Questioning Yourself

Archer raised some good questions in Celliz's intro thread which got me wondering how we question ourselves.

What questions did you ask yourself regarding why you think you might be Otherkin?

Did you ask yourself why you feel phantom body parts? Or maybe ask why your mindset changes to something different than your "norm"?

I'm not really interested in knowing the reasons you think you're 'kin or even about evidence that supports your reasoning, as those topics are discussed on other threads here. But more of how you came to your final conclusion.

Basically what I want to know is: what questions did you ask yourself to determine if you're 'kin or not?

I didn't come to the conclusion through questioning. Questioning is a left-brained verbal, logic oriented, approach. Logic would tell me that I'm completely human and not any sort of otherkin at all, and that any discrepancies simply point out the variations possible within the human psyche.

I got there because I felt like I was otherkin, plain and simple. That feeling didn't go away no matter how many times questioning and logic tried to beat it down or dismiss it. From there it was a matter of 'if you can't beat it, join it.'

My questions are more along the lines of, how does being otherkin affect my life now? What are the positives of this? What are the negatives? What would I change if I could? Why can't I change some things? How does this belief system help me to understand the workings of my inner self?

It can be pretty much summed up as thus:

The things I'm feeling are insane. The phantom body, the sense of "was this but am not now", those are all nuts to be feeling. However, if it is insanity it seems to be harmless as I can function perfectly well in society. So... Keeping that in mind, let's explore the other option... that this is real.

When I was younger and had a multiple system, I had no idea what was going on. For the longest time I thought it was merely that I had gone crazy. I became incredibly paranoid that somebody was going to send me to an asylum to get me "fixed" -- even if the people *were* fake, I had absolutely no intention of getting them removed in such a way.

But there's only so much I can dismiss as craziness. One could see the future, for example, and her predictions were (and have remained) accurate. I also could not deny the effect she had on *me* whenever she came to the front -- it was such a feeling of painful anguish that I had never known before. I doubt I could make such a thing up.

Now I acknowledge that my intuition points me to the fact that I am otherkin. Rather than nitpick at this observation, which is about as basic an you can get, I instead poke at the qualities I have *because* I am an otherkin. I test if my phantom limbs have an effect on everyday people, I test if certain kinds of energies don't feel right to me, I test *everything* I can that is observable in some way, but I will take the fact I am otherkin as a truth until evidence points elsewhere. A lot of what I've tested points me in the direction that I *am* an otherkin, if only that the reactions of non-kin humans are not the same as my own, even if you look at the data subjectively.

The question I started with was "why?".
Just a simple why.
I experienced claustrophobia along with fear of riding in the front passenger seat of a car and it interfered with my life. I decided to try and work out where that emotion came from and to try and figure out a way to control it instead of having it control me. That's the starting point for me.

I unlocked some memories of a past life (that I've later verified) and was left with another why and a couple of whats.

Honestly, I don't believe one bit in any of those that claim they got here without questions because if they hadn't questioned themselves at all they wouldn't have come to the conclusion that they're anything but what they were raised to be.

I guess I'm a bit different than some because I didn't have an ephiphany awakening. As far back as I can remember something was just not "right". So it all really started when I asked myself "okay, so what isn't 'right' and why?"

None of my phantom parts are human and many have just always been there, me noticing them has just differed..so I guess the question there was more "what limbs am I feeling and how could they relate to me?"

It did take me a while to see that so many issues I had with myself weren't because of what my body looked like from a human perspective, but that my body was/is just "wrong" and having experienced/felt the same things for years I just don't see how my child's mind would've manifested these things and held onto them for now 20+ years.

"What does X mean in a human or personal context" has been a good question so has "why would a *insert core kintype here* be feeling/remembering/etc. X".

No epiphany here either. Just one why that led to why and what that then lead on throughout the years to a "oh, so that's it" moment which was entirely anticlimatic.

Mine would have been gradual... and probably not much questioned if I hadn't repressed while trying to be a "good christian". I "knew" from an early age that the inner form could look different from the outer form and that mine was one of those that looked different. It was completely normal to me. *shrugs*

I still stand by my non-questioning stance to the original question of 'am I or am I not?'

"I feel like X."
"No you don't. That's stupid."
...
"Still do anyway."
"That's silly, go sleep it off or something..."
...
"Still there..."
"What? You're kidding. Don't tell anyone."
...
"Guess what....still feel like X."
"Damn, you're persistent."

I question a lot of other things. I've questioned the original question since then, but it wasn't questioning that got me there in the first place. 'I feel like I am, or was at one time, angelic,' was not an answer to a question. It was simply a statement of feeling. None of my truly important insights of the inner or spiritual realms have come as a result of breaking things apart and dissecting the pieces individually. That usually yields only superficial knowledge. That generally leads to a pile of various things laying around on your desk that taken individually, mean little or nothing. 'So you want to fly? Doesn't everyone? You feel disconnected from society? Typical teenager...' Only by standing back and taking in the whole can you see how the pieces interact with each other. Only then can you begin to see the patterns.

There is no checklist that can tell you who or what you are, so why insist on continuing to ask the 'checklist' questions?

Motley Wrote:There is no checklist that can tell you who or what you are, so why insist on continuing to ask the 'checklist' questions?

Asking questions =/= Going through a checklist.