Theory of Therianthropy as a Developmental Adaptation to Trauma or Autism

Many therians say they were born therian. But how many people remember being born? How many remember breathing underwater in the womb? Most people do not consciously remember anything before age 2-3. I believe there is a genetic predisposition to therianthropy, and it is a developmental adaptation starting at an age before people usually have conscious memories.

Early trauma can profoundly effect a person later in life even if it's not remembered. I think it's very common because people are cut off from their instincts and don't understand children's developmental needs. I think this is a major contributing factor to mental illness, addiction and antisocial behavior.

Some therians say therianthropy causes dysphoria. Logically if therinathropy causes dysphoria then it's a disorder. But therians say it is not a disorder. So why would anyone not want to be cured of therinathropy if it causes pain? I think it is more correct to say trauma causes dysphoria and therianthropy is an adaptation.

I think therianthropy is traumagenic because it has characteristics in common with trauma/dissociation spectrum disorders like PTSD and DID. One characteristic of these conditions is that the "spirit is broken." In scientific terminology it's called structural dissociation. The "broken pieces" are called dissociated parts or sometimes other terms are used like alters or fragments. As you go up the spectrum, the dissociated parts increase in number and complexity.
The spectrum looks a bit like this: PTSD--> C-PTSD--> BPD--> OSDD-1--> DID

Please keep in mind that mental health diagnoses are not real things. They are just categories made up by psychologists trying to understand things they don't understand very well. And they are more focused on clinical presentation and pathology, as opposed to subjective experiences and adaptation.

Therians describe experiencing discontinuities in their sense of self that are consistent with trauma spectrum disorders. Some examples are altered states of consciousness (ie. shifting), feeling like their animal and human aspects have conflicting objectives, and feeling like they're in the wrong body. Altered states of consciousness are not necessarily due to trauma, but trauma can cause a person to experience them. Therians also tend to have a myriad of mental health issues which are also associated with trauma.

So I've explained a little bit about structural dissociation, but what does it have to do with experiencing animality? This is very mysterious and complex, and I'll try to explain a few ideas how it works.

One principle is that trauma and "breaking the spirit" has the effect of "pulling apart" the aspects of the self and exaggerating their differences. So for example a person might be more inclined toward black-and-white thinking because of trauma. Or a person might be either too passive or too aggressive without much in between. Trauma can pull apart the masculine and feminine aspects of the soul causing altered experiences or confusion about gender/sexuality. Every human is born with animal instincts, and with trauma the animal instincts could become more separated and different from the cognitive "human" self.

Another factor has to do with unconscious creativity and symbolism. With DID it is assumed that every alter exists for some logical reason even if the reason is unconscious. If the system has an animal alter for example, there is a reason the animal was created and a reason why it's one animal and not another. This is subjective logic and I believe it applies to therianthropy too. You had your primal instincts suppressed or pulled away from your "human" side, and the creative unconscious mind made meaning of what was happening. It's a creative process. There is a subjective, logical reason your theriotype is a particular animal and not another. That has to do with who you are and what you connect to. This is why canines and felines are common theriotypes, because they are close to us and easy for many people to connect to.

The way I've laid it out might seem dull and mundane, but the unconscious mind is neither. It can access information and control processes that the conscious mind cannot. It can generate phantom limbs which I believe is a form of self-expression. It's also more vulnerable to suggestion.

Hopefully I explained my ideas so they're understandable. In time I may talk more about how and why a pack of wolves in my psyche arose from chaos, but not today. I welcome comments, criticisms or questions since this is very mysterious and complex stuff that I'm just trying to understand myself.

I like this theory!
I got CPTSD, but I remember that my first feeling of being a wolf in the wrong body is from way before my first trauma, tho.
I first felt it when I was around 2-3 years old. My first trauma was at 7-8 years old.
But yes, I like this theory and had seen it before. I thought about it too but I'm definitely a spiritual therian more than a psychological one. I think there's a bit of psychological regarding to my life but still, spiritual at least 95%.

Considers I'm open to the idea but it doesn't explain everything in my opinion, especially for those whose therianthropy doesn't necessarily involve dissociative phenomena. It's notable that one symptom of CPTSD is explicitly feeling like fundamentally different in some way from others including even to point of not thinking of oneself as human or even as a person(one notable benefit of my accepting my canine stuff-it's allowed me to think of myself as a person even if a different sort of person. The logic being that if I'm a dog if I don't consider myself a person I'm implicitly insulting all other dogs so out of like... solidarity... I need to think of myself as a person and should expect to be treated like one even if a different 'kind' of person). I disagree with the idea that trauma issues necessarily mean ones 'spirit is broken' though(in some very real ways in fact I consider myself less 'broken' than most-the standard socially acceptable state of people is a form of 'brokenness' by my values) especially with the connotations of that(that one is going to be weak-willed, pliable, etc).

I don't agree with everything, but I do some things, and this thread has made me think about some things, which I always appreciate opportunities to consider things from another perspective. I have had my animal feelings as far back as I can remember, before the trauma started in my life. Even before I can remember there were animal characteristics in me, I know this because I've watched it on some home-shot family videos. What this thread got me thinking about was this: humans have animal instincts, but most humans will cringe from the very idea and condition their kids to live in a non-animal, socially acceptable way. Now, my brother is far from being like me, so this doesn't exactly apply to him, but I might have been more in touch with my animal instincts than him. Maybe as I was developing my parents were more lax on the lesson of "being a "civil" human being." I know as I was growing up they never told me what I was doing was wrong in human terms, I learned that lesson the hard way when I started attending school, they just thought it was a game I would grow out of and played along with it.

*also a little side note: I recently read an anthropology paper about the role of werewolves in human culture and the paper stated that humans are actually very similar to wolves, more than humans give credit for, and at one point, humans had a very close relationship with wolves. Hunters and warriors often tried to imitate them. That closeness could have something to do with the high number of wolf therians.

My traumas have no correlation to my therianthropy, I know this as fact. I have felt like an animal since I can remember, and my first traumatic experience was at 14. I had a relatively tame and happy childhood for the most part so it doesn't make sense to relate the two, at least in my experience, and I can assume in most therians experiences, frankly. This theory only seems applicable to a small amount of therians.

I see that you mention autism in the title, and I do feel like my autism may be related to my therianthropy for sure, but I don't really see you mention it in the post or anything.

Interesting theory, but I'll give my two cents.

What about vacillant therians or those who do not shift at all? The ones who experience no dissociation in relation to their therianthropy? I never had a shift in my entire life, but rather was always somewhere in the middle. I never perceived the wolf part of me as anything separate, not even before I found out about therianthropy. I perceived it as just myself and genuinely thought that everyone was like that when I was younger.

And another thing, speaking from personal experience. Getting bullied at elementary and middle school is the beginning of all my traumas, and yet the very reason I started getting bullied is because of my therianthropy, not the other way around. Of course, at that time I didn't know it was a thing, which only made things worse. I didn't even know why I was getting bullied for that.

As Honey said, I do think this could apply to a small portion of therians, but far from everyone.

@Talarp, I indicated that my connection to wolves is only psychologiacl at first because I believe in natural explanations for phenomena rather than metaphysical explanations. But therianthropy has to do with finding meaning and your place in the universe, and that's what spirituality is about.

@PatchesTheCoydog To say someone has a "broken spirit" can mean s/he has been beaten down into compliance, and that is a related concept, but not exactly what I mean. I thought this analogy would illustrate the concept but maybe this was not the best choice of words. The scientific terminology is structural dissociation.

Dissociation means the mind becomes disconnected from itself, the body and/or the outside world. This is a natural defensive instinct animals can use for when there are no other options. This is an extreme example, imagine an animal caught in a leg trap. How can the animal escape? By disconnecting. I don't think one could chew off one's own leg without dissociating.

When a child is conditioned to rely upon dissociative defenses and it becomes part of the structure of the personality, that is structural dissociation. There are discontinuities in mental functions and the "self" is divided to some extant. It can affect a person in different ways. If someone has clinical dissociative symptoms, then this person would feel weirdly disconnected or unreal. The person might feel like life is a movie s/he is watching rather than participating in, or feel like s/he is floating outside of the body. Now imagine a person who has been conditioned to ignore pain, that is also dissociative. But the person doesn't "experience" dissociation. S/he just doesn't feel anything.

People with DID have the most severe dissociation of anyone, but they are often unaware of it. It's subtle, hidden. I didn't know I had a major dissociative disorder until I was 38, and a bunch of therapists I saw over my lifetime never identified the symptoms either. And so with that in mind, therians could have structural dissociation whether or not they "experience" it.

For this point:

PatchesTheCoydog Wrote:the standard socially acceptable state of people is a form of 'brokenness' by my values

Yes, I devote a lot of mental energy thinking about this. Humans begin breaking their children in the crib (I remember), and this goes back thousands of years. Sometimes it has to do with survival and sometimes it has to do with power and control. Religion is a method of mind control going back to prehistory. Now those in power have science and psychology to break people.

To those I haven't yet responded to, I'm not ignoring you and I will respond in time!

By "don't experience dissociative phenomena" I mean for some therians have animal/human totally integrated to point of no difference. I'm in this category and I also due to varying reasons both have... there's no way to put this without sounding arrogant so I'll just say it, due to peculiarities of my nature and training I have levels of self-awareness most simply don't... and some experience with dissociation. To be honest trying to say to everyone "this explanation fits you whether it actually fits anything you experience or not or whatever you personally believe about your experiences" feels almost subtly gaslighty in nature(not saying you mean it like that, just that that kind of imposition of a framework on people and if they say "no, that doesn't fit" saying "it doesn't matter if you think it fits, if you think it doesn't you just must not be aware of it" is*shrugs*).

I'm well aware of the dissociation I've experienced...some of my peculiarities of training(not intentional on everyones part involved but there's little other way to put it) involved me learning to navigate related states and also directly manipulate my identity structure. You don't have to believe me of course but neither am I necessarily going to believe "this explanation fits you whatever you personally experience or believe and if you don't think it fits you that's just another sign of how much it must"

Little Wolf Wrote:I don't agree with everything, but I do some things, and this thread has made me think about some things, which I always appreciate opportunities to consider things from another perspective. I have had my animal feelings as far back as I can remember, before the trauma started in my life. Even before I can remember there were animal characteristics in me, I know this because I've watched it on some home-shot family videos. What this thread got me thinking about was this: humans have animal instincts, but most humans will cringe from the very idea and condition their kids to live in a non-animal, socially acceptable way. Now, my brother is far from being like me, so this doesn't exactly apply to him, but I might have been more in touch with my animal instincts than him. Maybe as I was developing my parents were more lax on the lesson of "being a "civil" human being." I know as I was growing up they never told me what I was doing was wrong in human terms, I learned that lesson the hard way when I started attending school, they just thought it was a game I would grow out of and played along with it.

*also a little side note: I recently read an anthropology paper about the role of werewolves in human culture and the paper stated that humans are actually very similar to wolves, more than humans give credit for, and at one point, humans had a very close relationship with wolves. Hunters and warriors often tried to imitate them. That closeness could have something to do with the high number of wolf therians.

Humans are instinctive beasts, maybe some more than others. I agree humans' closeness to wolves has something to do with the high number of wolf therians. Do you think the bullying at school influenced your therianthropy?

HoneycombPup Wrote:My traumas have no correlation to my therianthropy, I know this as fact. I have felt like an animal since I can remember, and my first traumatic experience was at 14. I had a relatively tame and happy childhood for the most part so it doesn't make sense to relate the two, at least in my experience, and I can assume in most therians experiences, frankly. This theory only seems applicable to a small amount of therians.

I see that you mention autism in the title, and I do feel like my autism may be related to my therianthropy for sure, but I don't really see you mention it in the post or anything.

Yeah, I mentioned autism in the title though I didn't actually talk about that. Autism is highly correlated with therianthropy and i think there might be two contributing factors why this is. One is that autistic people may be more animal-like due to neurology. I often think of Temple Grandin who is professionally renowned for her ability to see through animal eyes. I could be wrong but I don't think she is therian or identifies with any particular animal. She has led reforms in the meat industry and designed better slaughterhouses. Another thing is autistic people may be more inclined toward structural dissociation since living with the effects of autism could be traumatic in itself, or because dissociative defenses could help an autistic person cope with everyday life.

Melonwolf Wrote:Interesting theory, but I'll give my two cents.

What about vacillant therians or those who do not shift at all? The ones who experience no dissociation in relation to their therianthropy? I never had a shift in my entire life, but rather was always somewhere in the middle. I never perceived the wolf part of me as anything separate, not even before I found out about therianthropy. I perceived it as just myself and genuinely thought that everyone was like that when I was younger.

And another thing, speaking from personal experience. Getting bullied at elementary and middle school is the beginning of all my traumas, and yet the very reason I started getting bullied is because of my therianthropy, not the other way around. Of course, at that time I didn't know it was a thing, which only made things worse. I didn't even know why I was getting bullied for that.

As Honey said, I do think this could apply to a small portion of therians, but far from everyone.

I considered that non-shifting therians might have something like co-consciousness of the human and animal aspects. But in light of @PatchesTheCoydog comment that some therians are integrated, and that my explanations come across as a bit gaslighty... it occurred to me that I don't actually know the difference between co-consciousness and integration. The internet was no help since people don't even agree on exactly what these terms mean let alone how to distinguish them. Someone asked this question on a forum a year ago and no one answered.

I believe the trauma(s) that would lead to the development of therinathropy happen at a very young age before people normally have conscious memories. Things can be traumatic to a baby that people wouldn't necessarily expect. Things like punishment or separation from parents could be traumatic to some children.

I'm not saying this just to be like, "you don't remember the trauma." It's because I am consciously aware of some things from ages 0-4 that I know to be associated with the wolf in my psyche. I don't think I'm so freakishly different that I'm the only one. Or maybe I am because I don't know anyone else who experienced theriotype as "dead" or a "ghost" like I have.

Do you think the bullying in school influenced how you feel about therinathropy or experienced it?

(2021-04-24 22:16)Tdae Wrote:  I believe the trauma(s) that would lead to the development of therinathropy happen at a very young age before people normally have conscious memories. Things can be traumatic to a baby that people wouldn't necessarily expect. Things like punishment or separation from parents could be traumatic to some children.

I'm not saying this just to be like, "you don't remember the trauma." It's because I am consciously aware of some things from ages 0-4 that I know to be associated with the wolf in my psyche. I don't think I'm so freakishly different that I'm the only one. Or maybe I am because I don't know anyone else who experienced theriotype as "dead" or a "ghost" like I have.

Do you think the bullying in school influenced how you feel about therinathropy or experienced it?

To be honest, it does come a bit as a disingenuous assumption that all of us happened to have trauma deep enough to shape us to our core forever from an age where we have no way of proving it. It especially doesnt seem to make a lot of sense when you recognize that a lot of disorders caused by trauma can be treated with therapy, whereas therianthropy cannot be.
I know I mentioned I had a rather tame and happy childhood, I know my mother coddled me as a kid. I was spoiled as a baby, and from what ive heard, if I was crying she would do anything in her power to figure out what was wrong and to help comfort me. I have a very hard time believing that I just happen to have such an intense trauma from when I cannot remember that it has shaped me to my core like this. If anything, I'm certain my mother would have remembered.

However I do agree with you on the autism stance. I notice that some of my animalistic behaviors can be common within the autism spectrum. A lot of autistic people also tend to feel ostracized from other people, which can lend to them feeling like they are not human at all. From a psychological perspective I definitely find myself leaning in this direction.