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Here’s how to tell the difference between being otherkin/fictionkin and being copinglink.
Kin believe that their kintype/identity has some form of reality and/or significance outside of helping them cope with mental illness or trauma.
Ehhhh. Im both kin and a copinglinker and from a psychological perspective this isn’t entirely correct.
The difference is *choice.* Some psychological kin believe their identities emerged involuntarily from trauma or some other sort of neurodivergence, but if they’re kintypes, they’ll act the same as any other and wont go away no matter what you do. It’s inherent. Ignoring it won’t make it budge. You can’t force it to stop being part of you.
Copinglinks, on the other hand, are something you choose to maintain as part of your identity to cope with mental illness. It might not be desireable or easy to make them go away, but they *can* be made to go away. They aren’t the same experience, and they can be ignored and the feelings associated with them will likely be able to be ignored as well.
My Alice fictotype won’t go away no matter what I do. I will always have memories, will always have the sense of looking at myself when I see myself in media, will always feel intense emotions related to my canon, even if I try to force it away.
My copinglinks? Not so much. I can choose to ignore those and classify the feelings as something else. Do I want to? No. Is it helpful to do so? No. But I can. That’s the difference.
Well said. I may have tried to boil the idea down too far and missed the mark. The main issue is definitely about choice.
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