I found a message board for people like me who are trans-species, or have species dysphoria. I also found out that there’s another name for it: otherkin. I don’t like that one as much as trans-species, though. species dysphoria makes it sound like there’s something wrong with me, like I’m sick. otherkin makes it sound like I believe in fairies or something. trans-species sounds like it’s just a thing, like transgender or transsexual. like I’m just someone who was born into the wrong body, only I’m not a boy in a girl’s body. I’m a cat in a girl’s body.
so I’ve been on these message boards, talking to other people about things. and I feel better about myself, but also worse because, I mean, transgender would be hard enough for people to understand. there’s no way they could understand trans-species unless they were it, too. I guess that’s why mom went away. she saw the signs in me and was worried that I’d follow in her footsteps so she left. she didn’t want me to end up in the life that she had. but I have. so I’ve been trying to look for her.
I’ve made some friends on the boards. most of them are a lot older than me, so I’ve been asking around about my mom. I’ve been talking to my dad and been trying to call my stepdad. for once, darleen’s been pretty cool about things. guess she thinks I’ve had it rough enough already. it doesn’t feel right that my mom would have left me thinking she’s dead. my dad says that she hoped she’d be able to talk to me later on in my life, but it was gonna be at time when she and my dad thought I was ready. only my dad hasn’t heard from her in months. or from her husband.
dad doesn’t want to tell me much about the relationship mom had (has?) with her husband. I can kinda guess just from what I’ve figured out on the forums and little things I put together over the years. my stepdad acted like, I dunno, my mom’s owner. he took care of her. so when she “died” they both left and he’s been taking care of her at the cat commune. I don’t know exactly what it all means. just that he’s helping her live her life as she wants to live it. I have no idea how they can afford it. he must be working tech from his computer or something. that’s what he used to do.
there are parts of the message boards I can’t go to because I’m too young. I don’t really want to know what mom does with brian anyway, so I’m glad I can’t read about that crap. the older members are protective of me because I’m so young and because of what happened with my mom. they’re all keeping an eye out for me, to see if they hear anything about a commune like what my dad said.
I don’t know if I should even try to find her. I want to. I want to leave school and just go searching for her, but that’s not what she’d want. I hate myself for feeling that way. and I can’t shake the feeling that maybe brian has been keeping her from me. I don’t know.
hopefully I’ll find out more soon.
in other news, school’s ok (not great) and I’m getting better on the guitar, despite actually being a cat.
sorry I haven’t been writing here. things have been surreal and I wasn’t really sure where to start. so I guess I’ll do what that song says and start at the beginning.
my dad was using my computer the other day because his had a virus and he looked at my search history and found out that I’ve been trying to find information about being a cat trapped in a person’s body. it’s called “species dysphoria” or trans-species. anyway, my dad asked me about it. I tried to act like I was just researching it for something for school, but then he started crying and said that the same thing had happened to my mom. that my mom wasn’t really dead. that she was a cat.
only he said that she THOUGHT she was a cat. that it’s something she struggled with for a long time. that it was why they got divorced. she had been sick, but she got better. it wasn’t the cancer that killed her. cancer was what made her stop acting like she wasn’t what she knew she was all along. my mom’s a cat.
he was hoping that with me it would be a case of nurture over nature. that I would be ok with being a human. but he was wrong.
he said my mom’s been at a commune with people like her. with other trans-species people. he wouldn’t tell me what it was called because he doesn’t want me to go there. but I can’t believe it. my mom is alive. my mom is not dead. my mom is alive. as hard as it was to accept her death, it’s now equally hard to accept that she’s alive. not only is she alive, she’s like ME.
I can’t believe my dad lied to me about my mom dying. I go between hating him and understanding why he did it. to him, mom as a cat is as good as being dead because she’s not a person. what he doesn’t get is that she was never a person. she was just pretending.
I have to find her. or at least get in touch with her. I’ll write more when I have more information. there’s still a lot I don’t understand about the situation. is her husband still with her? is he a cat too? is she getting surgery to be more like a cat?
as much confusion that I have, so many things make sense now. and my mom is alive.
up too late. gonna be groggy for school tomorrow. there’s things swirling around in my head that I can’t put to rest. I’ve been feeling really strange since I was sick over thanksgiving. wondering if maybe the fever fried my brain or something. or maybe it just burnt the bullshit away.
I feel altered. I feel less like I’m wearing a mask. I don’t think I’m going to go to “drama club” anymore. I don’t think it’s where I need to be. it has helped me realize that the problem with my identity isn’t that I’m gay (or straight, or bi, or trans, or anything like that). I’m not sure what I’m attracted to, but I don’t think it’s people. I just don’t like them very much.
and it’s not like I’m into animals, either, so don’t even say anything. I’m not into beastiality. I just think I was maybe born into the wrong species.
it’s kind of a problem. and I don’t foresee any solution. I mean, how does one come out as “cat?”
I’ve been sick for the past couple days. spent thanksgiving in bed. it was probably for the best. mom’s favorite holiday was thanksgiving. she used to let me help make the meal. it was fun, until I hit puberty and started being a jerk. I regret the times we fought. I was always so angry. I still am. I just don’t have anyone to take it out on now.
sometimes I imagine how I would act if darleen died. or my dad. what would I do differently? I’m not sure. sometimes the only thing that keeps me from screaming in darleen’s face is the thought of how bad I would feel if she died tomorrow. so despite the things I’ve said about her, I still try not to be a bitch to her. because I don’t know how much time I have left with her. just like I don’t know how much time I have left with my dad. and I didn’t know how little time I’d have with my mom.
I’m not ready yet to let go of the things I did with my mom, like making tg dinner. or xmas cookies. being sick was kind of a relief. I just stayed in bed and watched stupid movies. tried not to think too much about things. so of course I did the opposite.
I know it’s dumb to have regrets, but I can’t help it. sometimes they’re the only thing that make me still feel connected to my mom.
say it over and over. there is no good or evil. there is no such thing. it is just learned behavior. it is things our parents showed us or our teachers taught us or our friends pushed on us. it’s all subjective so it’s all a matter of opinion.
I hate all the movies with the ultimate evil vs the ultimate good because it’s never that simple. there isn’t some mighty god with a capital G in the sky, watching everyone and everything, waiting for each of us to sin so we can be punished. there isn’t some devil in the center of the world, trying to tempt us all. blind faith makes me want to scream. it makes me want to shake people. blind faith in anything. not just xtianity. blind faith in the goodness of others or that everything will be ok or that everything will be fucked up always and forever. it’s all a mess.
people just live their lives in their ignorance because it’s easier than looking at what is really there. this whole journey for self-identity has been helping me see this more and more. it feels like I’m on my own, since I can’t have blind faith in my dad anymore, and I never did in darleen. what’s the opposite of blind faith? that’s what I feel for her. I am cautious with my friends. they want me to open up but I don’t trust them. I don’t trust anyone. the more I look around me, the more I see that no one can be trusted. not even me. especially me.
I need something else to do.
maybe I’ll start playing my dad’s old guitar. he certainly doesn’t.