Therian Guide: Forums

(2022-10-23 0:48)Taguel Wrote: [ -> ]This is probably going to sound callous, but as far as the community goes, I can take it or leave it. There are people in the community who I adore and feel a kinship with and others I don't.

As a rabbit and herbivore, I don't feel like there is really a place for me in the community. I think herbivores see therianthropy differently than carnivores and omnivores. From what I have seen, carnivores tend to lack a level of empathy that I require in my social relationships. If I had a dollar for every time someone from this site has talked to me like I was "dinner" or potential food to them, I could probably... idk, buy myself lunch or something.

I've stated this to some people, but I do not feel a strong desire to meet other therians irl. Even if there was a howl in my area, I likely would not go. One, because I am horribly busy and emotionally exhausted and two, because I don't think I would enjoy myself or feel comfortable. I don't feel listened to or taken seriously by some in the community. I have had my personal expertise, things that I have studied and earned a degree in, be ignored or contradicted. I find that I will be understanding and even employ a suspension of belief for the thoughts and ideals of others out of respect to them, but that same courtesy is not always returned.

There is such a strong desire in this community to be the "alpha" or the most knowledgeable/enlightened/strongest/best and while I know that is a biological drive, especially for many feral animals, it is not something I enjoy. In fact, it is something that is a major social turn off for me. I am not a competitive person and I don't really have any interest in taking part in displays of dominance/power. I have no illusions of who I am and my place within general society, as well as my place in the therian community.

I think for a society that literally requires people to be open-minded about identity, the therian community is quite often not only closed-minded, but stubborn and myopic. So many people cannot see past their own experience or personal view and it leads to others feeling like they are not good enough or not being heard.

So that being said, the community is not what is important to me. My friends that I have made through it are important to me. I stay because I hope things will get better, but, like I said, I don't really feel like I truly belong here. My experience, the experience of a rabbit/herbivore/prey therian is not represented well in the community. It leads me to do want to interact with the mass majority of the community. I'd rather just cut myself off and be alone. I don't feel like I belong in human or therian society, so why force myself to try to fit into two societies where I don't feel comfortable?

I hope this will change, but I don't think it will.

Unfortunately, I agree with what Taguel has said. Although I'd like to say that the community is super welcoming, I'm not going to sugar - coat it. It isn't. The community is only welcoming a certain extent, I've found, and there are plenty of examples of this in the post that I just quoted. Although I can't imagine that my experience is as bad as Taguel's, I've always kinda felt like an outcast in the therian community, being a lion therian, because I just can't find people like me.

As much as I'd like to post more about this, I don't know how people will react, and I think that the community should work on being more welcoming. It isn't that hard to treat a herbivore therian as a fellow therian. I see all therian as equal, whether they be a wolf, a ferret, or a fish, we're all still therians. Perhaps the rest of the community should look to think like this as well.

And to Taguel, I'm so sorry to hear how people have treated you. It's horrible. If you ever need to talk or anything, my PMs are open.

So yeah. If you're going to take away anything from this post, take away this: we're all different, and that's okay. The whole idea of this community was that therian 'outcasts' had a place to stay, but that's falling apart. I think that the community as a whole is falling apart. Many of us are being close - minded, and I'll be honest, I'm not saying that I myself am innocent. But change starts with all of us. Just keep that in mind.

-Evergreen

(2022-12-19 23:18)D3cayingfr0gs Wrote: [ -> ]it's basically the only group im apart of that I'm sure like 99% of people in it will accept every part of my identity, some communities don't like therians, trans people, xenogenders, or neopronouns but majority of therian accept these things and alot of them identify with them

Therianthropy also has played a big part in helping me overcome my eating disorder, both because animals don't think about that kind of stuff so why should I but I also tend to fixate on things about myself so Therianthropy kind of replaced the time I spent thinking about my eating disorder

also I'm curious about how many other therians have struggled or do struggle with an eating disorders so let me know I guess

(2022-12-19 23:18)D3cayingfr0gs Wrote: [ -> ]also I'm curious about how many other therians have struggled or do struggle with an eating disorders so let me know I guess

I haven't struggled with an eating disorder persay, or I don't know if it can be considered one. But there was this thing I had about eating meat when I was younger. I had a conflicting relationship with it because I was raised vegetarian, but had cravings for meat and would also get hunting instincts from therianthopy. Meat wasn't exactly explicitly forbidden, I sort of just came up believing it was inherently unhealthy and wrong in some way. My dad is vegetarian and he just had me eating how he was eating, and as a child his own views would influence me. He's still vegetarian, but his understanding of things has evolved over time from that view.

I didn't eat meat despite my cravings for it and for a while it was fine, but when I hit puberty I was getting malnourished on that diet. And the cravings felt unbearable, the smell of cooking meat was just consuming. I started eating meat and felt much better. There was a guilt about it, but got over it through learning more about the body, nutrition, nature, etc. I can't say the therian community itself helped with anything in that regard. It was just me starting to think more for myself, accepting my wolf nature, and researching what was good for my particular body that allowed me to change my relationship to diet.

(Bit of a tangent)
Now days I'm experimenting with the "carnivore diet" leaving carbs/sugars out all together except fruit and still will eat beans for fiber(and I just like beans). And getting all my meat from organic small family farms. Which isn't easy because I do like my sweets hahah. But now fruit will just have to be enough to quench my sweet tooth. It's actually also turning out to be cheaper. I'm just buying less stuff. No calorie counting or anything, I never liked that practice. Just wanna see how my body does on it.