Introspective-in-somnia - Ad Astra Per Aspera

Oh, is it happening again?

@classicaldreams

𝓜.

Very much considering writing a larger thinkpiece on my personal interactions with kin identity; I was terrified to feel the shifts and pulls in my concept of my identity, and if I could put some of my story out there to potentially ease someone else's fears, then it will all feel worth it.

I am beginning to legitimately consider discussing this with very trusted people in my life because this is a large part of my identity and I feel it would allow me to feel more understood, especially because this has been such a large piece of my trauma recovery

Tomorrow marks the two year anniversary of me publicly using the name Shai for myself and I'm already beginning to feel emotional about it..

I've updated my intro post with my main url as that's where I'll follow/interact from; I've pinned the intro as well

Must also say! I don't usually have phantom limb sensations but I can't shake the one day I could distinctly feel where my wings would have trailed down my back

I crossed paths with a fe.itan! The internet is truly a magical place

I was able to do it! I told my friends and it was taken very well. I was still very nervous and wasn't able to look at them when I spoke, but it was taken with grace and immediately applied. I've been able to tell others as well, and am feeling quite good hearing it from others in my life.

What has surprised me is that it seems to be becoming the name I prefer to hear. It wasn't my intention, and I do still use the name I'd previously gone by, but I'm beginning to like this secondary name a bit more and have been preferring to use it instead. I applied for a job within the past 2 weeks and I used this name in my application; I would love nothing more than to have it on a nametag for regular use, to be recognized under this name.

It's surprising to me how this became such a large part of my life, and how my interactions tangle me a bit more each time I look. I'd even joked about him being cold blooded and unable to regulate body temperature, as well as needing to supplement salt due to his butterfly characteristics, and now I'm currently staring down what is definitely a POTS diagnosis, having both of those traits myself. My acceptance does make me wish to look to see how it interacts with myself, especially in terms of identity and confirmation of such. I don't see it as a bad thing at all, quite the opposite really. I think this is shaping up as something truly quite wonderful through which I may get to fully understand myself a bit better. I never really had a chance to do so before this point in time.

It almost feels as though the two of us became more similar as time went on, though I do swear to myself that I never consciously adopted his behaviors or mannerisms. It was the discovery that his arc mimicked the trauma I went through to an almost absurd degree, it's in the ways he thinks and acts and interacts with the world and others that made me very easily believe that he was neurodivergent because it hit so close to my own personal experiences, it was how I found myself having had the same sort of hobbies - I myself have a violin (though I haven't played recently, and will have to wait out an elbow injury before I can try again) and have always been an avid reader. I explored my own perception of gender through him, seeing him as a very feminine man whose femininity is never made the subject of jokes and is taken seriously, showing me a very rare glimpse of a man who looked just like myself. I felt comfortable in slightly more formal clothing, it felt like it helped to reinforce my feelings regarding my gender, though I can't say for sure whether that was before or after I developed such a strong attachment to him.

I recently got my first tattoo, near my left shoulder, and it's his wings. The artist told me she had actually been watching the series and had just gotten to his debut the night prior, leaving me to wonder whether or not she would think of me at least once as she watched, remembering that I wanted to carry him with me. It's almost completely healed and I'm very pleased with how it's come out, in spite of how dark and blotted it looked when I'd first gotten it. I'd like to get a few more, a few insects and a few awareness ribbons for my various health conditions, but he is present as my first and currently my one and only.

He represents my foray into identity, into coping, into understanding what it is that I want and am, what I want from life and what I desire most to give back. In times when the dissociative feelings kick in strongly, it feels as though there is another person with me, and that the grief I carry belongs to him rather than myself. It distances me from everything I've been carrying, and the feeling of another being present with me when I need it most is a feeling I'm afraid to conceptually lose in recovery, but I feel that I'll still carry him in less fully visible ways. In dress, in name. His, and mine.

It's been quite some time since I've last written here, and I'm excited to announce how I've been doing! After over a year of work, I've finally become much more comfortable in my identity as fictionkin and have incorporated it into my life as a spiritual belief ✨️ I plan to open up a bit more about my thoughts and feelings regarding this because I spent quite a long time in therapy sorting out how I felt about this, and have made the decision to no longer push this aspect of myself away as it's been crucial to my recovery and to understanding myself. I'm grateful for the existence of a community that's allowed me to be able to make sense of my thoughts and emotions, and plan to have a bit more on this blog as I continue to work with my identity 💖