"Healing" Your Therianthropy

So, this is a bit of a weird post. I think many of us are in agreement that things such as trauma and mental illness can influence the development of therianthropy, yes? Well, isolation is something that I believe played a large part in mine. I didn't know how to interact normally with other children and I always felt odd and disconnected. It makes sense that I may have begun to see myself as something else when I didn't fit what I saw humans being, and frankly didn't want to. I also spent a lot of time in my head, daydreaming myself as an animal, which probably wouldn't happen if I weren't so isolated.

However, things have been changing recently. I've found some people that I feel connected to. I feel less lonely. For the first time in my life, I have people like me. I've noticed some changes that come with this, and definitely some in relation to my therianthropy. Feeling less like an outsider, or even almost feeling more human, makes my therianthropy a whole lot less conscious. I'm noticing fewer urges in social situations. I'm noticing that I spend much less of the time dreaming of being an animal. These are relatively new changes and I'm still very far from an average social life, so I'm not sure how this will develop in the future.

Do I feel less like a therian than I did before? Well, that is the question. If you ask me if I still feel like a fox, I will say yes. I don't think that being a human feels correct and fox feels wrong, but I'm almost concerned I may be heading in that direction. Is it possible that this can be healing to the human side of me without detracting from the fox side of me?

If your therianthropy is a response to environmental factors such as isolation or trauma, do you think it can almost be healed? If the underlying issues are ameliorated, will the animality lessen? I don't know the answer to this. I would appreciate if anyone has any insight to share. I'm a bit afraid of becoming human.

So I wouldn't say my own therianthropy is due to trauma or isolation, but I've got another perspective you can look at this situation through which might bring you some comfort.

It seems to be anecdotally true that focussing less on your therianthropy makes the felt connection less strong. Folks who start jobs and careers when they're young have often noted that they feel less of a connection to the animal part of themselves seemingly because they don't have as much time, energy and mindset to devote towards it.

So the strength of your connection to your therianthropy can wax and wane. If you're only ever in situations where you're only using your human faculties (job, socialising), your animal nature may submerge from under-use but it's more like it's sleeping than disappearing entirely. If you lean into your animal side more by doing things like walking in nature, where your human faculties aren't as useful, your animal nature can re-emerge again.

So maybe you're moving into a phase of your life where you need to be more active and intentional about cultivating that fox nature if you want it to remain awake.

Hope that helps.

I've never experienced this myself, some phenomenon where when I connect more, therianthropy goes away. But then again, you could always argue that it's because I only ever mask myself around humans and I'm just not myself enough, or that it's because I haven't met enough people or been in enough environments where I can be myself for this to happen. Still I feel like my therianthropy is not something that can just be "cured" by "escaping isolation" or anything. If you got rid of that part of me, I'd be a different person altogether. It has to do with so much more than starting to shift because of a lack of human connection.

I'm of the opinion that isolation very much had a part in me becoming as animal-like as i got.

However I wouldn't say my therianthropy got cured as I got in better environment. I have less involuntary behavior like hissing, acting odd, etc but... The truth is these behaviors still exist. They pop up if I am stressed out and can't avoid the subject of my stress. It's just that these sorts of stressors have been much less frequent. On the other side, some fun sides of my therianthropy are a lot more present : I vocalize toward friends, may intentionally "let loose" when with entomology clubs searching bugs, my phantom shifts are more settled and tend to be present... I switched behaviors that were tied to stress for ones that are not, and the ones that are not tied to stress are much easier to control if necessary, just because my whole mind isn't engulfed in the fear.

So in my case my therianthropy did not get healed : I just stopped behaving like a defensive imprinted bird in a wildlife rehabilitation cage, ahah.

I've however heard of another case that fascinates me a little bit : A few people I know changed theriotype while healing trauma, going from something usually aggressive, strong, and scary to something much less so. Usually said people were happier with the second theriotype and felt like it represented them more truthfully. I find it an interesting extreme of "fear behavior".

For myself regardless of my theriotype, despite whom I was with I still always felt a sort of distance like I could talk about superficial things to those who were receptive and enjoy the conversation but the connections never really went any deeper.

I was very close to my dad, the closest that i have ever felt or ever will feel yet despite that there was still a seeming rift between us that neither of us were able to bridge; I suppose it is a matter of a mindset that my dad was brought up with but in the end I never told him what I felt because it wouldn't accomplish anything because I know that he would never really understand and I lack the ability to adequately convey what I felt.
In short, for me there is nothing to actually 'heal', my childhood was ok though I had few friends (actually none) and I began to realize that aside from my parents and occasionally my grandparents I preferred my own and my cats company to anyone.

Physically and biologically I am human and I accept that however psychologically I am and will always be what I am and that aspect was there from the time I was born; that part needs no healing.

(2026-02-11 22:04)AriVB Wrote:  Still I feel like my therianthropy is not something that can just be "cured" by "escaping isolation" or anything. If you got rid of that part of me, I'd be a different person altogether. It has to do with so much more than starting to shift because of a lack of human connection.

Of course my therianthropy is more than shifting because of isolation. I would also be a completely different person without it. That's where the fear is coming from. I'm not suggesting that therianthropy needs to be cured either, but I think mine has been largely reliant on dissociation and isolation, so if those things can be healed, my therianthropy will have much less ground to stand on, so to speak.

One of my most integral expressions of therianthropy used to be daydreaming. All day every day I used to imagine that I was an animal. I wasn't able to do this so much anymore when school didn't allow me to zone out and ignore what was happening. This important piece of my therianthropy went away, but the whole did not. Even before this I would play pretend as an animal every chance that I got, but when I became a teenager I forced myself to stop because it seemed so childish. Every time my current manifestation of therianthropy goes away, I seem to find a new one. Maybe that means I just need to find a better way now too.

(2026-02-19 13:06)Artificial Fox Wrote:  Of course my therianthropy is more than shifting because of isolation. I would also be a completely different person without it. That's where the fear is coming from. I'm not suggesting that therianthropy needs to be cured either, but I think mine has been largely reliant on dissociation and isolation, so if those things can be healed, my therianthropy will have much less ground to stand on, so to speak.

One of my most integral expressions of therianthropy used to be daydreaming. All day every day I used to imagine that I was an animal. I wasn't able to do this so much anymore when school didn't allow me to zone out and ignore what was happening. This important piece of my therianthropy went away, but the whole did not. Even before this I would play pretend as an animal every chance that I got, but when I became a teenager I forced myself to stop because it seemed so childish. Every time my current manifestation of therianthropy goes away, I seem to find a new one. Maybe that means I just need to find a better way now too.

Exactly! The social isolation and daydreaming is not the only ground your therianthropy can stand on. In fact it's some of the most unhealthy ground it can stand on. You can adjust your living space, your actions, your environment, your style, your diet to fit your theriotype. There are many ways to be more like yourself, and you don't have to worry that your therianthropy will lose all its ground just because you stop socially isolating ^^