Once I realized that my longing for my gnoll life was becoming maladaptive, I began suppressing my gnollside. But either my brain is plasticine enough, or I've evolved to a point where I can control my self-repression enough that it didn't cause distress. It was always somewhere, under my skin. I just wouldn't let it come to the forefront in the last year or two. The crying fits and the despair for the mate I'll never physically hold in my arms was more detrimental to me than repression could ever be.
But I think I spent so long keeping my gnollside under my skin that I kinda forgot it was there. This is my first shift in months and it feels... foreign, almost.
I - me, myself, I, the person writing this - am undergoing an envisage shift and mental shift, with some light phantom sensations on top, but for once, the shift doesn't feel like "me." It feels like the shifts I had as a teenager, when I was first awakening and didn't know what otherkinity even was.
It feels like a creature wants to break free from under my skin.
And I think I'll let it. Just a bit.
Just for tonight.
