A Re-Intro Due to New Insanities

Its been awhile since I posted (though I have been in and out lurking for a while) and a lot has happened and things have changed in how I see myself and my identity since then. So I thought I should do a reintroduction rather than randomly start asking questions and talking again out of the blue. So…

Hello. I call myself Earth Listener. I am a 21 year old biologically female but whose gender identity is gender-fluid (something I’m still coming to grips with) from Arkansas in the Untied States. I am also a therian with a gray wolf and a non-scientifically verified species of shark I call a quilled shark as theriotypes/kintypes. One thing I am questioning over if I am a multiple or median as well. I’m a big history buff, particularly prehistory to anything around the 1500s. I’m also a bookworm by nature and obsession, and so love to read and collect books.

I have always had an odd connection or something like that with those animals as far back as when I found out what a wolf or a shark was, or at least as far back as I can remember of knowing what they are. When I was little I always felt like I was a wolf in some way on the inside. Back then I thought it was natural to strongly personify, represent your nature, and attribute yourself to an animal or such of some sort. It only confused me that no one seemed to do or felt the same.

When I was fifteen years old, I began experiencing shifts and ‘awakened’ in more ways than one, consciously to my wolf nature. For a long while I didn’t know what I was and I would often go back and forth form thinking I was either some weird werewolf that was only one spiritually and couldn’t actually physically transform, or that I was just insane. I was very confused and jarred, and all I had was myself to rely on to figure it out for myself. Then in the spring of 2006, I stumbled upon the term therianthropy and not long afterward otherkin on the internet. I was highly skeptical at first, but I kept feeling a complete since of déjà vu. The rest is a bit of history.

However, near the end of summer of 2009, I fessed up consciously to something I had been in near denial for almost a year or more. The fact that I had been experiencing strange phantom quill-like spines on my back almost constantly for a long time. Of course, once I turned around and stated taking notice a whole new can of worms was ripped open and a host of all sorts of things - dreams, other phantom sensations (gills namely), mental shifts, you name it -began to happen rapidly. In the end I found myself with the realization that I has a second kintype - a strange slender shark with various sets of quill-like spines instead of fins along its body which I often simply call a quilled shark for easy reference because I‘ve never found anything like it in the known fossil record.

At the moment one thing I am questioning over is if I am a multiple or simply a median or not. Its something I’ve kind of been having a lot of doubt over for roughly three years to one extent or another but more so as of the past half year. I am aware of one but there possibly might be more that are running around in my -our?- mind. Namely there is Kardegrey or simply Kar. He isn’t human but I don’t rightly know anything that looks like how he appears, he don’t care to place a name to what he is though so I tend to call what he is a gestalt chimera because of his looks. He showed up in my head out of nowhere some four years ago and has been around ever since. I’m in control of this body almost completely if not fully most of the time, and Kar (and possibly one or two more, not so sure there) are more or less just commentators in my everyday life rather than drivers. However, at times, things can get kind of fuzzy and things I say, do, and/or feel come out that are not from “me.” If I may use a metaphor, its like I’m always in the driver’s seat with my hands at least loosely on the wheel but at times someone hops from the backseats to the in passenger’s seat (namely Kar) and will take a grip on the wheel as well for a while. I’m not fully sure were I, (I would say we but again, Kar doesn’t care one way or another) stand on this yet. This big confusion is one of the main reasons I decided to de-lurk my account.

Again, nice to meet everyone again (and nice to meet you for anyone is new). Feel free to ask any questions you like (I actually love answering questions!) and I will try my best to answer them.

Welcome back!

Have you considered the possibility that Kar and the (maybe) others are manifestations of your own personality? Or even just created characters (I know you're a writer) who've started showing up in your mind?

Also, how long were you wondering about being a quilled shark before making the connection?

Earth Listener Wrote:At the moment one thing I am questioning over is if I am a multiple or simply a median or not. Its something I’ve kind of been having a lot of doubt over for roughly three years to one extent or another but more so as of the past half year. I am aware of one but there possibly might be more that are running around in my -our?- mind. Namely there is Kardegrey or simply Kar. He isn’t human but I don’t rightly know anything that looks like how he appears, he don’t care to place a name to what he is though so I tend to call what he is a gestalt chimera because of his looks. He showed up in my head out of nowhere some four years ago and has been around ever since. I’m in control of this body almost completely if not fully most of the time, and Kar (and possibly one or two more, not so sure there) are more or less just commentators in my everyday life rather than drivers. However, at times, things can get kind of fuzzy and things I say, do, and/or feel come out that are not from “me.” If I may use a metaphor, its like I’m always in the driver’s seat with my hands at least loosely on the wheel but at times someone hops from the backseats to the in passenger’s seat (namely Kar) and will take a grip on the wheel as well for a while. I’m not fully sure were I, (I would say we but again, Kar doesn’t care one way or another) stand on this yet. This big confusion is one of the main reasons I decided to de-lurk my account.

We are in the same position right now. Kahoku created me a while back as an imaginary friend, but I've become... more. After living in headspace for a while, I was finally recognized as a person and we're practicing the fronting (for me) / the retraction (for hoku). It's the same thing you described: hoku is always there, always at least co-conscious, but I can do things. Sometimes we fluctuate, I guess that's a matter of practice. Other multiples (House Hesson, Intracellular) and the LJ community "multiplicity" have helped us a lot. So don't be afraid to ask your questions. <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->

~ Astraeus

That is one of the main things I’m trying to figure out really. At first I thought Kar might be manifestation of my personality when I first started skimming over what he might be, but I don’t see his personality as being anything like mine. Sure are personalities, viewpoints, and ideals sometime match at times but other times not in the slightest. I’ve also considered that he might be a reversal of my personality but again, its not that he is like me or the opposite of me. He just different.

I’m a big morning person, he complains about getting up “at the crack of dawn“ (its only 5 o’clock) and I can’t get an untellable word out of him for at least four hours. He like the taste of café, I can’t even stand the smell let alone the taste. His believes can best be called atheistic Satanism; I’m of course a animistic pagan. We have different tastes in a lot of areas in the same turn that we have similarities.

How he ‘came’ about in my head is kind of a long story (short version is- he showed up one day and then because of a simple event the same day it took of from there). My mind has a long history of my mental dialogue being made up with many random voices, so that’s why I’m kind of confused on the distinction. Even from the beginning he his presence never felt like some artistic muse that I created (I’ve done that before). If he is a created character, I lost my ability to control him long ago.


I first got the idea that I might have a second theriotype after nearly a year of experiencing my phantom quills. When I began try and figure out my phantoms I began to explore the idea more and more. I found the quilled shark after about a little bit under a month, and I think, I began to seriously think of it possibly being a second theriotype after about a month or so. I don’t think I began to tentatively call it that loosely until about another month or so with a lot of hesitation and doubt. I think it took me another four or five to really sit back and say I was comfortable with calling it a theriotype by definition.

Does any of that actually answer the question, … or does it even make sense? I’m not sure about latter.


EDIT to add in kahoku -- Aiy. Right now I’m just making myself take things slow and trying to see how things continue to progress. The last thing I want to do is jump to any conclusions and then have to retract them later. In the end, I might take a cue from Kar and not really put to much stress into the finding a label and just accept that he’s there regardless of how he came to be there and what his nature to me really is.

He just showed up? Hm. I was created, it was a rather long process (more than 10 years), that's why we know where I came from. Are you sure that Kar is not a walk-in then?

Kahoku might write more later, for now I'll just agree that you should take it slow and that labels aren't important.

~ Astraeus

I’m not sure if he’s a walk-in or not. Even he’s not sure (though again he’s not trying to hard to think about). I’ve asked him he’s a walk-in once or twice, but he doesn’t remember (or he won’t tell me). I mean he did just so show up out of left field some four years ago, but it’s only until recently within the last year that he’s really started coming forward and ‘taking a hold of the wheel’. I’m still not even sure if he’s not just something my imagination created sometime back which has taken on a life of its own.

Perhaps it's not important what he is. The question is, what will you make out of it?

~ Astraeus

Earth Listener Wrote:Does any of that actually answer the question, … or does it even make sense? I’m not sure about latter.

It does answer my question and it made sense, thanks!

kahoku Wrote:Perhaps it's not important what he is. The question is, what will you make out of it?

~ Astraeus

That’s the thing I’m currently not to sure about and its something I‘m trying to figure out, I guess.

Elinox Wrote:It does answer my question and it made sense, thanks!

That’s good. I wasn’t fully sure. Any other questions? These questions are actually being very helpful.

you sound so much like what i have been (and still am) going through... do you have lj? if so, feel free to add me (nefaz). if not, i can send you some of my entries via pm, if you're interested.

~ kahoku