by Simim23

(Okay, I figure I’d just start typing this out. I’m not good wih drafts lol. So this is it.)

It started when I was about 11 or 12. Actually, it started way, way before that.

Ever since I remember, I had been unsatisfied with what I am. Well, “unsatisfied” is not the right word. I just knew that what I looked like and what I am was not the “real” me.

It manifested in fantasy, in childhood daydreams. Ever since kindergarten, I was the kid playing with two or three other kids across the playground, saying it was a desolate wasteland surrounded by fire-breathing dragons and werewolves, and we had to get across.

I was fascinated by the concept of transformation. I knew how to read since I was around 3 or 4, and I loved reading stories about vampires and monsters and werewolves and fairies. I didn’t just like them, I identified with them. I wanted to hear a story about the fairy, by the fairy. I didn’t think they were represented enough.

I’d be the one in the playground game who became a vampire, and had to hide under the jungle gym from the sun, or became a monster and chased the others around. It made me happy to be the monster, or the vampire, or the naga, even if I didn’t know why. I was happy pretending I wasn’t human, and it felt more comfortable than not.

But years passed, and I couldn’t go out to recess everyday anymore. No more make-believe, now the kids wanted to play dodgeball, or kickball, or red rover. Make-believe was for “babies,” although I didn’t see why. So, instead, I became absorbed in books. I’d go outside, because I liked being outside, and I sit on top of the frame of the playground with a book and read, while everyone else was out in the field running around. Yes, I did like to run around, and yes, I loved to race, but I didn’t want to be in a “team.” If I won with a team, I was only beating half the class, so what was the point in that?

Not enough competition, and not enough make-believe. So I read.

I was considered “ahead” of my class, so in the middle of 3rd grade, I was moved up to 4th. And everyone picked on the younger person who was making better grades than them. It continues through 5th grade. In recess, now I read not only because I wanted to, but because nobody wanted me on their team anymore, despite the fact that I could run faster than any other girl, and most of the boys.

I was “wierd,” a “nerd,” a “geek,” a “freak,” and I had “cooties.” At first, I didn’t care. Then it made me mad. Then it made me depressed. So I just read more and more, in the corner desk of the classroom.

I found a site on Wicca. My mind had already been opened to strange and new ideas, and when I was 9 I stumbled across several web pages on Witchcraft. I understood quickly that it wasn’t about “making potions” or “casting love spells,” and I adopted it as my new religion. My family hadn’t gone to church since I was 2 anyways, so Christianity didn’t have much of an impact on my life.

I had always been adamant that fairies did, indeed, exist, which Wicca had no problem with. I was interested in all aspects of Wicca, but especially the parts with supernatural creatures. So, I was trying to add a section where I could keep a virtual book of shadows on my new website, and I was searching for pictures of fairies(Google didn’t exist!! Hah….back in the day…), when I stumbled upon a particular site….Fae Inc.

I read up on it, and I was in complete awe. Not only did these people acknowledge that fae and dragons and elves existed, but they thought they were them!! So, I assumed they were roleplaying. And I tried to join in. Otherkin forums, I found out, could be very, very skeptical, and I was shot down as what I now know as “wishkin” very, very quickly. I thought, however, that they were just being mean. So I left.

And for about 5 years, I was content as a Wiccan. At 13, I discovered I had a distinct attraction to females as well as males, and at 14, I found that Wicca just wasn’t working for me anymore. At this time, I was in sophomore year.

I discovered a site on the furry subculture after seeing the controversial “Fur and Loathing” episode of CSI, and reading an article about furries in the Houston Chronicle. I read more and more about it, and thought that it’d be fun to be one. I had always appreciated anthropomorphism in art and cartoons, so it made sense. I quickly adopted a scale-sona of a snake, seeing as they’ve been my favorite animals since I knew what they were.

My sona went through several changes, because I was never satisfied with just a snake, or just a hyena. I eventually had a hybrid going on, but it was fun nonetheless, roleplaying.

And then, one day, I felt them. I felt wings on my back. Two big wings. I thought that maybe the roleplaying was getting a little too deep into my brain, so I stopped for a while. But they were still there. I couldn’t sleep on my back. And then, the tail, that I found myself frequently tripping over. I had no clue what was going on. However, talking to a furry friend of mine via the internet, he suggested that perhaps I look into therianthropy, because a friend of his was one. He explained the gist of phantom limbs, which had me interested, so I googled it.

The more I read, the more I thought “this might explain all those feelings, these limbs, the distinct feeling of not belonging in this body,” and so on. So I thought I was a therian, and had a “semi-awakening.” I didn’t feel completely right about it, though, and after several months I knew that therianthropy, while close, was not accurate. I knew I wasn’t human, but I wasn’t animal, either.

Again, this time through shifters.org’s forums, I found otherkin.net. I read up on it, being drawn towards the faeries, like I used to be. I knew I wasn’t an animal, but a faerie perhaps? Again, after only a few weeks this time, I knew it wasn’t right.

My best friend suggested dragons, which, tactfully, I shot down almost immediately. I wasn’t corporeal, I was made of energy. Deep down, to the core of my being, I knew that. And then, I came across two types of kin not discussed much on any of the forums I had previously visited: angelics and demonics.

I think the article which impacted me the most was MidnightAngel’s “types of demons” article of the Forests of the Unknown forum. I, by the time I had read it, had already thought “I think I am demonkin. I really do.”

It was like falling in love. You know there’s this feeling, but you don’t know what it is. Then a lightbulb turns on in your head, and you think “That’s it! I’m in love. It’s love!”

Well, I knew I was something. I had these feelings. When I read this article, trying to research it more, the demonkin idea was theory to me. I had already read several other resources on it. I was still kind of suspicious. I was not Christian, and about 60% of these articles referred to Christian doctrine. I knew demons existed outside of that doctrine, but still…..I didn’t think demon would end up being valid for me either.

And when I read that article, it was like someone telling you what that gut feeling is. My suspicions were instantly confirmed. Almost simultaneously, this memory just entered my head, like an arrow shooting at you. I remembered the “limbo” I had resided in. I had never thought of it before, there was nothing I had seen that reminded me of it. It felt 100% right.

And, since that day, memories have been resurfacing, bit and pieces, little by little. I awakened almost a year ago, and I feel complete. I feel like I know what I am, and even if I don’t remember all of my past life, I know that I may some day remember it all. I am satisfied.