I just am
- a deep dive into my otherkin experience
By Xeep/Lucian
It took me long to have the courage to tell the humans and non-humans around me about who I actually am. So far, not-so-many beings believe me and know about my identity. Long time passed before I found answers to only some questions and doubts that were bothering me.
Hello beings, my names are Xeep and Lucian and I am an alien, or I would say, a being from another planet. Most creatures in here [on Earth] see my as a ‘human’, see my unimportant shell. What I’m going to write is all my serious and honest experience.
I’m writing this not only because I want to share my experience, but also because there are probably other beings like me. Wandering around, suffering from not knowing who they are, being tired of convincing others of their identity – or – being afraid of showing it. Maybe those human-looking creatures don’t know the alterhuman community at all, or maybe they don’t know how to safely cope with dysphoria – or even – enjoy their identity.
I’m going to write about my backstory, how it is these days and analyze different aspects of my identity.
The past – looking for unobtainable answer
Note: I am a host of a plural system, however I have vivid memories of my childhood and partially identify with our child-self.
“The beginning of ‘human’ me” is what I call my birth on this planet. I do not know what and if there were any events with me before, like a past life [however, I highly doubt that I have a past life]. Already in early childhood I knew that something was wrong, something was not as how it’s supposed to be. I was seeing and treating myself as an alien – I still do. And, somehow, I wasn’t on my planet and there were humans around me. Cream-skinned, so weak, yet so strong humans.
To clear out any doubts and what makes the ‘story’ even more interesting – I didn’t consume any alien media at this time, like kid shows or books. I didn’t know of any other aliens in my childhood. But what I definitely knew about is space – I have read books about it, my dad showed websites about space where you could scroll through the planets, stars and other celestial bodies, I’ve watched videos about it. And there’s one fact that I knew – the Universe is so large that there must be some other beings on other planets.
Moving on, I had and have parents. A sad thing is, I never felt a strong bond with my parents like other kids have. Yes, I have a bond with them – I live, interact and communicate with them after all, but there’s something missing and that bond was never ‘full’. At least on my side.
What did the little alien in a human-ish body do? Obviously, I tried to tell my parents, then this moved on to convincing, and finally – arguments. However, they never believed me. These days, we still argue, but much less. They know about this identity, but still somehow choose to see me as a ‘human’, which I personally don’t understand.
But coming back to my childhood, I felt trapped. It wasn’t some ‘fun roleplay’ like kids always do. I was crying at night, praying to God to ‘get me back to my real home’. My parents, especially my mom, raised me in a Christian way. In the context of my non-humanity, God was my only ally, my only friend who believed me. Mom always told me that God is good, he never hates anyone and that if I pray for something positive many times, I would eventually achieve it. Obviously, with my input. And with these pieces of information – that there is someone out there, who believes me, is good, and I can pray to – I never lost my hope.
Eventually, at some point, I gave up with convincing my parents that I am, well, me. There was a ‘break’ – a long period of time, in which I was fully closeted with my identity. It only existed within me.
On the other hand, there were some positive childhood experiences regarding my identity, and that was mostly my creativity.
I tried to make up a name for my species and planet. Until now, I have no idea if these are actual names or if it’s just something that I came up with to make myself feel better somehow. But aside from that, I imagined lots of things that would happen on my planet. I made various shop magazines showing some alien products and their prices, posters, comics, or just regular drawings. I even planned out a whole TV show made by a group of aliens exploring Earth.
The turning point
I was about 13 years old when there was curiosity and… the internet [at the time of writing this, I am 17]. During my online journey I stumbled upon the word therian. It got my attention, so I decided to do some further research. Then, I discovered other terms, like otherkin. This term describes anyone whose identity is not entirely human. And this is how I discovered the term for my experience. It appears, that there are other beings like me identifying as various non-human species, but stuck in a human-looking shell.
This is how I’m participating in the alterhuman community, and I’m proud of being its part. If not these other beings, who decided to make websites, videos and other forms of passing on knowledge, I would never ‘calm down’, and I’d still look for answers that are – in fact – impossible to achieve.
Discovering this one community, a few useful definitions, and interacting with other beings changed my world. After being tried of persuading and later silenced by my fear for 13 years, I finally have this opportunity to share my experiences without being afraid of judgement and hate. What’s more, I have the vocabulary that describes my experience. So I don’t have to explain my lore to a person, I can just say “I’m an otherkin” , “I’m transspecies” [which I am going to write about later]!
My alien-ish traits
If what you’ve just read is not enough, or maybe you just are even more curious – here, I’ll describe what else “makes me an alien”. The ‘proof’ of me being an alien for another person is mostly my feeling, behaviors, thought patterns, speech, and ways of self-expression.
I have a very strong feeling of being an alien. Let’s make up a crazy and irrational situation: if you saw a talking rock, and it asked you: “Excuse me, what exactly are you?”, if you’re fully a human, you’d probably say: “I am a human.”. If this is your case, it’s extremely easy for you, comparing to me. When you look in the mirror – you see a human. I’m assuming that you go by a human name and use human pronouns, you use a one or more human languages, you talk to other humans on a daily basis. But not me. I don’t really see myself in the mirror. I’m using two names: Lucian [the human-ish one] and Xeep [the one I feel most comfortable using]. I use neopronouns in English, and no Polish pronouns ever match me. I don’t even know my real language. Everything works for you, but not for me. And this is the strong feeling that ‘tells’ me: I am not a human.
My everyday behavior is different from others. I have a different gesticulation, the way of speech (speaking is a bit hard for me), the way of thinking and receiving information from the outside, for example someone’s statement. And someone probably could say that it’s because of my autism spectrum disorder. Well, this potential someone is both right and wrong, because both of these factors [ASD and otherkinnity] caused me to be this way. Like, imagine being autistic, which makes life harder, and also being otherkin which makes life even more hard.
My reactions and these aspects pose a difficulty with functioning on this planet and communicating with people. However, among so many disrespectful and rude folks, I managed to find the ones who closed their eyes and opened their souls.
Another thing is missing and yearning for things that I don’t really remember. I ‘miss’ my planet, maybe other aliens from my species or my alien-family, the feeling of being one of my kind. But my human-ish brain doesn’t remember these things. I have no idea if this is: a) missing something that I experienced, but I don’t remember or, b) yearning for something that should be, but isn’t.
My names and pronouns, which I mentioned before, is also a thing that bothers me. Human names don’t match me, but I need to have a ‘human name’ here, so I chose Lucian, as this one doesn’t bother me as much as my deadname. Xeep is the name that is the closest to my heart. I mean, out of the context of this article, if you heard the name Xeep, you probably wouldn’t think of a human having this name either.
In the Polish language, unfortunately there is no pronoun set that 100% matches me. All of them sound so human, so gendered. Even ‘ono’ – which is a neutral pronoun – still doesn’t fully match me. There are neopronouns in Polish, but they’re not only hard to use and unpopular, but also they don’t fit me as well.
I feel as if I should look different. I don’t have a clear image in my head of how should I look like, everything is blurry and… dreamy? However I know [from experiences like shifts or childhood drawings] some parts of my appearance that I’m sure about having.
Note 2: I didn’t make anything up. This is purely based on my experiences, mostly shifts. I recommend reading about alterhuman shifts on Alterhumanity Wiki.
Shifts are sometimes funny, like the phantom ones. For example: I’m just walking up the stairs and randomly I get the feeling of having a huge tail.
If the website that I’ll publish this article on will have a feature of adding photos, I’ll surely attach some of my artwork.
The appearance traits that I should have, but well, God had other plans [jokingly], are:
• Having not five, but four thicker fingers on each hand,
• Half-digitigrade legs [something between ‘furry’ legs and ‘human’ legs],
• I think that my skin is a saturated green,
• No body hair, even on my head. Human hair bothers me [and that’s why I have a buzzcut almost all the time],
• On my head, I have ear-horns. It’s hard to describe, my species probably has a name for it,
• As I mentioned, a long, lizard-like tail,
• My eyes are much bigger. Also they don’t have irises, it looks like a giant pupil.
Species euphoria/dysphoria – how do I cope?
Species euphoria and dysphoria are two experiences typical to alterhumans, however, not all of them experience those. There are things like objects, situations and other factors that bring me euphoria or dysphoria and they aren’t ‘typical to humans’. For example, I get dysphoria from being physically weak. For some humans it is also not a good thing, but not usually a reason to have a mental breakdown.
Euphoria can bring a different type of happiness from the same thing to a human and an alterhuman. In my case, it is a galaxy lamp. Many humans enjoy these, but it probably doesn’t remind them of ‘home’. It also doesn’t give them a ‘break from suffering’. They probably enjoy it because it’s pretty, or it looks unusual, gives them the feeling not of coming back, but of being somewhere new.
My experience with species dysphoria
Unfortunately, most [like 95%] of ‘human things’ give me species dysphoria, so I’ll just write down the absolute worst.
An obvious, but important thing – my human body-shell. It’s weak, and hard to ‘fix’. I can decorate it, change it a bit, but it’ll never be truly mine.
But the worst thing is: social norms/standards. While I agree with moral norms, social standards literally don’t make any sense. What do you mean that most humans would laugh at or think badly of a woman who doesn’t shave her legs? Why a woman? Why leg hair? In theory, absolutely nothing bad would happen if she kept her legs hairy. And yet, people still find that “gross”.
This, and other ‘social norms’, have no point and that’s why I rejected them.
People made these up. So if I’m not a human, why would I even follow these ‘rules’? Second of all, humans too suffer because of them. It causes weigh and stress on them, they feel like they must follow these norms, because otherwise – they will be rejects in others’ eyes.
Rejecting this mess is freedom, but also the acceptance of negative reactions.
Species euphoria – ways of causing it, aka coping
For sure the choice of my name – Xeep – and being called like that caused me to get euphoria. I don’t know any human named like this, it’s not a typically human name, and that’s why it brings me joy. Since I was a child, as mentioned earlier, drawing causes me to be more happy. Specific type of clothing and colors make my body appear more alien-ish. I also like accessories, like pins and jewelry, that in some way refer to aliens. I have a self-made pin that says “reject humanity”, so reject human egoism, greed, rudeness, and other typically human traits.
I also make room decor that reminds me of home a bit. I recently made a sign that says “alien zone”, because my room is literally an alien zone. Specific music also works great, especially those “space ambient music” playlists. Writing about my experiences itself, especially on the internet, gives me the feeling that I don’t need to be afraid of being myself. It’s my blog, my article, my post, why would I be afraid of writing about me? If we’re talking about the internet, putting my true-self on my profile picture is also a good thing.
I also have this quirk that usually appears during stronger mental shifts: I replace the letter ‘s’ with ‘z’. I also do this for species euphoria purposes, but for the sake of accessibility and readability I’m writing in a ‘standard’ way.
Being transspecies – positive changes and plans
Note 3: the transspecies community isn’t mocking transgender folks. In fact, these two often go together. And if you think that we’ve stolen the prefix “trans-“, think of words like ‘transport’ or ‘transition’ [eg. video clip transition].
Note 4: I personally separate the transspecies from transID community. I would not like to discuss this topic further, as I may be a bit uneducated on the 2nd one, but I heard of transIDs being harmful in some way, so just for safety I’ll keep it separate in this article and my other online activity.
The word ‘transspecies’ has many meanings according to different sources and to different beings. I think that this experience is personal to everyone, for me it mean ‘fixing’ my body, so transitioning into my species. Or, well, partially transitioning, because I know that I’ll never achieve my true form.
Am I transgender? I would say yes, since I definitely don’t identify with what this shell was born as. I would describe my gender as xenine, not understandable to human gender categorization. So I would use the word ‘transxenine’.
I have some plans for my partial transition, some are done, some in progress and other are for the future.
Social transition
• Changing my name, unfortunately not officially, but at least socially [done]
• Coming out as an otherkin to others [partially done]
• Buying/making more alien-ish clothing and accessories [partially done]
• Entirely changing my pronouns [English = xe/zey/zib] [Polish = ono/onx] [partially done]
Physical transition
• Wearing a binder [done], later – top surgery, if possible [future plan]
• Either wearing a green buzzcut [partially done – not dyed yet] or completely shaving my hair [potential future plan]
• Wearing eye contacts that would make my pupils bigger [future plan]
• Making my eyebrows smaller [length, not width] [done]
• Making my physical condition better, if possible [potential future plan]
• Making/buying gear like tail, 4-fingered gloves [future plan]
My advice to other otherkins
This is the last part of this article. Thank you for reading this, and if you are otherkin or you’re questioning whether you’re human, here is my advice that I’ve learned over the past 4 years:
I highly encourage you to participate in the community, on various discord servers, websites like otherkin.net, or interact with alterhuman creators, for example on YouTube. You can also try out Tumblr, because it’s mostly an accepting space. In these spaces, depending on which being stumbles upon your posts/entries, you can receive positive comments, support, or words from some being who has similar experiences to you. Or at least looking at posts, artwork, writing, ect, can make you feel less alone.
If you already know your kintype, research about it [if it’s possible], or just try to get to know some useful facts about it. Why ‘useful’? Because you can think of ways to cope basing on what you know about your kintype. Like, for example, my kintype is associated with space, so I bought a galaxy lamp to get a ‘break from reality’ while it’s on. If your kintype likes water, maybe you can try going to a pool or a water park more often? And if it’s possible, you can try to buy one of these summer garden pools. And if both of these options don’t suit you, you can try having a long, relaxing bath and see if it makes you happy.
If you plan to become a creator on the internet, you will get hate. At least one hate comment will most likely appear. If you know that you’re very sensitive to hate, turning the comments and direct messages off might help. I know that not every platform has this feature though.
But if you’ll get [a] hate comment[s], then think to yourself: why bother? I know that it’s hard, but it’s possible to care less about hate. There is a quote that I love, and it says: "To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing". And while hate has nothing to do with criticism, we can replace these 2 words. But what does it mean?
Whatever you create, there is going to be at least one person who dislikes it. And it’s this person’s choice to just scroll down or write a hate comment...
Dealing with hate comments is easy, at least for me. Ignore, delete, block, move on. Don’t respond to them in any way, because that’s what the author wants – your reaction. You being mad. So prove that you’re much better than that.
Never be afraid to express yourself. Self-expression can be subtle – no one besides you could notice a part of your identity. Or it can be noticeable – it can scream ‘yeah, I’m not human!’ loudly without using words [unless you have a t-shirt or a pin that says something like this]. And both of these forms, and everything in between is absolutely valid and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it. Of course, there are some morally wrong ways of self-expression, but I highly doubt that it’s about alterhumanity.
My other piece of advice is: create art. Even if you’re not going to share it. Even if you think that you “can’t draw” or “can’t write’. Remember that anything can be art. It can be drawings, poetry, written stories, collages, dancing choreographies, objects designed in an artistic way, accessories, sculptures, and much, much more. It personally brings me such joy, don’t limit yourself and let that artistic joy come to you too!
Thank you for reading, if you have any further questions or comments, you can contact me on my Tumblr [lost-among-humanz]. I also have an otherkin.net profile [lozt-among-humanz]. These two usernames have a 1-letter difference [s and z].
Remember: reading about others can also shape the knowledge about yourself!