This is something that has become very important to me to share, as I get older(and, often, sicker). My wife keeps telling me I should write our memoirs, that I should transcribe the strange, intense, awful, lonely, awe-inspiring experience of having lived with this phenomenon for literally as long as I can remember— because for the last twenty years or so I’ve been desperately trying to explain to people what it’s like.
Yes, that is important to me.
No, I couldn’t tell you, at five A.M., exactly why... except that so many things have been lived, so many experiences and two in the morning walks in NYC and cross-country travels and martial arts and stage performances and tears and joy and kendo training and battlebot building and screaming and laughing and guitar-playing and loving and a million other things, all of it — ALL of it — due to who and what we are. And it seems like a tragedy to let that be forgotten, once we’re no longer here to scream it at the void.
There are so many people out there that claim the phenomenon, treat it like a joke, pick it up and put it down when it’s convenient, play it like an RPG, that it’s one of the things that’s been laughed at and made into a punchline in every corner of the Internet. Everybody who’s been online pretty much ever knows someone who’s made otherkin jokes, furry jokes, weeb jokes: our lives, like those, have become something to be immediately dismissed, to be mocked, to be laughed off.
To us, our lives are not a laughing matter. (Well... not always.) But in thirty years of awareness, I’ve met — maybe — five people who are actually like us: not playing, not mocking, not wish-fulfilling. And Jesus Christ, that gets so damned lonely.
So we’re going to try this: going public. Or, at least, a little. We have no agenda other than not being alone, other than maybe having friends who can start to really grasp our day-to-day existence; other than documenting this strange wild ride. We ask for nothing except the same respect you’d give another human being, the same respect you’d ask for yourself. We have no cause, no GoFundMe, no affiliation. Just us.
I originally wrote this post, or a slightly more long-winded version of it, in 2015. And after trying for decades, it’s still the best explanation I have to offer as an introduction: which means it’s held up pretty well. As an opening blog post, I suppose it’ll do.
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So, over Christmas(of 2014), I mentioned "letting my freak flag fly". I post random "fandom" things(look, I'm a poet!) that occasionally make very little sense. I long to share photos that I don't really have a good way to explain. Conversations that are hilarious(or worth preserving). And so this morning, I finally told my wife that I wanted to do what I've been thinking about for a long time, especially now. As she is not only like me, but involved(of course), I wanted to ask her first. And so I have.
Maybe it's because I've been so ill these last months, and pretty much at the limits of despair more often than not, although I don't go on about it here; I have a lot of medical conditions at the moment, and it's going to be... a very uphill battle. To say the least. Maybe I'm finally secure enough in place and purpose; or maybe I've now officially hit the threshold of "too old to care". Whatever the reason, it's "coming out" time, boys and girls.
I am, in all absolute and deadly seriousness, what we used to refer to a decade ago as a "soulbonder", and what I've seen referred to online as "fictionkin"; although if you've known us at all, you know we haaaaaate those words, because their associations are horrendous. Now. STOP. BEFORE you rush off to Google, know this: What you'll likely find is 87% bashing and mocking all across the Web, 10% flowery or ENTIRELY inaccurate(to us, at least) information, and MAYBE, if you're lucky, 3% real, honest, down-to-earth explanation. I had my own, but my website is currently down... although my good friend just recently sent me a link containing all 2.5G of site data. So, soon enough. Maybe.
Anyway. The speed version: my wife calls it "quantum reincarnation": the idea that people, REAL people, from "somewhere else" - call it an alternate reality, call it a parallel timeline - can sometimes cross over into "this reality"... via a conduit, if the desire is great enough, if they have work to finish, a purpose to fulfill. I've always said it's like what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder and is now Dissociative Identity Disorder: one body, multiple people. And every one of them is VERY real: they move differently, talk differently, they remember their lives and their worlds... they act, think, and speak as absolute individuals. But the "disorder" comparison is wrong, as a disorder implies a lack of function; they're not "personalities" or "muses" or "headvoices" or coping mechanisms or fragments of a broken person or whatEVER. They are them. I'm just the body meant to facilitate Purpose.
In honor of Leonard Nimoy(NOTE: Mr. Nimoy had just passed when I originally wrote this, three years ago), I'm going to try something here that I've never done before: apply a Star Trek metaphor. Imagine the Enterprise. One ship, one physical item that exists in space(literally, in this case). But inside that ship is an entire bridge crew made up of very independent beings. Sometimes they're all simply cruising on one heading. But, say, imagine that Kirk has to visit the galactic john. And Spock takes the bridge.
If an unfamiliar craft hails them, it's not Kirk they're speaking to, it's Spock. His voice, his image. If the encounter turns hostile, it's Spock's judgement that will determine which response the ship gives, whether to engage the enemy, etc. Just like, if there was a guest admiral commanding the bridge instead, and the "unfamiliar craft" is a Klingon warbird: maybe this admiral's wife and daughter were killed by Klingons. His entire worldview is based around that incident. Is he going to respond the same way Spock would? Of course not. We are built up of perceptions, of memories and experiences. Nothing else.
But he's still sitting in the same chair, looking out the same viewscreen.
(I know Starfleet is supposed to be neutral. JUST WORK WITH ME HERE.)
One ship, multiple crew, all of whom can take the bridge at will. And occasionally, by request.
That was, admittedly, way more coherent in my head. I thought it was great, this morning. And I’m not even really a huge Trek fan, at this point. Oh well. Moving on.
So... surprisingly enough, a lot of people are with me up to this point. They're willing to accept the idea of multiple people - not personalities, PEOPLE - sharing a body. Okay.
Until I tell them that the people who share said body hail from places that most everyday people would consider "fictional".
Then: whoosh. Back away slowly. Forget my phone number. Oh, I didn't see your message, there. Or, in many cases, it becomes time to drag my name through every extant bit of mud ANYWHERE, for the crime of being "batshit crazy". I've had literal, actual death threats. Hundreds of hate mails. Prank calls. I've had my picture spammed on (actually crazy) people's entire mailing lists. My name and website, if you Googled them, were EVERYWHERE: forums, blogs, most of whose creators, never having met me, are apparently nevertheless absolute experts on my sanity. I've been on Fandom Wank(involuntarily). Encyclopedia Dramatica(which used to upset me so much it made me physically ill). Half a dozen hate sites, where they’d make fun of “those delusional people”. I got told to “do the world a favor and have another embolism” after I almost died in 2007. And many things that were worse.
I'm glad there are "cyberbullying" laws now. But back then it was "grow a thicker skin, gonna cry because of some meanie on the Intarwebz?"
I could quote you some fascinating science about string theory, parallel universes, and why we believe that it's actively possible. I could tell you about strange, terrifying, wonderful coincidences - things we knew that were later impossibly validated - and skills that either "crossed over" or magnified... I could tell you that "energy follows thought", and that our particular belief happens to be that writers, composers, some of these people have tapped into these other places, other lives, and simply transcribed.
I could say that even if you believe that the creators of these "fictional worlds" did, in fact, create them, perhaps the sheer force of mass belief created this alternate existence... who knows? (Richard Bach said something like this BEAUTIFULLY, in "Illusions II", but I can't get it to copy...) I've said all this before, and more; and will be happy to further explain if asked. But in the interest of brevity(ha ha), and clarity, I'll jump on the Internets Bandwagon™, and make a simple list:
· I - and my wife as well, this is how we found each other(by accidental design; no coincidences! And we’ve now been together almost a decade and a half)- share bodies with people from various other places.
· These are not "muses" or "headvoices". They are REAL people, with REAL FEELINGS and REAL MEMORIES, the details of some of which might astound you. When one or the other is fronting, you're talking to them. Not a façade, not a game, not a joke. Not pretend.
· This is not "wish-fulfillment" or "fantasy", or whatever some of these people giving "___kin" a HORRIBLE name are playing at. I've addressed this a LOT. Honestly, some of these people, some of their memories, their purposes... who the f**k would actually want to BE them? Fantasy is well and good until there's blood on your clothes. Or until about the 11th nightmare.
· It's not a role-play, although we've often used that as a "cover" for XYZ action/bi-location/what have you. It's also an outlet when you can't fully be yourself due to circumstances... albeit not the greatest one.
· We use, and have used for over a decade, the term "PC" to refer to various people's "canon": it stands for "Pop Culture". Much less awkward. Just FYI.
· I've always believed I was born a "conduit" for purpose to be fulfilled. I've only really started to understand it more in the last eighteen years or so.
· There are two types of people: the ones we refer to as "primary", and the floaters. The primary people "own" the body, sort of collectively co-front when needed, and are the ones whose life's purposes have been made priority. Basically, the ones who front 24/7 unless otherwise indicated, or we're "talking by radio"... sort of like most of my interactions on social media are "collective". There have been a few... notable exceptions.
Right now, I have three primary fronters: one that is present but not active as often, one that runs the day-to-day stuff, and one that is in the process of working out some things and as such is heavily intense and time-consuming at the current moment. My wife has more.
· IT IS NOT VOLUNTARY. Oh, God, is it EVER not. It just... happens. Imagine someone shouting in your ear nonstop, or knocking at your door like a SWAT team for twelve hours straight. Like that... and not. A pervasive insistence, and you can try to avoid it, but if someone's will is strong enough...
· Yes, we can still enjoy PC memes/jokes/parodies/canon. (Obviously.) Some ARE upsetting. Some people feel more strongly about their particular representations than others. And some things are hilariously funny BECAUSE of that perspective. Because...
· There's a difference between fully fronting and seeing/talking "by radio". 100% swap is rarely visible online. (Depending on who you are... Ste Mansbridge...)
· We don't have "speshul snowflake syndrome". (And these idiots using the *exact* Fight Club quote to mock; do they even see the irony?) I once saw a thread, many many years ago, about a girl on a forum claiming she was "teh real Arwen!!!11!", and how she WAS A PRINCESS and thus entitled to special attention. That has been used a bah-zillion times to illustrate why "soulbonders" all have a bad name. Really? What makes us is our memories. The truth of them. And every human has to take a sh*t like everyone else. I'm not posting this for "extra attention". I'm posting it because
A) It's nice, maybe, to be able to be oneself, fully, occasionally;
B) I'm tired of hiding it or "talking in riddles"; and
C) I've told every friend whom I've expected to be in my life more than a week. It IS my life, so keeping it held back is a lie.
· Yes, I have been evaluated by a psychiatrist. Several, in fact, not that it's anyone's business. And yes, I told them everything. No, I have NEVER been diagnosed as delusional. They accepted it as a "spiritual belief".
· We do not fall under/identify with otherkin. Whooole other ballgame there.
· The burden is not on me to "prove it". I can try - I've been collecting information as I go for decades, and I'm always willing - but in the end, you can't tell me my memories are "false". Quick example: who ARE you? What makes you happy? Tell me about the worst experience of your life, the best, the ones that shaped everything you are. Was there a witness? Was I there? It only exists in your memory? I WANT PROOF!
Like Joe Blow that comes into the "Based on the life of" biopic halfway and then, on meeting the subject of said film scoffs at them as crazy because "X was in a movie!", don't judge reality. It's more fluid than you think.
· Don't tell me "Well, I believe that you believe it". Tell me you're on the fence, tell me I'm nuts, ask me more. But please don't condescend or patronize me.
· We don't, by any means, speak for anyone but us.
· Everything in this book may be wrong. (Oh, wait a minute...)
...if you stuck it out this far, you're a hero. On this stupid keyboard, it's taken me almost FOUR HOURS to write. If you have questions, I'll gladly answer them.
If you're still here, I love you. Welcome to the circus.
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