So, Winter is always a conflicting time for me. It sets me into a mood that's oddly nostalgic in a good way, but at the same time there are also negative feelings coming to the surface. I'm sure many of you can relate, it's just how Winter is for many.
Something that becomes a problem for me during times like these is an unfulfillable desire I've had pretty much my whole life: I want to be an animal rather than a human.
This phenomenon has had quite an impact on my identity, leading to a shitload of reading and researching and trying to find some kind of "answer" for years.
Of course, I also learned about otherkins and therians at some point. Neither felt like the "answer" I was looking for for multiple reasons, and so I also won't use them as labels to describe myself. I don't want this post to become too long, so that's a topic for later.
Some years ago I slowly came to the realization that by looking for an "answer", I had built layers upon layers of subjective interpretations around my experience. I couldn't just "want to be an animal", it had to be some kind of external force that made me feel this way, as if I was "supposed to be" an animal and other related ideas like that. I automatically picked up this kind of language to describe my own experiences and I followed arbitrary self-imposed rules, all in order to convince myself and others of their validity. That I wasn't a "poser". That all of this was "real".
But then I realized what I was doing and peeled all of the layers off until only the truth remained: A part deep inside of me just wants to be an animal, regardless of the overwhelming cons. That's all there is to it and I'm happy to leave it at that.
Unfortunately, this conclusion doesn't fix the negative consequences. Nothing can change the objective reality that I'm a human. There isn't even the faintest glimmer of hope to see this desire fulfilled. It simply won't happen. If this sounds soul-crushing to you, then you'd be absolutely right.
And yet, somehow I'm not ending up in an endless pit of depression. I think it helps a lot that I can pretend to be a dragon on the internet and people will, to some degree, accept it as reality and treat me like one. I go
Right now, I'm again in a phase where these feelings are affecting me. This time I'm dealing with them by writing about them. It's not the first time I wanted to do this, but it's the first time I'm actually getting a coherent text out of it. Turns out it helps to frame it as "just writing what's going on in my mind" instead of my usual and paralyzing "doing an essay about my identity."