The Madness Within

When someone is hearing about tulpamancy for the very first time, they tend to have two reactions: the first is that all of this is scary, and the second is that anyone who believes in all this, and especially those who go on to practice it, are freaking nuts. Can you really blame them? You're trying to tell people about how you can see, hear, smell, and feel a person that no one else can, and to top it off you're even saying that this person is real; if that's not pulling out the crazy card, I don't know what is.

Except, perhaps, being actually insane.

What makes someone "crazy?" How do we define "crazy?" When do people cross the boarder from sane to living in their own world, away from the rest of us, and when and why do they believe that we are the ones who are wrong? All of these questions are studied in the science of psychology, which, for many, tulpamancy is deeply rooted into. Although we are far from answering all the questions we have about the human brain, we do know what a truly insane person is like. (Sometimes.) Never mind that someone who is classified as mentally unstable is not always in that current state of mind, nor do they necessarily threaten peace.

"Tulpas are just like giving yourself schizophrenia or DID!"

I'll admit that that was probably one of the first things I thought myself when I first heard about all this, and that was also the first thing my friend said to me when I mentioned it to her. Of course, when you actually think about what you're saying, you realize that you come off, well . . . kind of uneducated. It is impossible to give yourself a split personality, or any other mental illness. You cannot wake up one day and decide that your brain is going to develop a chemical imbalance. Life simply does not work like this.

That alone should be enough for you to realize that I didn't give myself a mental illness, even though I've felt James' emotions before . . . even though I've heard him as clear as a bell before. If it isn't, well, quit being so narrow-minded! Unless you can tell me how I've given myself schizophrenia, of course.