Arriving at My Identity

by Arethinn
Date unknown, but prior to October 2012, and probably prior to early 2006. From the look of it, this was in response to someone who was writing a research paper or similar.

I do have one questions (yes, I want to squeeze more out of you :P). I was just wondering if you are still trying to retrieve memories

Hm, sort of. That is, I have an ongoing desire to discover more, if indeed I have any or the term is applicable to my situation (I have only teeny bits, but maybe that's all there is to have), but I am not going about it in any kind of regular manner, as some people do. I don't actively "seek memories" through meditation or anything like that, except on very rare occasions.

and if you feel discovering who you are/were as a fae is an ongoing spiritual process.

Oh, certainly. But then I think that any conscious being discoving who they are/were is an ongoing spiritual process. :) But to be more specific to otherkin, yes, it is something I seek to develop, to become, as opposed to something I "found out" and then that was that.

Anyway, other than that, the main question is about your discovery of the Otherkin eg. Did you find them through the wyldfae e-list?

As such, yes. I found that list a few months after coming across a website of "dark elves" which seemed to be mainly goth boys with bows and arrows taking pretty pictures in the woods, and I don't know if they were *really* serious about it, or just wrote the website as though they were. But that was what sparked my initial wondering if there were actually people who really thought this about themselves. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact trail of sites (or whatever), nor chain of thinking-feeling that actually led me to wyldefae, I only know that both happened in the order mentioned.

I'm guessing that since it took you awhile to realise that you were fae, you did not instantly identify with them?

If I could look back at my early list posts, I could tell you. lol. I honestly don't recall very well. I do remember that I went through a period of coming up with all kinds of reasons I couldn't possibly be (which actually I still do): I had no psychic powers, no memories, didn't share X or Y characteristic with person Z who seemed to be important on the list, etc. I am guessing that I must have felt some kind of initial tingle, or I would not likely have stayed on the list, but I have no specific recollection.

How do you feel the discovery of the Otherkin influenced your own self-identity?

(Note: For this page, I have snipped a portion of my reply where I discussed considering otherkin as a subculture. If you'd like to read that, see this page.)

If one had already been identifying as some kind of non-human on one's own and the only "surprise" was discovering that there are a bunch of folks who feel the same, then there's not much to it besides choosing to apply the term "otherkin" to oneself, and life goes on pretty much as usual. (I consider these "old guard" otherkin.)

If, however, one had only a kind of general weird feeling (like myself) prior to finding otherkin, or had aboslutely no clue at all and this idea is a total revelation, then it can possibly change the entire direction of one's life.

For me, I am not sure that my identity went in a different direction, exactly; some of the foundation of this was already there, and this explanation was more like a missing piece that showed the pattern of the others. Unfortunately for clarity of answer, it is very hard for me to isolate the influence of finding otherkin on my life, because it led to me meeting my fiance (over six years ago), and without that I would certainly have been an entirely different person than I am now. If I set that to "null", though, I think a lot of the foundation was there and finding the specific term of "otherkin" just was a missing piece that explained the pattern of the others, and I would be in many of the same places I now am even if I hadn't found that specific group.