Think about it for a second. Just like, say, ADHD, it affects the brain and your actions, just like therianthropy. The symptoms are your non-human behaviors and shifts. It doesn't account for different theriotypes, but I have a seperate few theories about theriotypes some of which align with this theory. but that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY
Well, the thing is, it isn't a disorder, and we have been fighting for it to not be classified as a disorder. And some of it is spiritual. Yes it affects the brain, but for some of us, it is a spiritual belief rather than psychological. A neurodivergency is something rooted in the brain hence the prefix "neuro". If it is a spiritual thing for some, it is rooted in the spirit. Because it can go either psychological or spiritual, neurodivergency isn't really the right box because it is too small. Only a percentage of therians would be considered neurodivenrgent, and I don't think that sounds right...
It's stupidly hard for me not to sound negative about this sort of thing. I'll try my best though.
It wouldn't surprise me if therianthropy really is just the result of the brain not being quite "normal". That for some reason makes humans understand the behaviors/language of other animals better than those of people.
Psychologically speaking all of therianthropy will be explained as a coping mechanism, escapism, probably something about autism, etc, currently.
It's a view that makes sense, but I absolutely can't stand it. I've had a time in my life where I identified as an animal for escapism reasons. That immediately got me misdiagnosed with autism...and the way I was treated due to that diagnosis didn't help me, it broke me. I still struggle with the aftermath of this. And it's long been corrected.
I'd rather not have therianthropy be viewed as a sign of neurodivergence. But as it's own thing entirely. Something both spiritual as well as mental, not something that is "only there because of trauma/autism/psychological problems."
If therianthropy is a real thing then it should be a thing on it's own. Not something that only people from certain groups experience. And that's what I think should get more focus...If that's even possible to do.
Gosh it's hard to explain. Hope you understand what I'm getting at.
Love the game theory reference lol!
I think your theory makes sense, but yeah it doesn't encompass spiritual therianthropy. And for me personally I don't think my therianthropy negatively affects me enough to be a neurodivergency. It can be different for other people, but it is more of a neutral thing that doesn't really affect me that much and is kind of just there...
Like, it isn't really a whole brain wiring for me, more of just a piece of my brain. If that makes any sense.
There seems to be a higher rate of Autism among therians. But at the same time I feel that, therianthropy can be experienced in such vastly different ways between individuals. And in turn the truth could be that there are many different causes/origins depending on who you are.
I think that therianthropy as well as alterhumanity in general are not a neurodivergence. I think that they could be correlated to one another because a lot of creatures here on the forums, myself included, are neurodivergent. I would say for me personally that they are correlated with one another because my autism has always made me feel off and different from humans. But overall I would say that it's not a neurodivergence but it is often correlated with therianthropy and alterhumanity. It also goes back to the saying of "correlation does not equal causation".
I think your theory makes sense, but I think it's got some flaws and "Holes", if you will.
I'm not here to downplay your theory, I think it makes a lot of sense, especially when you look at psychological therians, but there are three main reasons why I would tend to not think this way.
The first being that therianthropy is such a wide range of experiences, that it couldn't even be classified as a spectrum like autism is. There would be literally only one similarity, and that would be identity. But even then, that doesn't encompass *all* therians.
Some are fluid in their identity, and some are more "Static".
The second thing I would say for this is that once again, therianthropy is an identity. As others have mentioned, we have been fighting for our experiences to not be labeled as a neurodiversity or mental illness because that usually leads to even more dehumanization. I'm not saying you're promoting dehumanization, I'm just pointing out the consequence of this type of thinking.
The third and final thing I would say about this theory is that therianthropy does not have "symptoms", just common experiences. There are some therians who have past lives, shifts of all kinds, and are autistic. But there are also therians who experienced no past lives, and had no shifts. It's all about your personal beliefs, not what someone else is telling you. And you can't..exactly "Self-diagnose" therianthropy anyway, because it's all about your experiences, not what someone else tells you.
You can't diagnose therianthropy becuase there are no signs if that makes sense.
Alright, so a few things. I see your point, because like. A lot of us have autism, but here's the thing. Feeling like a animal is a symptom of autism. Because we don't feel like we can communicate normally with other beings around us. So there is a reason why many of us are autistic, however not all of us are autistic. For example, I do not know if I'm autistic or not (I was told at a young age I do not have autism but healthcare here sucks you're bound to get misdiagnosed sometimes), and I'm still Therian. Many of us are also neurotypical Therian's.
Hi,
I hesitated to reply to this one, because it is essentially true, but it's also very easy to misunderstand.
So, essentially "neurodivergence" is having an atypical brain. Therianthropy is a condition of the mind aka the brain and it is atypical. So in essence, therianthropy is a neurodivergence.
But I think the more common-sense interpretation of the statement "therianthropy is a neurodivergence" kinda implies that therianthropy and autism are basically the same thing.
Even though in the eyes of science neither therianthropy or autism are particularly well understood, this comparison kinda points to a larger problem which causes this type of reasoning:
That is, that young people who are new to concepts like "autism" or "therianthropy", do not yet have a particularly profound understanding of the conditions, and therefore have no idea that they are, in fact, completely different things. It's the same story with otherkin and fictionkin and everything else that Alt+H tends to encompass, not to mention gender identity issues, mental disorders and so forth. Young people assume that because they do not understand these things that they are all the same and interchangeable.
They are not all the same, or interchangeable. As you spend more time in the community and your understanding of your own experiences and those of other people increases, you will be able to tell what the differences are.
Of course what exactly those differences are is super hard to talk about, so you might see a lot of people get angry and frustrated, with being unable to easily explain it to you.
LP,
Dusty
I feel like this ignores the experiences of spiritual therians and tries to force things into a clinical box. I've been through a lot of psych evaluations as I was part of the clinical study into ADD/ADHD and can say definitively while I am neurodivergent with ADD I am certainly not autistic. Secondly therianthropy does not itself impact the ability for a person to live a day to day life so it would be wrong to call or compare it to a disability in much the same way we would not consider transgender to be so for exactly the same reason.