I Should Mention! I Spoke About My Kin Identity With Two Very Close Friends And It Went Over Quite Well!

30 Day Fictionkind Challenge

Day 2: Do you experience dysphoria? How so?

I experience it from several angles, gender of course being a factor for me. I don't typically experience a lot of kin dysphoria, I actually notice more experiences with euphoria. Shoes that add to my height, clothing that drapes over my shoulders or trails down my back, wearing my antennae out in public. Clothing as well - though I can't rule out the gender euphoria aspect, especially here, I find joy in more formal clothing, collared shirts and high-waisted pants.

Very rarely, I've experienced something akin to phantom limbs, feeling exact spots on my back where my wings would have been. It isn't often, but it's at least memorable.

I've been holding on to the idea of making this blog for quite some time, and decided that no harm could really come from this + I'd like to seek out some community around this as well; while I've been familiar with the concept of kin for a while, and I've been genuinely identifying with it for about a year, I'm still fairly new to this and don't really know a lot of the terms, so I'll speak with what I know.

I have only one kin and it's Sh.aiapouf from H.unter x Hu.nter; it's all psychological as well, so no memories, canons, or anything of that nature, just a lot of connectivity in a lot of other places.

I want to be able to have this as a discussion space for this because it's been so incredibly integral to my coping and current recovery process; this blog is also going to be where I collect aesthetic images and the like that I feel fit. I also make periodic personal updates regarding my physical health. Overall, just carving out a nice space for myself here, and hoping to be able to see others doing the same.

[This is a sideblog, I follow/interact back from @/a.dhd-sh.aiapouf]

Tags, for quick reference:

🦋 Musings 🦋 -> talk tag

👑 -> interior architecture for palaces, etc

❤️ -> lovecore style imagery

💭 -> catch-all for other images

La Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, France - 2010

Do people still make and post kin playlists, is that still something people do

Beginning to really understand the importance of change, transition, and impermanence, funnily enough not embodied in this character, but in the insect he is modeled after.

I had spent a lot of time trying to be everything at once, telling myself that it felt like authenticity, almost compulsively providing information for others to gain as clear a picture as possible of who I am. Upset to even cut my hair - the person seeing it yesterday and the one seeing it tomorrow now have two different images to contend with, and I am left to ask which is the real one.

The real issue began to arise when I realized that I wasn't driving consistency with my names. Legal, primary, and this secondary name I have here. I've used my primary for most places, but have introduced myself to strangers under the secondary. When my doctors call me by my primary name (an accomplishment in and of itself), I did not feel the need to correct them. I realized I may not want Shai as the name on my tag for my new job. I would have considered it if I had gotten work at the library I had applied to (putting that name on the application itself). Usage seeming to differ based on feelings I couldn't quite name.

It feels to me that I'm experiencing a fairly normal case for identity. A person is not the same at work as with friends as with family; I had tried to make all these one and the same. Even my primary on a tag would feel like a victory, but I'm not quite sure if I would even feel comfortable with my secondary.

After a violent division of identity, having been closeted and ill in an increasingly radical and abusive household, I feel I wasn't entirely sure how to reconcile with my newfound freedom and hindsight, and attempted to make every aspect of myself be the most prominent thing about myself. Each name blurred together, individual meaning erased under collectivity. It just isn't something possible. Not for most people, perhaps even for anyone. I'm contending with identity in a way that is standard for most people, but in a way I've never encountered before. My divisions were violent and laced with fear, of being outed as trans, as queer, as mentally ill, as autistic, as physically and chronically ill. Of being anything less than the expectation imposed upon me.

Removing those expectations made me feel lost, left to my own devices to determine who I truly was, and in blending and merging every concept of identity I had, I thought I had found a way to find myself. I still am, and this process has only been in place for a year, a year and a half, of course it wouldn't be finished. But I am discovering more about how my mind works and how I feel about it.

I am still thoroughly convinced this is a normal experience, one of many I'd never had a chance to encounter for myself due to my long abuse history. I would need to talk it out professionally, but I feel confident regarding my assessment, and can see where I would like to take it from here.

I'm finding a lot of moments of melancholy accompanying the shifts, looking up at the moon in the night sky as I've done so many times before

30 Day Fictionkind Challenge

Day 14: What are shifts like?

There isn't a way to say it that doesn't sound poetic. They're difficult to describe in all actuality, and I've noticed how the feelings have changed as time has gone on. Allow me to use a vehicle analogy. The first shifts felt as though the wheel was being taken from me while I controlled the gas and brakes, but now it feels as if I am still in full control, only taking driving directions from a close and trusted friend.

A shift feels like moonlight scattering across a landscape, like incense or candle smoke permeating a room, like rose petals and love notes. Wholly unique, yet simultaneously ubiquitous.

Telling myself that some of the violent sadness I'm feeling is a result of it being so late at night already, but I can't help but feel that there may be something more to it

Another Interview (Fictionkin)

Finally posting for the first time in a while :p anyways! I got to do an interview (again, seriously love doing these) this ones with @bandage-hearted-butterfly and it's about them having two spirits and their experiences. I did get permission to simplify some answers and did check with them before I posted them, thanks!

First question: How do you know that you have two spirits, or what makes you feel like you have two spirits? Along with that, did they ever have a conflict, or one would be much more prominent and vice versa for periods of time?

-Felt possessed, as if they were experiencing life through someone else's views, thoughts and feelings -Felt as if an entirely different person was present within them -Felt as if they needed to do everything they could to control it and stop it before talking about it in therapy -Looked into it and learned the character was connected to them, and they'd always felt that -As time went on there wasn't as much conflict, and they started accepting it more -In the beginning he felt unpredictable and didn't know what to do -Felt most during stress, as in his own commentary

Second question: I saw that your identity is a character and I saw you started identifying with them due to trauma. How did it eventually become spirtual to you, if you know that is?

-Started looking at it through a spirtual aspect through therapy

Third question: If you have this feeling of two spirits, do you get shifts as your kintype? Or is it just with you constantly? (I think if I remember correctly, almost like a contherian and/or suntherian)

-When they first started feeling this character they did experience very strong shifts of sorts but now they almost co-exist

Fourth question: Other than a way of processing trauma and grief, why did you start identifying as your kintype (as in do you similar experiences, feelings, anything along those lines?)

-Started as a trauma response, later on learned more about the character and did learn they had much in common from mental and physical illnesses to some certain hobbies and traits