging past trauma and working on that together > 2023 reset happens > make new accounts again and feel upset about all these past events > is happy and having a lot of fun all year > occasionally still feels like the logged pk headmates are vaguely around but can't really talk to them much anymore > sometimes fully switches out anyway but not too long > remembers these resets happened before and makes posts to 2019's freinds > mixed reception and lots of questions, 2023 gets overwhelmed and never answers back > now I feel guilty
✨️ I will now explain in more detail.
So for the last 10 years, probably a little longer by like a year or two but I can't be precise, I've known about plurality, DID, tulpas and other concepts like this. I've also been aware of kins/therians/otherkin/fictionkin and so on and related concepts for much longer, 20 years or so, give or take a year or two again. I've never been very good at role-playing, and I struggled to "play" anyone but myself.
Since learning about systems, I took an interest in them. In the concept of being able to step back and let someone else take control. The idea was extremely appealing. I've been traumatized from a childhood of neglect and abuse, and life was starting to get to the point it was wearing me down to nothing. I wanted to take a break, to "die but not die" as I had put it back then. To "go away" with little financial consiquence and come back when I felt recharged. I wasn't really sure how I felt about sharing my life, but was willing to if it meant I could sometimes take a break. Gladly.
So I did a lot of research, quietly reading and observing people online. Maybe it was a little creepy, like watching a fandom from afar and learning what the show they liked was about secondhand through them. I think after I learned about how DID presents, I decided it wasn't really how I was at all and concluded for sure I was not and never could be a system since I did not talk to voices in my head, loose control of my body, nor have severe trauma (to me at the time, this is definitely not the case) and therefore I was not a system. I still watched from afar though.
I think I learned about tulpas around then. I knew I wasn't ever going to have DID due to my conclusions at the time, so I guess I could emulate a headmate until my brain thought it was real. And I still do think you can do this, don't get me wrong, I am fascinated by the human mind and how we process things and the nature of consciousness from a scientific level. I don't think its too far fetched for our brains to be able to do this, genuinely, even if I choose weird ways to describe it.
Anyway, I did try to make a tulpa a few times, maybe twice honestly, but each of them eventually got angry with me once they got to the point they could talk freely. The anger was about me doubting their existence after they were no longer being consciously forced and could do things without my input. Each time, after a little bit of arguing for weeks, they would disappear and I would be left feeling alone in scilence and upset at the fact that I ultimately caused them to leave me.
I have, in the past, "reset" myself somehow. I don't think I did it intentionally, I'm not even sure if there's a common trigger. It's happened a few times. It's happened in the past but I have no real memory of them except for vague feelings and fuzzy memories that feel like I'm seeing someone else's life. However I do remember more about the last two times than any other times.
The first of these was around 2016 I think, and that version of "me" now feels like a complete seprate being who has their own name, likes and dislikes, interests and hobbies, spiritual and political beliefs, and vision of themselves in terms of looks and self-concept. And then in 2019 that version of "me" got packed away into the back of my mind and suddenly I was someone else.
This 2019 "me" had some leftover interests, and of course had any knowledge nessicary to still life the continuous life that having a body and a presence requires, like knowledge of family and friends, jobs and schedules, and so on. It felt like taking over someone else's life, but none of their stuff is really yours. Their freinds suddenly feel like strangers, or at best acquaintances you could say "hello" to but really couldn't hold a conversation with anymore. Even interests and hobbies that carried over were either dampened feeling or the focus of that interest/hobby changed significantly enough that it wasn't really expressed in the same ways. 2019 "me" enjoyed art and drawing with a lot of the same enthusiasm that 2016 did, but with less of a focus on furry and more of a focus on anime, and in particular diving into the world of en ess eff double-yew, which 2016 was not interested in the least but 2019 was vigorously passionate about lol
The further back in versions of "me" we go, the fuzzier it gets. But the general feeling is the same. You wake up in a room with someone else's clothes, books, toys and collections and you have to fight yourself to not immediately throw them all out. You know that would just make them sad. And they do kind of pop back in, although usually only for a short time, a few hours to maybe a day or two, where you just suddenly feel like the past you is you again and everything from the name association, hobbies and beliefs come crashing back like a tidal wave, washing "current you" out of the picture for the time. And besides, they miss their friends. You think about their freinds from time to time, wanting to talk again, wanting to make the lingering sadness happy again...
Its happened again, 2023. I remember more clearly about 2019, since that was the "me" before me.
During 2019 me's "life" I went through another pretty traumatic event involving others who I trusted at the time, ended up homeless and really effed up. Obviously I made it out okay for the most part, I'm still alive and I'm here. I think 2019 me started dying around that time though.
And as it felt like 2019 me was dying, "others" started to feel like they were there. Past "me's" and the past tulpas and others as well who I never tried to intentionally create or who I remember as being a "reset." They would sometimes take over, like in that I would feel like I would suddenly be them and identified myself with their name, enjoyed their likes and hobbies, the dislikes, the views and opinions. And I wasn't actually "me" anymore, I was fully "them" in my opinion. Like a shape shifter who still feels themselves in the back of the current "you." Not really like a performance, like it was natural and correct.
At this point I want to notice we had stable housing and a stable job. Things were looking up around the time it felt like 2019 me was fading. While homeless "I" was the only one present, struggling to stay alive takes your full effort and attention and leaves very little room for thoughts pondering your potential identity. But after having a safe place to live is when we had that boom of sudden activity.
A lot of not much happens except daily life and occasional switches logged, happily accepting self as plural. Quietly too, I never ended up announcing it to anyone, and for most people we appeared as a single entity that just sometimes got into specific "moods." I was never actually interested in being loudly plural, even when I desired being plural from afar. Even back then I agreed (with myself lol) that if I ever found out I was plural we would keep it to ourselves and enjoy each other's company like an in-joke nobody else would ever be aware of but us.
But we did start to fade a bit, and after maybe just a month into 2023 everyone disappeared.
After the 2023 reset, I was left all alone, with all the knowledge of everything that happened. I felt again like a stranger in someone else's body, in their life. I knew inherently to keep up the charade and not tell anyone. I knew I couldn't just go up to 2019's friends and tell them "I'm sorry but you're a stranger to me now, like my sibling's friend's friends, and I'm really hurt by this because now i feel alone and empty." Nobody takes that the right way.
And I found a new fandom to be interested in so I could just pretend and "be someone else" and not have to address to 2019's friends why I suddenly stopped talking to them. New accounts, new personality. No name. Had several months of happy fun fandom time before the really bad feelings about abandoning my freinds and not explaining what happened at all to them started to set in.
Still, I was happy. I got to exist freely this time, maybe I could openly be plural online! But you know, the whole emptiness and they disappeared thing. It sucked, but I got little whispers here and there. Now that I think about it, I think they never really disappeared but just got super weak.
Whatever, the point here is I want them to come back but we keep having strained communication and difficulty with fuzziness any time any "non-me's" try to take over.
And I felt guilty.
So I messaged some of 2019's friends recently with mixed reception. Some of who just seemed like they were happy to hear anything at all after I disappeared completely for almost a whole year. Some who never really responded, Some of who I'm not even sure if they have seen it. Nobody really angry or anything. I didn't use any words like "plural" or "headmate" or anything. I explained it all as the past me being packed away completely, including the things they cared about, but still feeling that little sadness about it. Nobody brought up plurality either. I'm okay with that, I don't know if it's good to just suggest that out of nowhere to someone. But the lack of any question about that, especially from people who I know actually do know about systems, made me think really hard about if anything I expereinced here was even a plural thing or if it was just a mind trick I did because I was struggling with long lasting traumas. And I understand how ridiculous that sounds. I'm aware. I'm just trying to get it down in words that can be understood, it evokes that feeling of knowing you're right but fearing you're mistaken.
I'm so sorry I'm really tired and I didn't realize how long this post would take to type. I just got out of an exhausting shift at work and am so low on my battery words are starting to feel a bit strange for no reason.
So to cut the rest, the point in making this post is outside validation that I either AM or that I AM NOT making shit up because I wanted to be plural 10 years ago, or that I fucked up my brain by trying to make tulpas, or that I just discovered being a system through making tulpas I guess, or like what.
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY I am super upset and feel really bad and guilty and responsible for not being attached to anything from 2019's life, including their freinds and I have no idea why I have these "resets" and is that just a normal "living and growing as a person" thing or is that what splitting or whatever feels like or like... is that just me being an asshole?
Am I an asshole?
I feel so empty, no name, no freinds, no real personality except the emulation of an anime character... abandoned everyone I cared about for almost a whole year... its hard and requires a lot of effort to "be" the others, or even talk to them... I'm so tired.
2 notes · View notes