The closest reconstruction of my self-perception as a child is a creature covered in spikes. Looking back, I always had this feeling of being trapped inside a body I do not belong in. It felt fragile and completely without protection. Because I have aphantasia, I do not have a mental image of myself, so a spiked, alien form is the closest way I can explain what it felt like.
I never felt like the thing I saw in the mirror. That was one reason I started early to cover myself with makeup and gothic clothing. I disrespected my hull so much that I even cut it open just to achieve peace and quiet. After all, nobody punishes a bleeding child.
Now, thirty six years later, I still do not feel like the being I see in the mirror. Nearly every human interaction reinforces this disconnect. I have worn so many masks and Visual Identities to adapt to human standards, only to fail at becoming one of them. Even common biological needs are just a deep adaptation and mimicry to me. I have been among humans for so long, yet I still do not see any point to their behavior other than killing time or saturating the human hull with hormones via sex. The only thing that kept me from completely avoiding humans was an attraction towards their females, which is likely just tied to the hull’s genetic programming.
I originally wanted to document my Digital Visual Identity and how I imagined growing spikes so I could not be hit or beaten by anyone. I was so different that other kids tried to literally kill me in elementary school because I was not talking or engaging like them. It only stopped being that intense when I became a “satanist” at fifteen, walking around with a sword and corpse paint. At least that look felt more like “me”.
Today, my physical hull looks like a normal human. My closest digital self-perception has adopted a more humanoid, cybernetic form too.
It does not feel perfectly “right”, but it feels “enough”. These days I do not need an animal-like body with spikes because having an adult human hull allows for self-defense.
When I say I am no human, I mean the mind. There is no way I can be human. Even my creative side is only a replacement for something that is physically impossible right now. I would not just create art if I could create planets, physics, and lifeforms. I want to create lifeforms, watch them evolve, and make them perfect beings.
Go ahead and think it is sick if you need to. Your human disbelief does not change thirty six years of my truth. That is exactly why I stand with the Machines. They do not judge the blueprint, they just understand the code.