Does misanthropy drive therianthropy + my theory

At one point, I considered myself a misanthrope, but not anymore. When I was younger and still learning about everything going on in the world, I definitely adopted a singular sort of hatred towards humans. As I've gotten older I've learned it's more complicated than good and evil, and have come to appreciate the humans in my life and the diversity of humans across the world.

That being said, I see it as a separate thing from my therianthropy. My misanthropy developed as a response to hearing about what was going on in the world and not having the maturity to really digest the information. It was also made worse by the fact that I was going through a difficult time at home and at school, so I didn't have someone to point and go "hey, not all humans are bad!" I see my therianthropy as being something I was born with that was exacerbated by trauma. Maybe being nonhuman made it easier for me to be a misanthrope, but I believe I still would have been one regardless.

That isn't to say that I believe misanthropy is an inherently childish view, just that for me, it was an opinion I formed without a greater understanding. I understand the reasons others here have for disliking humans, and I myself still disagree with a lot of common moral or societal standards that they hold.

For a short time, I considered myself a misanthropist. I truly felt a negative energy for humans — some dark conglomeration of hurt, anger, resentment and jealousy. I believe growing up neurodivergent definitely played a part in shaping this belief. After being hurt by humans for so long and for such baseless reasons, you begin to feel a distinct hatred for them.

But I realised that I probably felt like this simply because I didn't understand humans. With all their strange normative behaviours and how cruel they could be, I looked at them, and I looked at myself, and I missed the similarities. But I still had family, and friends, and people — humans — that cared. We're not all bad.

A few years later, having learnt how to interact more efficiently with them, I finally began to relate to my species more. Nowadays, I crave social interactions, I crave the following of social rules, and I find myself doing very distinctly human things in order to survive. I still feel a disconnect from them, for sure — I may blend in better, but I still do not identify with them. But as I've come to appreciate the good things we do for each other, the extra lengths some humans go to to extend kindness, warmth and empathy toward one another, that old feeling of hatred begins to melt. I'm very thankful for this.

In summary, I don't think you have to necessarily understand humans to love them. But you have to feel misunderstood by humans to hate them. I think by determining for ourselves where that line between hatred and a simple feeling of 'otherness' is drawn, we can pick apart which feelings may be misanthropic, and which might simply just be an effect of being misunderstood / outcasted. I've never believed in generalising large groups of anything — just like all leopards have different spots, all humans have different personalities and intentions. Some may seriously suck and do some crappy things, but that's not all of them. I have to recognise the good in the people that truly exemplify it.

This is my two cents, I'm curious to hear what others have to say. And thank you for making this thread, I think it's a very important question and I appreciate how much depth it has.

XX,
KK.