Something I wish I'd realized sooner. Something I wish others realized.
someone in the comments of one of my posts said it clearly. labeled my feelings in a way I hadn't been able to formulate until now.
My goal is unity.
I want people and creatures and humans all over the world to work towards being happy and healthy together. Its okay to be separate, to recognize that everyone has different experiences, and that we don't have to lump everyone in together (in fact I think that would be harmful) but there is no reason to exclude, belittle, or devalue someone's experiences just because they're different than yours, or because you don't understand how their existence is possible.
it happens all the time, everywhere, and I'm guilty of it too. we want to make sense of the world around us. its natural for you to shrug off or push aside someone else if what they're saying doesn't make sense to you. and often times it doesn't matter how much proof they show, or how many times they explain their view. it has to make sense to you.
not only does the reality of it have to fit well in your head, but you also have to be willing to accept the possibility of it. will accepting these people make you look bad? will people who don't like you hate you even more? will it be harder to explain yourself because now you're associated with others that are even harder to understand?
We have to move past those feelings. the feelings of disgust, confusion, anger, and fear.
"that person is weird, they're not like me." "I don't understand how that person could be anything like me." "how dare someone different than me claim to be like me?" "what if they are like me, what does that make me?"
no one group is more or less likely to do this. everyone has these thoughts, these feelings. and honestly, every time I see it happen, unity is always the answer. the outcome. it makes things better, happier, and more accepting.
Learning unity in the trans community
when my focus was on my gender identity, I ran rampant through the trans community online. i joined groups, followed many creators, learned as much as I could, obsessed over labels, and generally had fun. I'm nonbinary, and don't always refer to myself as trans, but I do take pride in it when I do.
when I started hearing and learning about neopronouns and xenogenders, I was so confused. to me, gender was a binary. fem or masc. you were one or the other, somewhere in-between, both, or neither.
when I heard that people related their gender to things like animals, plants, objects, concepts, or even music, I just did not get it.
I said they weren't valid, I called them weird, called them wrong.
then one day it clicked. I finally understood, and it didn't seem so odd anymore. now I love using my it/its pronouns and get gender envy from sports cars. can you believe it? all it took was an open mind and for me to reword it in my mind in a way that made sense to me.
Learning unity in the otherkin community
I've been an awakened therian and otherkin for over three years now. when I discovered the community and my identity, I was quick to put labels on myself. I'm spiritually a wolf therian and psychologically a Cryptidkin. to me that was it, that was all I could be and all I was.
obviously I knew about and accepted all sorts of otherkin folks. different species and organisms, polykins, even conceptkins. but therianthropy had a set definition in my head, and anyone that didn't fit that box was wrong, or just wasn't a therian.
when I first heard about physical therians/otherkin, I was absolutely not for it. there was already a label for people who thought they were actually physically nonhuman, and that was delusional. (I'm sorry if that's insulting to any zooanthropes, that was just how I thought then.)
just like xenogenders, It took a lot of research and a lot of people explaining it in different ways for it to finally just click for me.
suddenly instead of, "yeah that's not possible" it was "oh shoot that's me."
Learning unity in the Plural community
oof, so this is kind of a controversial topic on tumblr right now, but I'm not going to shy away from this topic just because others don't like hearing about it. (because that would prove my point.)
so my introduction to plurality as a concept started on TikTok (I know, I know...) and I didn't even know about the term plural. the only thing I knew about at the time was DID and later OSDD because the fandom I had been in at the time was FULL of fictives, and our fandom kind of treated them like roleplay accounts.
I thought they were cool. I knew it was a disorder, but I still just treated them like any other people. because well, they are! they're just people. multiple parts working together to form a system that may or may not have to deal with disassociation and amnesia.
and that was all I knew about plurality.
...until things started happening. my brain started talking back. now I'm a maladaptive daydreamer, so I was used to imaging myself in different scenarios, with different people, but I also knew how to separate my daydreams from reality.
I also spoke out loud like a streamer. Referred to the empty air as chat or “guys” so that I could organize my thoughts and pretended they were asking me questions so I could talk about things I wanted to talk about.
but this was different. My mind was actively thinking thoughts that I hadn’t come up with myself. Telling me things I hadn’t thought of or considered. Talking to me like a person.
these instances were brief, barely there. I chalked it up to “sometimes my brain talks to my heart and calls it stupid” or “haha left brain had to make a decision for right brain”
but then I found a Plurality community. I joined as a questioning “singlet” and realized just how many people were having similar experiences, and not just because of a disorder. And that I wasn’t crazy, I was just actually we.
eventually the stray thought, comment, and advice turned into a full train of thought, full conversations, and actively making decisions for the body. So I was plural. We were two. We still are.
that’s when I had to learn unity. I knew from the information in the plural server I was in that some people didn’t think it was possible, but I never expected it to be this bad. I had barely grazed the anti-endo and CDD-exclusive side of the community before moving to tumblr.
and now I’m on the opposite side. Now I’m the neopronoun user getting told I’m ruining trans peoples reputation. Now I’m the physical otherkin getting told I’m delusional.
now we’re a non disordered collective getting told we can’t exist.
so I understand. That doesn’t stop me from feeling defensive, or from getting angry or petty, but I get it. They don’t understand. They get told they’re crazy or pretending. so when people show up, happy with a trait they have, that they only got through trauma and disassociation and amnesia? How dare they? How dare we?
it makes sense for them to deny it. To call us stupid or crazy or ignorant or delusional or any number of things. They don’t understand us in the same way that we’ll never understand being disordered.
all I’m hoping is that someday we will accept each other and work together to be accepted and live with our crazy brains. Because even though we have different experiences, we can still coexist. We can help each other. We can love and care for each other.
to all my disordered cousins, my xenogendered siblings, and all the physical ‘kins that came before me and will come after: I love you.
strive for unity
