The Whats

[Seraphyna]

This is not going to a topic concerning itself with whys. Why do I experience what I do and don’t? Why do things present themselves as they do? Where does it all come from? Nope, none of that. Go read “The Story of Sera,” I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. No, this is a topic about that what. What do I experience? To what degree? That sort of thing. So, if you haven’t read the whys…go do it. Seriously, it might just help put the whats into perspective…because my whys are not exactly the traditional otherkin case of past lives, reincarnation, and new agey stuff. Not at all. Read it? Good. On with the show.

I suppose to get a handle on just what I experience I have to start with who I am. Or rather, that I don’t know who I am, but that’s fitting for a polymorph I suppose. The base me is really a blank slate. When all the facades are taken away I lack understanding of my core human self, the core human morality I’m supposed to have, the core human connections to other people. It’s a lot of “supposed tos” and not “readily haves”. What makes me me is that I have little idea what makes me me underneath it all. It’s like I’m a mannequin and I become what I need to in order to fit in, who I need to, and when someone asks a question pertaining to “who are you, really” I have no answer. Who am I? Someone who doesn’t know who they are, and not someone who’s looking for sympathy or being “emo”...really I don’t have an answer to that pesky question of “who am I” and that’s just the way it is and has always been.

Moving on.

What is a typical day like. Let’s start there. Well, there is no such thing as a typical day. There are days I walk around in a haze and don’t shift at all. There are days when I’m all over the place. There are days when I’m constantly *insert thing here* the whole day. Yeah, no such thing as typical.

So what are my shifts like? Again, no such thing as typical and I have my theories on the whys, but like I said, this isn’t that sort of topic. We’re concerned with whats here, the whys are for another day. Okay, I have what I term 3 types of shifts. The first one is a human shift. Yeah, that sounds odd right? What do I mean by a human shift? Well, I mean taking on human traits that are not “my own”. Accents, mannerisms, personality quirks. I take on what I subconsciously figure will make me fit in. I don’t do it on purpose, it just happens. The second I term a cameo shift. I term it as such because it’s a shift that’s fleeting, or just not so vivid. For example, I was watching a youtube video on baby sloths (which was utterly adorable) and I found myself feeling like my arms were longer, my nails were super long, and I was moving in slow motion, but it ended as soon as the video did (it was only a few minutes long) and was limited to fleeting phantom limbs only. Nothing vivid here, just my “nature” throwing randomness at me. Fun times. Anyhow, I call them cameo shifts because something incites them and they usually end as soon as the instigating thing does. Last type of shift I deem a true shift. I’ll give this one it’s own paragraph.

Okay, true shifts, here we go. A true shift is when I find myself experiencing phantom sensations and mental changes that are not fleeting, are not human, and can be anywhere from a combination of both to one or the other. Now, you’re going to ask me first off if I “lose myself” if I “lose my humanity”…and the answer is no. I have never had a shift so deep where I *am* the not human thing to the point where I could kill a puppy because I lost myself. Again, I have my theories on why, but we’re talking whats. Now, that’s not to say human things make sense to me. Most of them don’t, regardless of whether I’m shifted or not, but that’s another paragraph and I’m getting off the present topic, so back to true shifts. A true shift, for me, can be mental, phantom, or both…and it is often both, at least the mental usually comes with phantom; the phantom true shifts aren’t always accompanied by a mental one. During these shifts I can either feel non-specific urges and limbs (like, they could belong to any “big cat” or any “shark” and so forth, non species specific) or a species specific one. Really, it depends on the day. During a phantom shift, I can feel anything from some limbs, to phantom musculature and skeletal structure, to really anything in between. Some are more common than others, some are more detailed than others, and again I have the why theories I’m not concerning myself with in this topic. Ahem. I do find myself experiencing some non-human beings more than others. When I’m in the water, I often find myself channeling something like a mermaid, or something like a shark. When I’m defensive I often find myself experiencing an “animal” I call a gargoyle (it’s like a dragon crossed with a lioness and around the size of a small horse) or a big cat like a tiger. When I’m in detail mode, especially if scent or hearing is involved, it’s something canine. The list goes on, you get the idea. Anyway, I experience the desire to chase bunnies and squirrels in my yard. I growl at the squirrels. I love to run, and when I do I find myself running as a big cat (in my mind’s eye anyway, I’m obviously still human). I feel a bunch of various phantom limbs, depending on what sort of thing we’re talking. To list a few, I’ve felt a mermaid tail (and swim with my legs together like I have said tail), I’ve felt a shark’s body (and again swim with my legs together, but moving side to side), I’ve felt claws/horns/wings both from my shoulders and as my arms/axolotl gills sticking out of my neck/sloth bits I described above/tails/various skeletal and muscle differences in a phantom sense. The list goes on, but there you go. Mentally, I’ve wanted to drink blood, eat raw meat, chase down small animals, nuzzle, various mating things, been hyper alert, been predatory, wanted to be part of a colony, etc.

Okay, the human stuff not making sense. A lot of human concepts don’t make sense to me, regardless of whether or not I’m shifted. I find my parents most often commenting on it because they have a serious notion of what “should be” and I’m not it (ok that was the only why for the thread). I don’t have a sense of morality that lines up with a lot of peoples’. Is it more animal? I don’t know. It’s not “normal human”. My ideas of right and wrong are not always everyone else’s. I see a lot of greys where most people don’t. A lot of my morality is situational instead of absolute. I don’t get the close family bond thing (again not discussion the possible whys), the owing people things when they don’t seem to feel the same towards me. I’m sure there are more examples, but they allude me. I often can’t find the words to describe what I think or feel, like human words can’t get it across …I guess that’s another example.

All in all, what am I? I feel like this paragraph belongs here in light of recent threads on another forum. Am I a therian? Well, not truly. I don’t experience solely earthly animals and I experience a bunch, really I’m not limited to any. Am I otherkin? Well, not truly, I don’t identify as an earthly animal. Not all the time anyway. I don’t have the spiritual things going on. I’m a psychological polymorph (I assume at this point you read “The Story of Sera” and know the whys) no past lives, no fun abilities, no spiritual stuff really. I do experience beings that fall into otherkin at large. Gargoyle, winged humanoids, humanoid animalistic hybrid stuff I lack a name for. It’s all, mostly, animalistic, but like I’ve already said…not all of it is.

Last paragraph, here we go. So what is the bottom line, while we’re discussing whats? Well, for me, it’s that there isn’t one. Like I said way up there, I don’t know who I am…and I don’t know “what” I am, I just have ideas, theories, that fun stuff. I believe I’m a psychological polymorph, a psychomorph if you will (though maybe that title makes me sound crazy). So yeah, what I am is not typical in any way, and ever-changing. There are some things that are more “homey” more “me” and some that are hats I try on, but the core me is a mystery. Anyway, that’s all the whats. The whys are for another day, and if you haven’t read my other thread, like I suggested you do at the beginning of this TL;DR, do it. Seriously.