#You know it’s rough when you have to put “animal” after your kintype

[curiositykilledthecatkin]

why is every Wolverine video on YouTube them fighting something…

please more videos of them being sillay

“Wolverines are vicious” wolverines:

[kinsitivity]

Unhealthy Kinning

I’ve been in the kinmunity for about 3 years now, and this is something I just don’t see discussed enough. It’s sort of hard to talk about, since nobody wants to invalidate fellow kin or try to tell them they’re kinning “wrong.”

I thought that it was important to make a post like this to help people who might have unhealthy kintypes in knowing how to recognize when their kins aren’t healthy and how to deal with the situation. Forgive me in advance if I say anything offensive or out of line, feel free to correct me if I messed up!

More below the cut so I don’t clog everyone’s dashes with a long post.

1) What is Unhealthy Kinning?

Unhealthy kinning is having a kintype (it can be fictionkin, therian, otherkin, etc.) that generally worsens their mental or emotional state, or brings any type of harm to them.

Examples of unhealthy kinning:

-Kins that make you feel worse about yourself (“I’m not as good/smart/attractive as my kintype therefore I’m bad/unintelligent/ugly,” “I did bad things as that kin so I don’t deserve to be happy now”) -Starting to do dangerous or harmful activities (like self harm, impulsive behavior, reckless risk-taking, trying to unhealthily lose or gain weight) to try and feel closer to your kin -Kintypes that begin or worsen thoughts of suicide and self harm -Basically, any kin that has made you feel worse or has put you at risk since you began kinning with it

I’ll use myself as an example: I kin with Sherlock Holmes from the BBC adaptation. After discovering the kintype, I found it worsened my self-loathing: basically, I was convincing myself I couldn’t do anything right or be worth anything because I’m not a literal genius. (Harsh, right?)

2) How do I cope with having unhealthy kins?

Admittedly, my first instinct was “this is fine, I’ll just ignore it, I don’t deserve good things anyways,” and that kind of stuff. Clearly, that’s not gonna work. Though there are actual coping mechanisms that can help:

    1) Focus on the positive sides of your kin. This might help if the problem is that your kin did bad things in the past and you feel like you should suffer for it. Try to focus on the positive traits of your kin. Is your kin loyal? Strong? Self confident? Or, you can try to see what bad qualities you had as that kin but have improved on since!

    2) If you’re feeling like you’re not enough like your kin, try finding minor traits you share, or pick up a healthy hobby from them! Similarities can be as small as “we have the same favorite color,” “we both like winter,” “our middle names begin with the same letter.” Or you can try to pick something up! Avoid unhealthy activities, like going into dangerous places (the woods at night, around wild animals...), taking high-stakes risks, drugs/alcohol (do what you want if you’re of age just be careful about growing depenence, addiction, and long-term effects), stuff like that. Learning to play an instrument your kin plays, exploring a woodsy park, going to the beach, listening to music/soundtracks/nature-y white noise, learning a language your kin speaks, or playing sports or video games that remind you of your kin are a few examples of healthy things you can do to feel closer.

    3) Encouragement from kin friends! I’m not saying that you should depend on your friends for your happiness, of course, but having friend with similar kintypes/from the same canon source who you can share memories with (good or bad) and vent to about Kin Problems™ can help! Plus, just knowing that people who know your kin care about you is nice.

    4) Try using your kin(s) for coping. Back to the example of myself- I ended up being able to use my Sherlock kin to cope with emotional overloads/emotional shutdowns, self esteem problems (we both have shitty self esteems!! Yaaaay *slightly disappointed applause*), plus more. If you have multiple kins, you can use one of the others for coping as well! Or, you could always make a copinglink.

    5) Avoid shifts for that kin when you know you’re having a rough time. If you have other kintypes and have different kinshifts, then you can try intentionally shifting into another kin when you feel a shift for one that you know will be unhealthy in the situation you’re in. You can even avoid shifts all together if needed. Shifts can be intentionally caused by listening to canon source soundtrack, general music/playlists that remind you of your kin (8tracks!) doing (safe and healthy!!) things that remind you of your kin, and rewatching/reading/etc. your canon source if you’re fictionkin.

    6) Dropping the kin. This is pretty hard to do, it only works for some people in some circumstances. While it’s not exactly possible to just stop being kin with something, you can essentially ignore the kin, if you need to. Take it off your kinlist, avoid shifts, try to focus on other kins, if you have more. Like I said, this only works occasionally. If dropping a kin makes you evem more miserable, it’s not the best option.

I know this came out kind of lengthy and rambly, but I hope it ends up being helpful to some people!

-Mod Cecil<3