Your "awakening"
Howdy! I am curious how everyone in this community came to the conclusion of what species, being or thing they are / identify as, the process of conforming certain parts of your identity. Your "awakening", if you will.
I am curious about things like: -If you identify as something/someone considered "fictional" in this world;- Did you recognize yourself instantly when you saw yourself in the media about your life or did it take you a while to get used to the idea that that might be you? Did you search for yourself in media or did it come across your path randomly? Is the media something you interacted with at a young age or did it only get released recently and how did it feel to witness yourself?
-If you identify as an earthly or mythical (animal) species;- Did you look into or question your species or did you know instantly what you are? Did you know your species from a young ageand then came across the nonhuman community and thought "oh so that is what I have been experiencing!" or did you come across the nonhuman community and thought "I have always felt nonhuman but I don't know what I am yet" and how did you go on figuring that out?
Did you misunderstand yourself and thought you were one thing but turned out to be another? How did you cope with the feeling of the change in how you see yourself?
Please feel free to share as much or as little as you want as a reply, I will probably also post my own awakening in the comments as well. Thank you for reading and interacting, if you do.
7 comments
While awakening a few years ago, I fully thought i was an earthen large cat due to a very intense connection since youth, similarities as well as love for them; I'd later realize this was wrong, but not fully so
All the signs pointed to me being one and yet nothing fully clicked, I thought i mustve been wrong entirely about my identity until i just decided to sit down and scribble how my body felt: definitely feline, but definitely NOT normal. Turns out I'm some weird cryptid-ish giant cat. For a while (and occasionally to this day) I just wished I could be a "normal" common animal so I could connect more easily with others, but I've accepted what I am and I'm mostly happy with it.
Although I completely understand the yearning to be "normal", easier to be understood, I think it's really amazing that you were able to find out your true self in such a way. And perhaps because your experience goes "beyond" or at least seems to encompass some different aspects of different species (big feline, cryptid, possibly others) you can connect with a wider audience of nonhumans. For example; I can't really relate to being a feline so if you were a big cat I wouldn't find much in common but with he cryptid part I however am able to relate on.
I also think that your method of finding out your true self/form is something a lot of other nonhumans should try. I have seen so many people struggle with trying to find their species, and would always be a mix of species that never felt completely right but perhaps they too are an unique species like you. Thank you for sharing!
When you put it that way, it definitely is a plus :0
My awakening was.... soft and not noticeable. Looking back I can see how it developed, but one day I just noticed it was there. I was an amphibian man, a fishfolk. Just a steady drum in my chest that grew loud at such a slow pace, it was like boiling a frog in water. I was fine then.... Oops... I'm cooked!
I have been multiple things in my life, and they are always a slow slow gradient between them. I was a werewolf, a fae, a dragon..... all of them evolving into each other in a way I wasn't even aware of. I'm changing now, still. I have no idea how so or where I'm going. I'll just look back one day and see the path...!
I wish I had a more clear answer then this, but that's just how it happened to me!
To me this is very clear and honestly beautiful. So many nonhumans have such a ridged view on how being nonhuman should look "you were born x and you will always be x, your identity can't change and if it does you were wrong" is something I heard so many times when I joined the community back in 2015-ish, and made it very hard for me to figure myself out from there. I thought I couldn't be wrong, that there was simply one answer and I only had a limited amount of guesses I could do. I love your stance on being ever-changing, evolving and accepting that change. Thank you for sharing Gill!
I knew I wasn't human before discovering the community, but it never occurred to me to narrow it down and ask, okay, what am I if not human? Because to me, it was just frustration with humans choosing and desiring things in life/in the world that distressed me like a creature stuck in a cage, a vague idea of what else life should be, and what I now know are phantom and mental shifts.
I made a list of all the creatures and characters I liked being likened to, related to, or would associate myself with. Studied the kind of wings I felt. Found out the crucial piece of information that mythological faeries don't have insectile wings--we don't necessarily have wings at all, though as shapeshifters we can transform into animals who do or simply change our forms to display them. Preferred habitats (clouds and caves) matched, morality intuitive, interests shared.
I never ruled out (fallen) angels, mixed kin, or narrowed down my fae origin (see this post), not even mythology (I feel connected to both Celtic and Slavic, but it makes sense as we can hardly even trace how cultures mingled in prehistory). Maybe in the future something will click better or fit alongside my fae identity, but for now I feel satisfied seeing myself like this.
I think listing can be really useful, if not only for future reference! I think people value one dimensional answers too much, it's okay to not have the full picture and I am glad to hear that you allow yourself space for the unknown, sometimes only time can reveal more. Thank you for writing about your experience!
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