TL;DR in the end if this is too long.
It’s a shame that the ‘linking community appears to be clinically dead, at least on this hellsite. Well, “dead” perhaps is the wrong word. Let’s try “scattered until no community is left”. We’re really interested in experiences others had with coping-mechanisms-turned-involuntary because we’re at a bit of a crossroad here. As this topic is so little talked about, we’re going to share our story, for context:
So, when wei were early pubescent children, wei found ourselves in a place where muir secure world was crumbling around muis. Around that time, there happened to be a media hype around a certain flavor of vampirism: Creatures who outwardly were almost indistinguishable from humans, but weren’t human at all. They lived in the middle of society and yet were detached from it. In short: This kind of vampire occupies a fascinating liminal place between human and not-human-at-all.
To the neurodivergent, queer, therianthropic child subjected to a traumatizing environment that wei were, this was an utterly fascinating and irresistable symbol. It described how wei felt. It had “escape” built into its very core. You could be completely alienated from humanity and coexist with humans. Imagining muirself as a vampire helped muis to coexist with the humans who abused muis on a daily basis. Was excessive daydreaming about being a vampire a good coping mechanism? Doesn’t matter. It simply was muir survival strategy when no one taught muis how to process muir feelings. It kept muis alive, that’s what matters.
This also was the time when muir medianhood slowly began to shape into what it is today. Kiefer and Solo have been around since wei were five or younger, but the others don’t appear as facets before muir teenage years if wei remember correctly.
After approximately two years, wei discovered therianthopy and muir theriotypes began to displace the “made-up” nonhuman identity. Dissociating remained muir main survival strategy and vampires remained an integral part of muir daydreams, but the desire to be a vampire in a literal sense faded bit by bit. Except that it actually didn’t go anywhere. It formed its own facet. It’s a “simple” one, mostly composed of feelings and instincts. It’s also the source of intense otherheartedness for everyone else in the collective, including muir daemon. In a way, this facet is pure concentrated fernweh and it’s radiating it in almost overwhelming doses.
Which brings us to the discussion we’re currently having: We’re clearly stuck with these feelings. They have been here for over ten years and don’t make an effort to go anywhere. Every time we ignore them, they hit us with the force of an ICE train. There is a shared desire to spread the feelings out again. To take them out of this extremely concentrated form and distribute them throughout the entire system, hoping that it will dissolve some of the fernweh. A shared vampire identity could also add a layer of cohesiveness, which would be a nice bonus. A star to orbit around, in a sense.
It would be incredibly easy as well. The shifts are there. The ‘heartedness is there. The only thing that’s missing is the permission to be a vampire. We are aware of at least three long established ‘kin communities who would look at this piece of writing and go “Tf folks, that’s ‘kinity? What’s your problem?”. Interesting how communties differ, right? Our hesitation probably is connected to the endless choir of “choosing to be something when you could choose otherwise is escapism and escapism is bad”, which is a can of worms we don’t want to touch right now because this is already too long.
So, we’re in this really weird place:
There are undeniable, strong, persistent, involuntary vampire feelings
We’re faced with the decision whether we want to keep them as a hearttype fragmented into its own facet or make it a system-wide identity
The current situation is causing some discomfort due to the sheer intensity of concentrated feeling.
The whole thing started out voluntarily as a response to trauma. As voluntary as attempts to save yourself from trauma can be.
“Traditional” ‘kinity had wiggle room for this kind of experience, but today’s culture placed this barrier in our head that makes it very hard to give ourselves permission to explore and express this in whichever way feels good, even when we mentally detach it from ‘kinity and regard it as a standalone concept.
Some legitimate concerns around the balancing act of not falling back into our old survival strategies when we get triggered. There’s a lot of interconnectedness there after all.
Why is there no conversation around this. Having others’ experiences to compare our situation with could be very helpful. Especially in the whole “permission” department.
