![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Seeking Help
Jan. 7th, 2024 12:00 amI am pretty sure this was written for reddit but I couldn't post it.
I have come here for advice. This could be a long one, I'll try to include as much as possible.
Note; okay, so this did become pretty long so I want you to know before you decide whether to start reading all of it: this is some of my alterhuman journey and at the end I ask for advice on what I could be and tips for how to figure out what I am. I am very grateful to anyone taking their time to read through all of this.
I am Nim, I am in my mid 30s and joined the community in April 2018. I have identified as a flavor of nonhuman since around 1998 though. In those years, as a child, I had a great imagination (still do), and I would fantasize about being different things but underneath there was always an elven identity. Until I decided I was old in my early 20s and had to stop identifying as an elf and accept being human. Then in 2017, I got my autism diagnosis and reconnected with my nonhuman self. I had been questioning for a couple years by then, trying to find what I was. I don't even remember everything I tried on, but my husband remembers most of it.
When I joined the community I kept on questioning but now I kept a journal and I had essays from other alterhuman as a guideline. Pretty quickly I started to identify as fae, while I kept searching for my theriotype. Searching and searching.. it feels like I have been searching for what I am my entire life and that searching has become a part of me. Who would I be if I am not searching? I maintained a fae identity for a few years though never that stable and then went back to questioning my identity in general again.
I find it very difficult to decide what I need to share here. Because I can go into such detail, but how much of that is needed? As time went on, I didn't feel it was probable that I was a therian. There is an animalistic side to me, but not as loud as in therians. It is more subdued. But am I an animalistic humanoid, animal-hearted or a shapeshifter?
I have identified as a shapeshifter for a good while. As I keep searching for my true self and so many things pass me and feel like me briefly, I figured I was a shapeshifter. It doesn't feel right though. Like I do have one form or two, but haven't found it yet instead of being fluid. As if, once I find myself, I won't experience shapeshifting anymore but recognize the cameo shifts.
There was a tumblr post that adviced, for people who are searching as much as I am, to look at what all your different questioning identities have in common and I came up with this list;
Light element
Ethereal
Connected to dreams and stars
Immortal
Feelings of being bound
Animalistic but humanoid
Dancing and singing
Made of starstuff
Chaos magic
Melancholy music
Loneliness
Illusion powers
Some of this list is dream noemata of mine, that I try to inject into everything I question.
My dreams have been very important to my nonhumanity, as I have supernatural powers and abilities in them. I am however trying to depend less on them, as they are heavily influenced by what I consume and gather around myself.
I know that sometimes I include too much into my identity that maybe isn't as important. Like my personality, my style, my aesthetic. When I look at fae and elves, I don't fit in with them. I am not spiritual like them, I don't have their aesthetic. I look at a lot of the things I have questioned that way, see if I fit in with them and I don't. I think I'd fit best in a cyberpunk world. A world like Altered Carbon or Alita: Battle Angel. As a cyborg, android or as AI. I do have dreams where I have robotic parts too or where I become code.
I want to backtrack a little now, to how I awakened as a child. I awakened through the Wolfrider elves in the comic series Elfquest. These elves are humanoid with wolf blood, one or two in the story can shapeshift into wolves, but it is more about their animality in a humanoid form and their relationship with their wolf brethren. This is how I saw myself too, in a human body but with an animalistic side to me. I did have a wolf phase but always leaned more towards foxes and identified as a foxelf. Big cats were also a part of my animality growing up, either seeing myself as an elf that could shapeshift into a big cat like the druids in World of Warcraft or playing pretend as a big cat. After joining the community, one of the first things I confirmed for a while were elf and feline cladotherian.
What being an elf has meant to me, is that they're magic. And I feel so magical. As a kid who was undiagnosed autistic, I felt like I didn't fit in and I felt lonely. My connection to Elfquest really helped with that. My imagination and fantasizing about an elven world with elven friends helped with that. The Lord of the Rings movies came out shortly after I found Elfquest, strengthening my connection to elves and then I played Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft where I felt a strong connection to the night elves. I also relate to stories where the elves and fae are treated like outcasts, unwanted and hated for being different. I have dreams like that.. where no one understands me and they ostracize me.
Maybe I should also mention my connection to dogs. I grew up with them and have always considered them very close family. I didn't play with dolls, I played with dog plushies. I would rather have my own puppies than a human baby in my uterus. I have tried the dog therian label a couple times, but usually revert to dog-hearted as I don't act enough like a dog or have enough urges of a dog.
As I had some friends proofread this, they asked why I didn't mention my fox spirit or hare identities, both identities that have been very important to me. The reason is simply that I don't feel like I am animalistic enough in behavior to claim such identities anymore. For a time I thought maybe I was suppressing my animality and that if I stopped masking, more animal behavior would come out. But it just.. hasn't. I don't do vocals, I don't walk like an animal, and when I dream shift I am still in a humanoid body and it is an illusion of me as an animal rather than me becoming the animal. I do feel a close connection to fox spirits still and I question being one. I get phantom shifts of foxes and whenever I am really focused on this identity I also dream about it lots. It's not hard for me to feel fox-like. I guess I just feel inadequate.
This is probably already too long and there is so much more. I am chronically ill, I cannot work or study nor do much around the house. I am stuck lying on bed or on a couch. All there is for me is to keep my mind busy somehow and alterhumanity is what I have clung onto these last years. Searching and questioning is what I do. Fantasizing about different identities. Dreaming about exciting adventures. Maybe that is okay, maybe this is my alterhumanity and state of being. But I feel like there is something.. a true self underneath it all and if I can just hold onto that maybe I'd feel less lost and lonely.
I spend a lot of time analyzing myself, but most important to me are the magical powers I have in my dreams and feeling nonhuman in my dreams. As these feelings spill out into my wake life. When you have magical abilities in your dreams, it feels so wonderful, and so strongly like an important part of you, that you can really miss it when you awaken. At the same time I cannot hold every single thing from my dreams as a truth and noema, because dreams can be contradictory. My personality in dreams also doesn't always match my personality awake. So I am still figuring out a balance between dream and wake alterhuman me.
Lately I have been becoming more confident in the fact that I am some humanoid magic spirit. I am thinking of using the label Celestial, as it is specific but still broad enough for me to have freedom of expression within the label. I think that as a celestial, I definitely have an elven side and I am looking into other parts that could be part of being celestial to me, like draconic. I wouldn't consider myself an elf or a dragon, it would be forms as a celestial or.. essences that make up the humanoid magic spirit I am. Perhaps shapeshifting will remain a part of this identity, but I have also been looking into the term constelic which might be a label to bring me some peace of mind around my shifting identities.
So what advice do I seek? I am not even sure. A friend of mine was interested in what this community here on reddit would think of my story. I am nervous opening up like this in a space I am unfamiliar with. I guess I'd like any advice on what I could be. I understand it won't be specifically and exactly what I am, more so, would I be something animalistic or do I read more as a spirit? I'd also love any thoughts about my process and tips on where to go?
I have come here for advice. This could be a long one, I'll try to include as much as possible.
Note; okay, so this did become pretty long so I want you to know before you decide whether to start reading all of it: this is some of my alterhuman journey and at the end I ask for advice on what I could be and tips for how to figure out what I am. I am very grateful to anyone taking their time to read through all of this.
I am Nim, I am in my mid 30s and joined the community in April 2018. I have identified as a flavor of nonhuman since around 1998 though. In those years, as a child, I had a great imagination (still do), and I would fantasize about being different things but underneath there was always an elven identity. Until I decided I was old in my early 20s and had to stop identifying as an elf and accept being human. Then in 2017, I got my autism diagnosis and reconnected with my nonhuman self. I had been questioning for a couple years by then, trying to find what I was. I don't even remember everything I tried on, but my husband remembers most of it.
When I joined the community I kept on questioning but now I kept a journal and I had essays from other alterhuman as a guideline. Pretty quickly I started to identify as fae, while I kept searching for my theriotype. Searching and searching.. it feels like I have been searching for what I am my entire life and that searching has become a part of me. Who would I be if I am not searching? I maintained a fae identity for a few years though never that stable and then went back to questioning my identity in general again.
I find it very difficult to decide what I need to share here. Because I can go into such detail, but how much of that is needed? As time went on, I didn't feel it was probable that I was a therian. There is an animalistic side to me, but not as loud as in therians. It is more subdued. But am I an animalistic humanoid, animal-hearted or a shapeshifter?
I have identified as a shapeshifter for a good while. As I keep searching for my true self and so many things pass me and feel like me briefly, I figured I was a shapeshifter. It doesn't feel right though. Like I do have one form or two, but haven't found it yet instead of being fluid. As if, once I find myself, I won't experience shapeshifting anymore but recognize the cameo shifts.
There was a tumblr post that adviced, for people who are searching as much as I am, to look at what all your different questioning identities have in common and I came up with this list;
Light element
Ethereal
Connected to dreams and stars
Immortal
Feelings of being bound
Animalistic but humanoid
Dancing and singing
Made of starstuff
Chaos magic
Melancholy music
Loneliness
Illusion powers
Some of this list is dream noemata of mine, that I try to inject into everything I question.
My dreams have been very important to my nonhumanity, as I have supernatural powers and abilities in them. I am however trying to depend less on them, as they are heavily influenced by what I consume and gather around myself.
I know that sometimes I include too much into my identity that maybe isn't as important. Like my personality, my style, my aesthetic. When I look at fae and elves, I don't fit in with them. I am not spiritual like them, I don't have their aesthetic. I look at a lot of the things I have questioned that way, see if I fit in with them and I don't. I think I'd fit best in a cyberpunk world. A world like Altered Carbon or Alita: Battle Angel. As a cyborg, android or as AI. I do have dreams where I have robotic parts too or where I become code.
I want to backtrack a little now, to how I awakened as a child. I awakened through the Wolfrider elves in the comic series Elfquest. These elves are humanoid with wolf blood, one or two in the story can shapeshift into wolves, but it is more about their animality in a humanoid form and their relationship with their wolf brethren. This is how I saw myself too, in a human body but with an animalistic side to me. I did have a wolf phase but always leaned more towards foxes and identified as a foxelf. Big cats were also a part of my animality growing up, either seeing myself as an elf that could shapeshift into a big cat like the druids in World of Warcraft or playing pretend as a big cat. After joining the community, one of the first things I confirmed for a while were elf and feline cladotherian.
What being an elf has meant to me, is that they're magic. And I feel so magical. As a kid who was undiagnosed autistic, I felt like I didn't fit in and I felt lonely. My connection to Elfquest really helped with that. My imagination and fantasizing about an elven world with elven friends helped with that. The Lord of the Rings movies came out shortly after I found Elfquest, strengthening my connection to elves and then I played Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft where I felt a strong connection to the night elves. I also relate to stories where the elves and fae are treated like outcasts, unwanted and hated for being different. I have dreams like that.. where no one understands me and they ostracize me.
Maybe I should also mention my connection to dogs. I grew up with them and have always considered them very close family. I didn't play with dolls, I played with dog plushies. I would rather have my own puppies than a human baby in my uterus. I have tried the dog therian label a couple times, but usually revert to dog-hearted as I don't act enough like a dog or have enough urges of a dog.
As I had some friends proofread this, they asked why I didn't mention my fox spirit or hare identities, both identities that have been very important to me. The reason is simply that I don't feel like I am animalistic enough in behavior to claim such identities anymore. For a time I thought maybe I was suppressing my animality and that if I stopped masking, more animal behavior would come out. But it just.. hasn't. I don't do vocals, I don't walk like an animal, and when I dream shift I am still in a humanoid body and it is an illusion of me as an animal rather than me becoming the animal. I do feel a close connection to fox spirits still and I question being one. I get phantom shifts of foxes and whenever I am really focused on this identity I also dream about it lots. It's not hard for me to feel fox-like. I guess I just feel inadequate.
This is probably already too long and there is so much more. I am chronically ill, I cannot work or study nor do much around the house. I am stuck lying on bed or on a couch. All there is for me is to keep my mind busy somehow and alterhumanity is what I have clung onto these last years. Searching and questioning is what I do. Fantasizing about different identities. Dreaming about exciting adventures. Maybe that is okay, maybe this is my alterhumanity and state of being. But I feel like there is something.. a true self underneath it all and if I can just hold onto that maybe I'd feel less lost and lonely.
I spend a lot of time analyzing myself, but most important to me are the magical powers I have in my dreams and feeling nonhuman in my dreams. As these feelings spill out into my wake life. When you have magical abilities in your dreams, it feels so wonderful, and so strongly like an important part of you, that you can really miss it when you awaken. At the same time I cannot hold every single thing from my dreams as a truth and noema, because dreams can be contradictory. My personality in dreams also doesn't always match my personality awake. So I am still figuring out a balance between dream and wake alterhuman me.
Lately I have been becoming more confident in the fact that I am some humanoid magic spirit. I am thinking of using the label Celestial, as it is specific but still broad enough for me to have freedom of expression within the label. I think that as a celestial, I definitely have an elven side and I am looking into other parts that could be part of being celestial to me, like draconic. I wouldn't consider myself an elf or a dragon, it would be forms as a celestial or.. essences that make up the humanoid magic spirit I am. Perhaps shapeshifting will remain a part of this identity, but I have also been looking into the term constelic which might be a label to bring me some peace of mind around my shifting identities.
So what advice do I seek? I am not even sure. A friend of mine was interested in what this community here on reddit would think of my story. I am nervous opening up like this in a space I am unfamiliar with. I guess I'd like any advice on what I could be. I understand it won't be specifically and exactly what I am, more so, would I be something animalistic or do I read more as a spirit? I'd also love any thoughts about my process and tips on where to go?
