Well, I believe my characters are all extensions of me. My wolf represents my masculinity, my cat represents my femininity and sensuality, my otter represents my chaoticness, my kangaroo represents my morality, and my dragon represents, well, me as a whole.

Since they're all basically parts of me and not totally different personalities, it's not really schizophrenia. So...yah. >_>

I tried that once ... I've got an old, old fox character that was supposed to be my logical, orderly side, while ZC was my chaotic side. They eventually kind of merged into one.

Also, I've been meaning to ask ... who drew your icon? I like it. Really smooth and loose.

Muzz at  muzz . I commissioned her and she drew all five of my characters. Her stuff's really good. ^^d

One of my characters I wish talked back to me ; I'm trying to make itl happen eventually.

As a writer, I can with all confidence say that yes, sometimes you create a character that takes on a life of its own. It ends up being like someone you know, a good friend (sometimes someone you'd love to bone o.o;;) that when you come across certain situations or things in your everyday life, you end up thinking "Hmmm, so-and-so would like that" or "Wow, that is so a so-and-so move" etc. etc.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit it but I have myself this body pillow and from time to time, I find I can get to sleep faster if I picture it as one of the characters I've created, usually Shayna, and curl up tight against it. I'll spend hours at a time just talking with myself as if they were really there just to better understand how to write about the character (I'm well aware that they are not real and are not listening...it's just an exercise that helps me get in the mode I need to really write well). It's kinda like roleplaying only I'm the only one there. What's really bad is when someone walks in on you while you're talking and you can't think of a good way to explain it and you just have to say "oh I was just playing around"

Yeah...I know...I'm a freak...

Nah, you're not a freak when everyone here is just as freaky! I've tried the pillow thing a few times, but I only have small, regular pillows, so it doesn't work too well.

I desperately want/need to give some actual personality to my characters ... I might try the talking thing, if I can do it without anyone else here getting suspicious, haha.

I talk to myself all the time, it's normal unless you're doing it out loud for everyone to hear o.o
but it's totally normal to reason with oneself

I used to use Rez as a net extension of myself, then I kinda lost the attachment to him, so now he's just a character I made rather than "my character". Using him for my silly experiments and such.

It is so very nice to see a journal that isn't about people running! ^_^

=_= They should run. Running...upsets me.

I think I have a fewtimes..

But recently I have had little to no time to draw, so..

I have tried not to let my characters come alive like that in my head because I'd start questioning my sanity. I known friends who's pieces did that and while they were the most amazing detailed artists with characters who had full background histories and so forth, I always secretly had the greatest pity for them, because I sometimes feel such imaginative expression is a side effect of social trauma.

Very deeply correlated, in a lot of ways. Most of the time you really get into any kind of artwork or writing, you find that the characters involved were part of the artist's own personal journey through their particular issues. Those tend to make the most engaging pieces, as I've seen.

Yea wish julia can talk to mes. But Shes to busy with the B.E. stuff lol nice post =3

Oh, my characters have alot of personality. I sometimes play them in RP's and I can really get into the role then and do as I think they might in the situations they get in.

But I'm one of those insane people who writes a ton of backstory for their chars and settings.

There're a couple of mine that I feel're very real to me. More of a...'another plane of existance' kind of thing... I've got alot of histroy with them, mentally, it's how I spend most of my nights before I go to sleep, thinking about them and what they're doing, stuff along those lines.

Kinda made me feel better about it when I read something about 'soul bonding.' So yeah. Heh.

I tried that last night, thinking up a background and life for Raei before I fell asleep. I ended up sleeping great and woke up quite refreshed. Need to do that more often.

You know what I think? I think you're all crazy. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go scratch my day planner for Friday into my arm.

A lot of my characters are an amalgam of my own personality and experiences, and those of people I've met. Some are good friends, others are simply based on personalities I've only observed.

The characters are all very different, and I've got an enormous cast of them. Put them in any given situation, and they'll all react very differently. Each has their own unique experiences and personalities. Some may be similar, but they're never exactly the same.

I think you're actually thinking of Multiple Personality Disorder...Schizophrenia is what you'd get if you could combine R.E.M. sleep with consciousness all the time. (You get a very jumbled, chaotic, nonsensical, reality and non-reality all mixed in one. You hear voices even if no one is there, but they seem real.) MPD is more spontaneous, with each personality operating independently of each other. There is no "unity of consciousness", as each personality can only remember their "own" actions, and a person may actually seem to suffer "lost time" because they cannot remember what their other personalities did.

So I'd have to say no, it's not NPD, and unless you're experiencing hallucinations, and actually hearing voices emanating from nowhere wherever you go, you're not schizo either. :)

My own characters don't actually act on their own volition, though a few have such developed personalities that I can imagine them strongly protesting being drawn a particular way. It's more of an "impression", a strong thought, than another personality trying to break through.

There are friends of mine who who also suffer Asperger's Syndrome, and their minds are highly active. They are true multitaskers.24/7, they watch their characters living out their daily lives, having conversations, dating, fighting, having sex, going to bed, going to work, whatever, and the person can't turn it off. If you ask them how a particular character is today, they could tell you in full detail.

For these people, it's not schizo and not MPD, and they have full control of their faculties. Instead, it's like a tiny universe was implanted into their brain. The downside is that because so much is going on inside their heads, they prefer as little external stimulation as possible (no music, for instance), or they get completely overwhelmed with information.

I think in determining whether or not something is "healthy", ask yourself if you can still perform your daily tasks without trouble. If you can, then you're fine. If your thoughts are impairing you, then maybe it's not healthy.

Hope this helps! :)

My characters act as an extention of myself; not often individual entities aside from particular pet peeves and IC/OOC emotion seperation.

I confide in the voices in my head because no one else listens. :P

I know exactly what you mean, to be honest. I may have thrown this around at one point or another, and by that I mean that my two main characters, Red and Kasara, are representations of the masculine and femanine sides of my mind. The core intelect remains the same, of course, but the personality and certain traits are different. As for talking to them, that's never happened. They more or less speak for me when online, so I really concider them to be mere extensions of my own being, albeit masculine and femanine extensions. Anyway, I actually have alot of mixed jumble in my head that I suppose could be some kind of independent thoughts on their part, but then again, that would just be me talking to myself, wouldnt it?

The more important thing here is that I hope you start feeling better soon. You're awesome, and I hope to see that trend continue.

NO lie that charaters do have there own life... Though when they start talking back... -_-.... It when.... XD!!! You made some good charaters! I one to talk though... x_X... possibly over a hundred charaters and they all complain about how much air time they get!!! *starts imitating your avi* I got to think with my ass to keep from the brain touture of them complaining. Though it' also when you did complete a charater's personility that they want some say in what kind've places and situations they want to be in. ^^;... Not sure if that helped or made me seem alittle unbalanced...

"Do you confide in your characters? Do you think of them as real people? Do they sometimes talk back?"

That's the sign of a good writer/artist if they do so. It shows that they do have a life of their own and that's how great art is formed :^) Why don't you go ask your characters how they feel? I'm pretty sure they'll have their stories to tell n_n I'm serious too! X^D My best friend and I both did something like this and it turned out to be pretty helpful.

I think characters are an extention of us in some ways. I've created several. some good some evil, it depends what mood I'm in that decides what character will be used.

I actually am a schizophrenic writer and artist. Though I have to say that schizophrenia doesn't have anything to do with multiple personality disorder, which I think is actually what you're stabbing at. =) I use characters to play out social scenarios in my head. They're all my puppets to play out the scenes and show me just where it all goes; there are some discoveries that are hard to make without points of reference.

And this is something a lot of people worry about. But you know, you shouldn't, so much. It's just like anything else you do; if you let it control you, of course it's going to be bad for you. But just because you /can/ possibly fall off a ladder doesn't mean you should never use one.

Oh, I don't worry about it. I'm actually trying to get into the habit of doing it more.

Good. You know, a lot of people don't let it out because 'finished products' are all that's acceptable. I mean, a story's good, but for musings and babbling about ideas that you have that aren't ironed out, sometimes just having a good friend listen to you for a while can do wonders; if you have a friend like that, try it out!

I kinda split the difference. I have characters that go out and cause problems, and I have characters that I screw up beyond all recognition, but who eventually bounce back and show up for more.

All depends on how messed up my brain is at the time.

You! Feel better! Now!

I very well COULD be the meds. They can't possibly be helping your mind any. The stuff I used to take when I was younger was like "shotgun brain surgery" and always left me a psychotic, emotional mess.

Reality is also a terrible drug, so see if you can get off of that too.... that's what spawned my first round of multiple personalities. Lucky me I found "furry" and was able to personnify them.

.....and why is it everyone has the super-crazy one and the super-reasonable one? I mean even JTHM had that, didn't he?