Alright, I'm back with some more.

Spending a lot of time studying an animal of just being around one; This might be a not-so reasonable explanation, but it very well could be one for some people, spreading time around animals, fascinated, envying them, when I was little I would look outside and see a fox every once in a while, and just think to myself "why can't I move like them? I want to be like that" same thing with squirrels but I don't have a squirrel theriotype so that's a little irrelevant xd, anyways, that probably wasn't the main reason I have a fox theriotype, but it could be a factor of some sort.

Being a hypochondriac; *sighs loudly and pinches the bridge of my nose* I really don't like this one, but here we are, what were we doing? explaining this? Alright, so anyways, being a hypochondriac means you hear about something and you automatically think you have it, a lot of the time it's due to lack of attention and wanting to be different, but sometimes being a hypochondriac can /sometimes/ develop the condition, just forcing yourself to believe that you have whatever it is, in this case, alterhumanity, forcing yourself to believe you have this can cause your mindset to change, to perceive yourself as if you had always been this way, even if you hadn't, you start trying so hard to think like that creature that you can develop shifts, and involuntary in-human experiences, I find this explanation to be.. unlikely, to say the least.

Feel free to share your opinions on the theries i've shared, and feel free to add your own theories, I'd love to hear them.

I was reading this and I saw "pup reps" does that mean there are multiple pup reps? I only know of Avis. I get being intimidated by the staff members though, Tornir was a bit scary at first but she's really just a goofball who keeps us in line :>

Well, maybe we should start off with a more common theory to why alterhumanity is caused; Past Lives, a lot of us have them, a lot of us don't, and a lot of us don't believe in them. I personally believe in them and have them myself, a lot of em, having the memory of those lives could affect the way our minds are shaped, just remembering the stalking of your prey, the agility, the instinct, you just remember all of these and you start to act like you used to before you died, you remember how free you felt to be wild, it's honestly a valid reason, I'd be very likely to believe that if someone said that's how they think alterhumanity is caused.

But not everyone has a past life or even believes in them, so another common reason; Trama/PTSD, It's unfortunately very common these days, bad family, horrible people surrounding your daily life, wartime, poverty, at the end of the day, in this age, it's relatively common. One of my close friends shared their PoV about this, they said that the trauma of loosing their mother caused them to turn to their favorite animal; housecats, they started learning even more about them, roleplaying as them, this could be a cause for c'links, but also other forms of alterhumanity on a more permanent basis.

The very common yet unpopular theory of alterhumanity; Mental Illness/Insanity, now, I personally don't like this idea, but it's actually very likely for some folks, therianthropy could be considered a mental illness, or even caused by one, I know everyone is going to get on the defensive so just read first(please and thank you <3 ). Mental illness is known in many varieties, known for causing the way people's minds think to change, maybe it's a genetic mutation in our instinctual system, maybe it's a chemical disorder. I don't like the idea of calling everyone here "mentally ill" and I'm not, I'm just stating different theories. But we also have to think logically, mental disorders have caused sexual attractions to be, well, lets just say very unusual(pyromania can cause the sufferer to be sexually attracted to fire), they can cause people to be literally insane, psychopaths, now I think if a mental disorder can cause someone to become a serial killer, then maybe another one can cause somebody to think and act like an animal. Just saying, it's possible.

That's all I have for now because I can't think straight currently, I might post some more at a later date.

My personal theory of therianthropy has shifted significantly since I first found the community in the late 90s; if you read the AHWW FAQs you'll see that therianthropy is described as spiritual and there isn't really any further interpretation beyond that, so that's the mental model I applied to myself. But as an atheist and fairly rational and scientific minded person I always struggled a bit with the spiritual nature of it, as Dust mention's it's a romantic notion. I'd love to think I had the soul of a wolf or somehow human and wolf spirits coexisted within me to explain my therianthropy, but it sounds like something from a fairytale and in the end I just couldn't really make myself believe it.

I began to ascribe my therianthropy as a coping mechanism for my sexuality by the mid-00s when I stepped away from the community. I even got outed as therian to my parents before I eventually came out to them as gay. It was like I'd found something to try and camouflage my sexuality which society had tried to shame me for, with something else, just even weirder and harder for people to understand. But it turned out it was more than just a camouflage; I still shifted periodically, I still went through periods of deep yearning to be a wolf, still slipped into animalistic behaviours. When I returned to the community, twenty years later, aside from a bewildering explosion of new terminology I found psychological therianthropy was now an accepted theory for this experience and it felt very validating. My belief is that therianthropy is psychological, that it's most likely in whole or in part a neurodivergent trait or collection of traits.

Many years ago I used to be a big fan of a talk radio host by the name of Thom Hartmann (I went through something of a political awakening during the Iraq war and listened to a lot of lefty American talk radio back then on the internet), who would often speak about ADHD as a remnant of our hunter-gatherer past, and I'm pretty sure that's likely the origin of a lot of my animalistic experiences – because humans are animals and for a lot of our evolutionary history we weren't all that different to any other apex predator. That I have an affinity to wolves vs some other predator, I can't hugely explain but I grew up around dogs and of course werewolves are prevalent in our culture and always captivated me as they represent so many things I've always deeply desired.

(2024-11-24 12:15)DustWolf Wrote:  I don't know exactly where the line should be between "people with canine-like traits" and "born therian". How much of therianthropy should be psychology -- that is, were we born therians, or were we born inclined to become therian-like. That is a philosophical question. But I think the important realization is that therian traits are human traits, which are animal-like, and we've become more animal-like than human-like as therians, because our environment forced us to try to survive and animal traits are good for that.

That could be true and it would make sense in my situation, but I didn't fully feel related to just canines at first. I went through a period where I was primarily feline (big cats, leopards or jaguars to be exact), and now I'm primarily canine.
I've always desired the ability to shapeshift, and that stemmed from wanting to be able to hide and defend myself as far as I remember, but why would the primary relation change suddenly/over time?

Put simply, I don’t believe in reincarnation. I don't think a soul, spirit or what have you can rise up from its body and be placed in another. For that, we would have to see the soul as something concrete that is separate from the body and two can move about freely to another body by its own will. Or sheer force. Life, for me, is just a result of convening incidents that lead to a being that can breathe, function according to its best of abilities, then dies. Seeing souls as concrete would mean that we can measure or substantialize them, even give them names if we'd like to. A creature's meaning is simply to exist until its bodily functions wear off, wither, then cease to be. What I do believe is that there is a thing known as life force and instincts that drive a being for survival. Whether it is successful at those influences the duration of its life.
So, for me, personally, I don't know why I am therian either, but I am quite careful dipping my toe in reincarnation theories, with all due respect of course to those who do.

Hey everyone,

Today I've had a conversation with a therian friend. He was explaining his new view of therianthropy (we had both relatively recently started therapy for our psychological problems and these yielded some realizations) and I found that it all aligns very well with the views expressed in this post of mine from 2021:

(2021-04-13 0:06)DustWolf Wrote:  My current theory to explain my therianthropy, is that it is inborn. We are born therians.

I've noticed that while none of my ancestors are wolves in the sense that I am, the traits I ascribe to my therianthropy, some of them are present in my family members. I believe that by a freak chance, the traits required for someone to be a wolf while being human, have manifested in me specifically.

This may seem unlikely, but firstly: It isn't. There is this thing called convergent evolution, sometimes when natural organisms are faced with the same problems, they come up with the same solutions. The way a wolf mind works, works for many wolves who are animals living in a social setting. Humans live in a very similar setting, maybe for some humans like me, the wolf mindset works as well.

Basically, what me and my friend recently learned -- and what I think might be a valuable lesson to other therians out there -- is that likely a lot of people have these survival instincts, that we call wolf traits. But people like me and him who grew up in abusive (or well: unsupporting) families, used those survival instincts to well, survive. And this is what made those traits be as prominent in our psychology, for us to associate better with wolves than humans.

I don't know exactly where the line should be between "people with canine-like traits" and "born therian". How much of therianthropy should be psychology -- that is, were we born therians, or were we born inclined to become therian-like. That is a philosophical question. But I think the important realization is that therian traits are human traits, which are animal-like, and we've become more animal-like than human-like as therians, because our environment forced us to try to survive and animal traits are good for that.

I think maybe this tells me that therianthropy is not what I thought it would be. Perhaps I romanticized it as having something that actually physically links me to wolves and canines. But I still think that, actually understanding your therianthropy is valuable, and I'm a bit closer today.

LP,
Dusty

(2024-11-17 21:36)Squibble Wrote:  

(2024-11-15 4:57)RainbowFox Wrote:  For me doing research is asking questions
Googling for hours
Writing things down
Doing experiments
And deep thinking

Same here!
When it comes to research, I usually don't do much. But when I do, I'm researching for probably hours.
But doing experiments and deep thinking are super important stuff for me when it comes to researching and finding out who/what I am.
I can get lost in the deep thinking, as I am pondering so much.
When you're doing your deep thinking, do you spiral, or are you able to keep it level headed? For me it really depends on my train of thought and what I'm currently thinking about, but I'm curious about how the process of your deep thinking goes. :3

I don’t know but I’m often deep thinking about lots of things. My thoughts are almost endless. It’s like I have bees in my head(that’s a song reference btw)!