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1.How do you explain being a vampire?
Everyone has their own explanation for what vampirism is and is not. I personally
think it is a double-recessive genetic trait that is passed as a hereditary
condition in the unawakened state. Awakening occurs if you have the right set
of factors at the right time. It can be pushed into happening in dormant vampires,
but this is often extremely painful, to put it mildly. Vampirism is a condition
that affects both mind and body to varying degrees, but has some common traits
for everyone that make it identifiable. The most notable, in a Sang's case,
is of course, the Hunger.
2. How did you figure it out?
A combination of luck and study. I had read about vampirism due to knowing
a friend who was Awakening in high school, which is rather early, by the way,
and he explained a lot to me. A couple years later I started showing signs of
Awakening myself. It took a friend making a joke about me being a vampire due
to my new sensitivity to sunlight to really make it sink in. After that, I fought
the Hunger for almost half a year before another compassionate friend realized
what as going on and allowed me to feed.
3. Do you regret being thus?
No more than I regret being female, or stocky, or psychic or um, opinionated.
Being a vampire has taken almost a decade for me to really come to terms with
and accept, but it is a part of me. It is not all of who I am but it is intrinsic
to me.
4. So what are the sudden changes that occur during
an awakening? Though they are different among others what are your guys' personal
experiences when you KNEW you were awakening?
My symptoms were pretty extreme. Within six months I went from being able to
tan for hours with no problem to second degree sunburns after half an hour.
I couldn't believe it, since I had never had any problems before with the sun,
and decided I just needed to burn a little to tan. I went for a walk on the
beach in my bathing suit with sunblock on for an hour and a half. By the end
of it, when I got home I knew I was in trouble. The next day I had sun poisoning
so bad I could hardly move and was blistered over 70 percent of my body, through
sunblock mind you. I had a fever for days and couldn't get back out for a week.
I spent the rest of my vacation wearing the highest SPF sunblock I could find
to the beach and a t-shirt and still burning.
Overnight I developed a whole set of food allergies and cravings that seemed
nonsensical to me. Suddenly anything with preservatives made me ill, as did
a list of foods I had always liked. Food went right through me half the time
and gave me terrible stomach cramps until I learned to feed. Even so, my allergies
were permanent and new ones still pop up from time to time. Current ones include
crab and lobster, mushrooms, any fermented foods including cooking wine and
bleu cheese, most preservatives, refined sugars and some artificial sweeteners.
I also started getting sunsickness, which is severe heat exhaustion if out in
the sun for too long.
My mental outlook changed in a way that I have a hard time explaining. I went
from the shy kid in school who was always fodder for bullies to the outspoken
champion of the same who faced down the gang kids and scared the jocks. I chose
areas in my school and neighborhood that were "mine" and walked them
daily. I walked up to people I had been afraid to talk to and made friends with
them. Finally, I begin to feel the awareness of other vampires that many called
the Beacon drawing me to both Vampires and Otherkin.
Other symptoms included headaches from bright lights (LOADS of fun since I
was doing lighting for the theater department), My already sensitive ESP telling
me more than I EVER wanted to know, a craving for moonlight, the desire to sleep
by day and wander at night, increased reflexes, strength and heightened senses
after feeding and when hungry, and very sensitive skin....especially to chemicals
in detergents, shampoos, etc.
All this occurred within the span of six months, right after I recovered from
a severe mono-like illness that baffled my doctors. They took blood tests weekly
and put me through a barrage of other tests but never figured out what was wrong
with me, besides the symptoms of severe muscular weakness, difficulty eating,
high fever and constant sleep. I went straight out of that illness and into
the six month period I just described.
From talking to many vampires, I believe that most of us have our Awakening
triggered by a traumatic illness (such as a high fever or other dangerous symptoms),
psychological trauma (such as abuse or severe depression), or a potentially
life threatening injury. I think that perhaps the genetic tendencies I spoke
of in my article on my new theory on vampirism are made active by the body in
response to the chemical changes these circumstances create.
Then, of course, there was the Hunger.
Again, this is only what I experienced and I am sure I have forgotten some
important symptoms.
~OrthaeVelve
This article is presented as part of an ongoing effort to present other views outside of, as well as within, the online vampire community. Those of us who consider ourselves vampiric don't always look at things from the same viewpoint due to our life experiences. As such, the views and opinions contained in this article are entirely those of the author(s), and may not necessarily be shared by SphynxCatVP. The webmaster is not under obligation to update or otherwise keep current the contents of this article. Most importantly, only you can decide for yourself whether this article or any of the author(s) other views are useful or applicable to you - you are responsible for using your own reasoning and judgement, so judge wisely.
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