Why Do I Kin?

I am a therian, an otherkin (fictionkin, objectkin, and songkin), and otherhearted/otherlinked, but I tend to use alterhuman as a catchall or just call myself nonhuman. I am an atheistic satanist and do not personally believe in the spiritual aspect of “kinning”, like reincarnation or past lives. “Kinning” is a very serious and big part of my identity.

I kin primarily for psychological reasons because I am schizophrenic and autistic which affects how I view my sense of personhood. I do not call my kintypes as “DAs”, even though that’s “technically” what it is.

I experience delusions about my identity, such as: being zombiekin (if it wasn’t obvious when going through the entire website) and having delusions about being (un)dead or eating human flesh. I also view myself as nonhuman due to my experiences as an autistic person and feeling “othered” in how I interact with the world and how others interact with me. I feel so different that I must not be human.

I also kin as a way to cope with trauma or my disabilities. While being zombiekin is mostly because of delusions, it’s also as a way to cope with intrusive thoughts about being a cannibal or a way to cope with my chronic illnesses, such as CFS/ME or POTS. If I am worried that something I am about to eat is human flesh, I will tell myself “don’t worry, I’m a zombie, that’s just what we eat.” It also helps me to view my symptoms as being a zombie. My muscles hurt or I can’t get out of bed? that’s just because I’m rotting, duh! I’m just falling apart. Brain fog? I died years ago, of course, I’d experience that! Unable to talk? that’s because zombies can’t talk, obviously! We grunt!

It’s a mix of being delusional and knowing it’s just a delusion, but obviously it’s still affecting me, and using it to cope with things. I don’t know if my coping, somehow??, turned into a delusion or if I took that delusion and used it to cope.