Sorry for being so negative

[NoddyTheDragon]

First things first: 

DISCLAIMER:  I'm not trying to cause trouble, I'm just explaining why I'm so randomly negative on Otherkin forums.  I also am not trying to implicate this site or any other Otherkin site for the behaviors of some individual Otherkin toward me over the years.

So, the post:

I tend to be a lot quieter on Otherkin forums than I am elsewhere because my first few months after my Awakening were traumatic to me.  I joined the original Dragon-Realms and started opening up, really excited, but some "anti-fluff" types got in my face because memories I had of one of my past lives was a standard dragon and knight situation that took place here on Earth.  I am an intensely emotional person by my very nature, and being torn down in that nature had a lasting effect on me.  I was also accused by a moderator of being a misanthrope because I claimed it was a human who had killed me.  That moderator's attacks drove me very close to suicide, so yeah, it was a pretty bad time of my life.

I am actually middle aged in real life.  My Awakening originally started when I was about 17 but my soul "hit the snooze bar" as it were because my high school years were stressful in the extreme, and my soul started the process again in February of 2009.  I was 37 years old, and much of my human life had been defined for me.  Though I had a lifetime love and dare I say obsession with dragons, learning that I actually am one was a really tough thing to go through, perhaps more so than it would have been had I been younger and more naturally open to such discoveries.  Add to that that I had abandoned a lifelong dream of being a science fiction writer in mid-2008, and deconverted from Christianity on December 23rd of that same year after having been a part of that faith for 28 years of my life, and you begin to see that my life was not happy at all.  When I Awakened and realized that I am a Dragon, I was overjoyed.  Words cannot express how wonderful it felt to know that there was something more to my love of dragons than just me being a complete weirdo.  So when I encountered my first past life memory of being slain by a man on a horse, a lot of my bizarre drawings I had drawn throughout the years finally made sense.  It was stressful, but at least I had an understanding of what had happened.  So to be suddenly and viciously attacked and accused of misanthropy and heresy just because I wasn't a "normal" Dragon had a far more negative effect on me than it might have had if my life at the time had been more stable. 

But I think the hardest thing about the whole situation at the time for me was that I had just left a very strict religious organization.  The type of Christian I had been was an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, and so I entered the Dragonkin community in the hopes of finding people who were more open minded and willing to entertain unorthodox thoughts and ideas, and yet I was immediately beset upon by people who insisted that my thoughts were heretical (or "fluffy" as they called them).  I don't expect people to believe everything I say, but at the same time I do expect other people to let me believe them without getting all indignant that I hold a belief that they don't like.  I'd gone through that BS for almost three decades as a Fundie, so why should I expect that from people who think they're Dragons and thus hold a highly unorthodox belief themselves?  I couldn't imagine that Dragons would be just as closed-minded as the religious nutjobs I'd been raised around.  And yet, there they were, and this was so jarring that I ended up having a nervous breakdown. 

So I entered the community with high hopes (and judging by my experiences, a bit too high at the time - anthro dragons were still treated as role players or as just plain crazy... even while vehiclekin were being treated with some amount of respect).  And these same people kept calling me a misanthrope. 

You see, I know that my beliefs sound crazy, I don't need to be informed of how crazy they sound by overzealous people who feel the need to "teach" me by ramming their indignance or their "education" down my throat.   I'm willing to discuss them, and even change them if I'm convinced that a change is necessary, but the way a lot of people in the community approached me on these matters was either in an uncivil fit of rage or in a highly condescending manner rather than simply treating me like an equal intelligent person.  It is these experiences that made me far more cynical of the Otherkin community than any other community on the Internet, and considering my past that's quite a feat.

In any case, I'm not interested in causing trouble, or being an ass for the sake of being an ass.  If you cause me trouble, I respond in kind.  If you want me to respond to you in a civil manner, then by all means walk the talk and be civil to me in the first place.  My beliefs might be uncomfortable for you, but I'm not forcing them upon you by writing them down in a forum on the Internet.  And I don't have a joystick hard-wired to your brain with which I can make you believe anything, so please stop being so defensive whenevere I post an opinion or a strange belief online.  You'll get a far nicer response from me (and from most people, for that matter) if you simply ask me politely why I believe the way I do, and then ask me if I'm willing to listen to advice rather than trying to be a heroic knight in shining armor and slay that evil fluffy bunny that you think has taken over my mind. 

Anyway, I wrote this because I made some cynical comments elsewhere in the forums, and I realized (even if it was months after my original comments - eh, better late than never, I suppose) that people change, and so do online communities, and I wanted to explain why I am so negative and cynical most of the time... and perhaps maybe even allow myself to open up more.  My memories are mostly really negative and quite violent... and some of them, even though I know them to be real, sound a lot like a movie or something so they'll come across as hard to believe, and that's fine.  I just don't want to get chewed out for believing and saying things that "normal" Dragonkin don't believe or say.  I'm weird, I'm fully aware that many of my beliefs are "fluffy," and I'm fully willing to consider the possibility that I'm wrong.  But I'm far more likely to consider that possibiity when I'm not getting yelled at by some self-righteous and indignant corrector-of-all-that-is-heretical-in-the-world type.  I'm far better at being civil when the people talking to me are also being civil. 

As for the cynicism, it really all boils down to me putting a lid on my own thoughts and beliefs out of fear of retaliation for the oh, so horrible "crime" of thinking those thoughts or believing those beliefs.  I've had to adjust to people being arrogant jerks to me, and being a sarcasm-filled cynic does the job quite effectively.  But I also know that it can turn people away, and quite frankly it was that same attitude that was thrown in my face when I first Awakened.  If there is one single reason I can cite for feeling like this post is necessary at all, that's it.