being otherkin can help you cope but it’s not a coping mechanism (in fact, it’s sometimes very hard to deal with). coping mechanisms are things a person adopts to help them cope, be they good or bad; as otherkin is something you can’t choose to become, it’s not a coping mechanism.
Coping mechanisms are defined by being choosen but the symptoms are not–please be more considerate in inferring my truma induced kinnities were choosen like I choose to be abused or something. I choose to seek love from cats and dissociate by inducing dream states–that caused my cat kintype and glitch kintype respectively. Side effects of our coping strategies are not something someone hands us on a pamphlet when we ///need/// to cope in order to assure we make completely informed decisions.
Some copingkin consider their coping mechanisms and symptoms to be a package deal and thus call their kinnity a coping mechanism or part of one, and that is why we get offended when we get labeled as copinglinkers. People like me who believe their kinnity wasn’t something they were born with but something that developed often get thrown under the bus by the community.
Choosing to identify to cope – copinglinker.
Coming to identifying because of coping – //not// copinglinker.
Please take a lil more care in talking about this issue–I know it personally offends me and I have read many accounts of people feeling attacked by this rhetoric–feeling like you are holding them accountable for being informed beyond their capacity.
I don’t think you understand what being otherkin is?? It’s not something you can choose and you really can’t become kin. That’s literally the definition and I’m sorry if I hurt you in any way but words DO have definitions and our community holds little use for someone who identifies as something because of trauma / mental illness.
You can’t become otherkin through any means - your kintype is who you ARE at your core. It’s just the label of otherkin that gives meaning to it. You can’t become kin any more than I, an agender person, could become agender. It’s simply what I am, it’s what I’ve always been. It’s me. Simple as that.
I’m sorry if people are upset by otherkin telling them what kin actually means, but that’s hardly our fault - it’s the fault of people who spread this misinformation in the first place.
No. The deffintion of otherkin //is a non choosen nonhuman identity felt on a nonphysical level//–everything else you are just adding in for kicks. I looked this up quite extensively when I found the community. The ‘born with’ or ‘can’t develope’ is literally something spiritual kin who don’t know about the psychological minority of the community stick in. It doesn’t get refference as an absolute requirement for otherkin nearly anywhere out side of personal posts.
Find me a reputable source saying what you said ‘it can’t develope’ before you literally gatekeep a huge part of the community that doesn’t have spiritually founded otherkin beliefs–there are even athiest otherkin you know?? You surely have heard it’s a spiritual //or a psychological// belief?? Have you ever heard of blank slate theory?? Maybe //you// shouldn’t spread misinformation.
Psychological does not equal mental illness related, when it comes to otherkin.
Whilst your otherkin identity CAN develop psychologically, my point stands that it’s not a coping mechanism because it’s not something you consciously choose. It simply is your identity. It may help you cope, but it’s not a coping mechanism in the way art therapy or self harm is. It’s something already present that can assist you.
By “become” I mean you can’t be depressed and suddenly start identifying as a wolf just to help you cope. Even if it started unconsciously, the fact is that it’s still PURELY for coping, meaning it’s not otherkin. Actual otherkin have a plethora of other signs such as shifts.
Literally… I have seen it stated over and over you don’t need shifts or memories to be kin. Those are just part of your belief system–don’t push it on to others. Otherkin isn’t a religion, it’s a shared belief that connects a diverse community, but you sure are treating it like an organized religion….
I feel like you just need a time to adjust to new information cause you are literally just gate keeping out coping identities because of prejudice toward people who put the words cope and kin together–probably because your life never depended on you coping and you literally don’t get people don’t always get to choose whether or not they cope, they just get to choose how or they develop a defense mechanism. Either or–or they die. *shrug*
I hope you realize you are just throwing in biases because your ‘it can’t be coping’ stance literally only stands to push out neuro divergent people–who can’t choose their symptoms. It’s nothing but ableist 😕 ‘cause you are putting undue accountablity on people who need to cope to live with trauma or mental illness.
Like if you specifically choose a identity to cope that is copinglinker, but literally all coping methods have unforeseen symptoms and you kinda have to cope to survive… that is the point of coping. Or else you develop deffense mechanisms…
*SUCH AS* shifts!! Such as!! Obviously not all kin shift or have memories but there are actually some things that are typical of kin and saying “oh it doesn’t matter if you don’t fit the definition and a better term would fit you, you’re kin if you want to be uwu”
Copinglinkers are not otherkin! They belong under the alterhuman label but they ! are not otherkin!
Also I’m a rape survivor with PTSD and BPD; I cope in many ways, healthy and unhealthy, I’m suicidal a lot of the time, I’m severely mentally ill; my otherkin identity has NOTHING to do with this. My BPD is basically one big coping mechanism from my abusive childhood.
Saying “if you are otherkin for the purpose of coping you aren’t actually otherkin” is not ableism. Ableism is me being told I’m unlovable because of my BPD and possibly denied a job over it; it’s me being called slurs because of my symptoms. It is NOT me saying that you aren’t otherkin if you are kin PURELY to cope.
If you have a nonhuman identity for coping reasons (by which I mea you chose it to cope) then the copinglink community is a much healthier place to be. Sorry.
I never said copinglinker was otherkin. Literally no where. @who-is-page came up with the word (I @ them cause they usually show up when copinglinker is mentioned eventually to explain what it means)–you are just stretch the deffinition to meam anyone who copes. It’s ridiculous. I don’t belong in the copinglinker community. I believe I have literally become indistinguishable from a cat on a certain mental level through the only friendly socialization I had access to–I get I will not find a community for that but you don’t get to say where I belong, //especially// when I am uncomfortable with the whole choice label because it literally means you //keep holding me accountable//.
To be otherkin you just have to believe you are nonhuman on a nonphysical level and you had no choice. Everything else is extra stuff that is specific each kin.
And sorry about your trumas, yo–but just cause your identity and trauma’s are seperated doesn’t mean everyone’s has to adhere to that. You are not the supreme example of what being otherkin is.
Well then yes, you’re fucking otherkin, but my original point still stands. It isn’t inherently a coping mechanism. I never said I’m an example of what otherkin is, just that becoming otherkin to cope with (recent) trauma is not…actually otherkin and it spreads misconceptions to say otherwise. I don’t understand what you’re disagreeing with here.
I can use my otherkin identity as a means to cope - mental shifts give me a temporary break from the usual unbearable atmosphere of my mind for example - but it’s not something like, say, squeezing ice when I’m dissociation, which is a coping mechanism and something that will go away when I’m more recovered and not dissociating almost daily. See what I mean?
Also who-is-page has already reblogged this post.
