We technically already have an introduction on this forum but it is literally over a decade old (March 2010!) and we've changed a lot in 10 years. So new introduction.
We are go by the collective name House of Chimeras.
General Information
We were born on the 21st of March in 1989 in the Arkansas River Valley at the foot of the Ozark Mountains, and still live there today.
Our general hobbies include reading (both nonfiction and fiction), writing (essays and stories), arts related stuff (mostly drawing and crafting) participating in various outdoor activities (hiking, amateur-level caving, wild-life watching, and learning wilderness survival skills), and collecting (namely books and animal bones). We read or listen to, on average, 60 books every year.
We label our body a transgender-non-binary-genderfluid. We have also made several alterations to our body to appear more androgynous. Collectively our pronouns are they/them/their and individually our pronouns are she/her/hers for the female members in our system, he/him/his for the male members of our system, and hie/hem/hir anyone not strictly male or female.
Our overall spiritual beliefs can best be described as pagan. There is an undercurrent of pantheism, hard polytheism, and animism running through the members of our system. However, what is focused on, how much reverence is given, how regularly practices are preformed, and so on varies greatly among us. A major part of our spiritual practice is heavily inspired historical accounts and academic insights into groups like the Benandanti and Neuri as well as cases like that of Old Thiess. Another major part of our practice is heavily focused on local nature spirits and to an extent aiding the nonhuman dead.
A Brief Introduction To Our State of Being
We are a mixed-origin multiple system of nonhumans. A multiple system meaning we are a group of individuals sharing one single body together. (That is very simple definition of our living conditions anyway.) Mixed-origin meaning that the reasons for existing within same body vary among us. The "nonhuman" part, that means that all of the members who are part of our multiple system (the umbrella term we use for members in our multiple system is headmates) are nonhuman personally even if our body is physically human. A majority of our system are pretty cut and dry nonhuman animals known to exist or had once existed on Earth. Smaller portion of our nonhuman headmates are of individuals whose species blurs the line between Earth animals and mythical or fictional creatures in a spectrum of complex ways. Finally, there are headmates in our system who are plants.
A Brief Explanation on Our Kind of Plurality
We have been more or less aware of our plural nonhumanity since childhood (at least age 7 or 8). During our early adulthood a therapist (our first therapist) noted our multiplicity but cleared us of not meeting all the criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) at that point in our life because, while we had had issues with dissociative amnesia in the past, we had overcame that on our own. (Though she did note we would have been diagnosed with DID if we had come in before that point.) So we were instead diagnosed with Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS) due to no longer having dissociative amnesia. A year later the DSM-5 came out and, not too long after that, we changed therapists due to an insurance change. Our second therapist also affirmed our multiplicity but found we didn't meet the DSM-5 criteria for DID or Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) due to our symptoms by that time no longer showing distress thanks to years of self-work and therapy. So she did not re-diagnose us with anything. This accepting our multiplicity but not being able to (re)diagnose us with DID or OSDD has occurred again and again thus far with two more therapists over the years due to our current symptoms verses the current criteria in the DSM-5. So while we are a multiple system we do not have DID or OSDD anymore.
Our multiplicity is caused by several factors as far as we have been able to figure out. Because not all of us share the same origin, we are considered mixed-origin. Our origins are complicated to say the least. From what we have been able to gather our existence is best attributed to a combination of neurological factors connected to our atypical brain chemistry, psychological factors born out of life experiences, and spiritual factors brought on by a natural inclination toward spirit work and other animistic experiences. To try to keep it brief we (either know or strongly suspect): we were born already predisposed toward multiplicity due to neurodivergence, were born with more than one soul in one body, had trauma and other negative factors directly messed with our identity development, that trauma also lead to soul-splitting, that other negative childhood events pushed us to use maladaptive daydreaming as a means of coping for much of our life which lead to the creation of tulpas/thoughtforms, and, finally, animistic predispositions and spirit worker proclivities lead to spirit possession. There are a lot of intricacies and explanations left out in such a summation, but for a short summary that is the best we can do without falling into a very long explanation. Many of us either know or strongly suspect where our exact personal origins lay but some of us are not sure what lead us to being here.
Our Nonhumanity In A Nutshell
Everyone in our system is some favor of nonhuman personally with varying levels of connection or relationship with our humanity. For some people they have a sense of humanity to them and it can be reflected in their phantom body, innerworld form, etc being more humanoid or anthro in shape. So because of this some people's experiences slide around Earthly animals and mythical creatures : for example wolf/werewolf, vampire bat/vampire, koi/mermaid, and so on
Then there are also people whose nonhumanity is more complicated and their experiences can be viewed of two ways: on way as polytherians whose experiences blur and merge to create more mythical/fictional creatures or the other way which is a mythical/fictional creature whose nonhumanity can be broken down into a few Earthly animals. Whichever the viewpoint the experience this blur between Earthly animal and fictional/mythical creature is there and it is complex. (Even more so if they also experience the animal/human influence on their experiences.) So for these people snake/bird = amphithere, snake/caiman = kindworm, and so on.
The final grouping are people whose nonhumanity is even complicated but are a lot more broad. This category is almost entirely taken up by those in our system who find themselves feeling a sense of draconity but that draconity feels the same as being a dinosaur/pterosaur. Where the lines between being a dragon and an amalgamation of dinosaur, crocodilian, and pterosaur cannot be judged and they feel like merely different perspectives of the same thing to them.
There is a lot more going on in than just that but that is simple overview. There is the whole mess of the few humans who have ended up in our system developing a sense of nonhumanity over time to the point they just experience a constant state of animality/humnity that is only distinguishable from the first group in that they have memories of being human first and they have human names.
How Names Work In Our System
Speaking of names, names are weird in our system. Typically everyone in our system has two names.
Long story short, our brain doesn't think in human words but rather functions as a soup of non-words. Whether it be the communication between headmates or our own personal thoughts, what goes on in our minds is not a string of speech-based thoughts. Rather it is almost entirely made-up of images, smells, non-word sounds, sensations, tastes, emotions, and even bits of memories. Very rarely are words a part of our thinking process. Our thoughts as pictures are like detailed videos in our mind, our thoughts as smells are like the real deal, and so on. All very detailed and meaningful.
This does affect how we "call" each other internally. As it's not a name spoken, their name is more made-up of a mix of non-words; however putting those names into words is necessary for talking outside our system. Thus, they get translated down into as few words as possible while still roughly meaning what the internal name is. For some this is easy and for others it is harder but that means a LOT of us have names of a certain "type." So we've got names like Earth Listener, Cavern-Risen, Redbreast, Fire In His Blood, Summer Blaze, BlueTail, White-As-Milk, Sky Singer, Golden Crown, Keeper of Stories, Light-of-the-Abyss, Red King, Redbreast, Ocean Watcher, Watts, Prowls-The-Territory, and many more.
However, over time a few people have come up with a secondary name, a less descriptive name. For a few people the name is based on a Human name that means what their descriptive name means, for others they pick it because it "sounds cool," and for the few with past life memories it might be their past-life name. They might use this name around others if they deem their descriptive name too awkward or unwieldy around others.
So that is an explanation for our names.
Community History And Involvement
We’ve been an active member of the community since 2007, have been lurking the online therian community since 2006, and have known of the existence of the community since 2003. Since 2007 we have been active across many different online platforms and have attended howls when possible.
Over time we have contributed a little to the community.
One of major attempt at adding the community has been in our archival work for publications and media and naming off these materials so their existence is preserved. We have written and published an ebook that is an annotated bibliography of everything we are aware of that is out there in connection to our archive. The first version of this free ebook, which is a little over 110 pages, is linked to on our personal website.
Another major project include archiving the history of the various communities. The one that is a timeline of the therian community has also had its first version published online and is also linked to on our personal website. We plan on making similar timeline documents for various other related communities such as the unicorn and fictionkin community. We also want to make an addendum document to Orion Scribner’s The Otherkin Timeline covering the 2011 to present goings on in the community as well.
Another major but far more personal project is a massive series of essays attempting at writing down and explain our personal state of being both plural and nonhuman. We started writing it over a decade ago and as of writing this it over 60,000 words in total, spans over 60 essays and not even 60% done if we will ever finish the darn thing in truth.
We also have smaller writing projects in the works because we have a problem with saying no when we find something we would like to write about.
Our personal website is:
https://houseofchimeras.weebly.com/
In Closing
Anyway, we're open to questions about being multiple, what kinds of species are our various headmates, or basically anything else. We've been around the community so long, questioning does not bother us in the slightest. Feel free to just ask anything.
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