birbbbbbbb:

calling all otherkin- convince me otherkin is a real thing

i keep hearing about this otherkin thing all over tumblr

what is otherkin, you might ask?

(in my words) from what I have gathered, it’s the belief that you were something other than human in a past life.

but if it was in a past life, why is it important to you now?

i have questions I’d like otherkin to answer. im honestly curious about it.

When and why did you decide to become otherkin?

What is the meaning of astral wings/tails/ears?

What benefit does being otherkin give to you?

Would you ever stop being otherkin?

Try to answer all of these questions as detailed as you can, I genuinely want to know about the minds of otherkin. Also, add as much extra information as possible! Even if they’re just dumb fun facts. You don’t have to add any extra info if you can’t come up with any!

1. It isn’t a choice, I didn’t decide a thing. I am otherkin whether I want to be or not. I could deny and repress it. I am physically capable of that. But doing so is incredibly unhealthy and would largely make things worse. I know this because I tried. I wasn’t even very good at it, but it didn’t make anything better. 

2. They are limbs you get in the astral realm. Oftentimes they’re mixed up with supernumerary phantom limbs: when you feel limbs that aren’t a part of your body physically but still seem to be there. You know that trick where they hide your real arm behind a wall, attach a fake arm, convince your brain the fake arm is yours, hit it with a hammer, and then you get actual pain? That’s tricking your brain into making the fake arm a phantom supernumerary arm. Some folks just get SPLs. Why? We don’t know, there isn’t enough studies to tell us. We just know they exist.

3. It’s a significant part of my identity. It doesn’t give any specific benefit over any other experience I’ve had. You’re asking me effectively how being in a private school would benefit me, versus public school or homeschooling. There’s effects, but they vary as much as I do as a person; and someone else who also went to private school could have a vastly different experience. And neither of us would be able to tell you what public school would be like, accurately and without stereotypes. (For the record, I’ve never been to private school, but you get the point.)

4. I couldn’t if I tried. Would I, if it were possible? For the longest time, I would have said yes. But through my otherkin identity, I stumbled upon my twin brother from a past life that happened at the very least eight hundred years ago (assuming their year was as long as our year), and he’s kind of the only reason I’m alive (genetic case of depression, whooo), so no, I wouldn’t stop and change that part of my identity.

But it’s involuntary anyway, so I couldn’t.

As for your definition. It’s a bit too narrow. Otherkinity =/= past lives, and past lives =/= otherkinity. Otherkinity is defined (the wording varies, but the meaning doesn’t) as an ontological phenomenon in which a person identifies partially or entirely as a nonhuman entity on a nonphysical, profound, and involuntary level. This ranges from “I dunno, maybe my soul is an elf? I feel like one” to “I convinced myself I was a unicorn in early childhood to cope with trauma, and now that unicorn identity is irreversible and not used for coping, and just is my identity”. It can be spiritual or psychological, and as to why we think it happens? We don’t know for sure, and everyone’s theories get quite unique. Sometimes past lives do become kintypes – if you still ID as the thing, then sure. But they aren’t always kintypes, and kintypes aren’t always past lives.

That’s all.