(Yesterday 23:43)Savva Wrote:  @LemLem
Nodding sagely. I think I have to misunderstood the context and timeframe of your self-discovery journey, so I very much appreciate you clarifying that :]

No worries, not like I clarified that in the original post!

@LemLem
Nodding sagely. I think I have to misunderstood the context and timeframe of your self-discovery journey, so I very much appreciate you clarifying that :]

(Yesterday 14:28)Savva Wrote:  @LemLem
Thank you for taking your time to write such a thoughtful response! I find your experience especially interesting because it shows how nonhuman identity can precede *conscious* alienation, even if alienation later helps us understand ourselves.

You mentioned recognizing your nonhumanity before you understood wider human society. I wouldn't want to dismiss that experience, but I do wonder how early we begin absorbing social expectations, long before we can recognize them consciously.

For example, a 2000 study examined parents' expectations of their infants' crawling abilities. Mothers tended to underestimate girls' and overestimate boys' abilities, despite the infants demonstrating essentially identical motor performance. This suggests that various societally constructed expectations (not just gender roles!) can influence how adults perceive children even before those children can speak. It doesn't tell us how early children internalize these expectations, or explain nonhuman identity, but it makes me wonder how much we absorb from our social environment before we're able to make sense of it ourselves.

I also really liked what you said about animals giving us something observable to compare ourselves to. Thanks you again for your reply <3
Much food for thought.

Very early indeed, from parents to media characters, we're prompted to imitate not only behaviors and vocabulary but also emotional responses and thought patterns, and the younger a child is the more eager to absorb the framework on how the world operates. Which is why I phrased it around my own conscious awareness--I didn't realize people to have unique experiences of the world past simple taste preferences until the age of 17, and saw every societal expectations as a 'their choice, their problem' until they started nonconsensually expecting them of me. As a toddler/preschooler, I was perfectly happy in my tiny clueless bubble of existence as far as I remember (and if I weren't, I bit someone about it lol)

Of course, happy to feed the discussion!

@Neon Rosettes
Thank you, I really appreciate the heads up! I'll try to create another edit-compilation post around the 2 week mark and link it under the original, but no promises. I'll just have to figure it out :"] Maybe it won't even be needed, we'll just have to see.

hello! thanks for writing this essay, I really enjoyed reading it ^^, gave me some much needed time to reflect.

when I was reading those first few paragraphs my immediate thought was on nature versus nurture. a classic debate. the innate things we all have because of our species, opposable thumbs, grab reflexes etc etc. and the things we learn, are taught, subconciously or conciously, over the years. For me personally, I really resonated with that idea of having to know social cues, unspoken rules and rites without understanding them. I struggle with this stuff on a daily basis, over and over. as opposed to these 'unwritten human tendancies' I find it much easier to perceive physical signs, in other words the innate things. I am looking at and interpreting the base, natural fibres of humans and how they co-operate. but any more is a struggle. in that way, i definatley fit it more with an animalistic mindset, where I need little other than these base feelings to survive. its also important for me to consider where and who I learned many of my behaviours from. in my case, that wasn't people. I am an 'observer' some might say. I very rarely speak, sticking to the fringes of conversation and watching physical cues which I can take as my own to fit in better. is this probably my autism? oh yes, most definitely. The things that i observe have a huge impact on how i develop and act, those in my childhood most profoundly. I grew up watching the cats in my household, spending more time with them than my family and understanding them better. was in awe of the red kites people told stories about that i saw in the sky over my school. I would sit at lunch watching and mimicking them, rather than playing tag or making friends. even when I was with friends, my mind was in the world around me as a collective, unable to focus or understand the people who seemed so- needlessly complex. As a kid I just didnt see the need. people seemed to get the memo if I hissed or growled at them and would back off, no words needed. I could be polite in my body language whilst saying little, and mimicking the creatures around me who did the same. I could watch nature documentaries on the TV absorbed in the natural world. how a crocodile mother took care of her young, and i would mirror it for attention from my own mother. at some point this became abnormal, i'm not quite sure when. but by then, I had observed it so much it was my normal, my baseline. I couldn't get rid of it, and I didn't want to. again, why should I? that was a simpler way and it made so much more sense. I continue to surround myself with these things. there is a cat sat on my lap as i'm typing, wind blowing in through my window and I know somewhere in the skies outside the kites are searching for food. So its less that I didnt fit in to human society, at least to start with. I drifted from it and got left behind sure, but it started off with realising I fit in BETTER somewhere else.

I'll poke you towards a thread I made an age ago, that reallllly needs updating: https://forums.therian-guide.com/Thread-Does-misanthropy-drive-therianthropy-my-theory

it is my most popular thread, and probably for good reason. I dont think you, or i, am alone in thinking or struggling with this. It's good to see it written about

now away from me writing my own essays (sorry X33) and on to the questions you asked!
I think ive answered the first couple, or 3 or maybe even 4 or 5 in my ramble back there, so ill leave those alone.

instead I will focus on this last one:
If alienation can lead people in so many different directions, what do you think makes an animal identity resonate specifically?
I think thats a big question. and its not to say that there arent other things that people similar to me have latched on to instead. like you said, people find solace in all sorts of things. religion, meditation, fiction. but there are some interesting points. why, for example, are therians more common than plantkin, despite plants being more varied and visible in our day to day lives? dont get me wrong, this isnt a swipe at plantkin or plants ( i love plants and my peace lillies are an obsession of mine), but it may seem confusing. I think for me, its the idea of sentience. despite how socially inept I may appear and act, I am still of a social species who craves connection. so despite loving and fixating on the natural world as a whole, I drifted towards the creatures in it, with reactions reflexes and understanding I understood and related to, as something living IN the world, rather than the idea of there being a world that just is. i breathed with lungs, i moved, sniffed the air and pawed at the grass. so it was natural to me that animals, being one and the same as those attributes, where what I observed the most. they were the antithesis of the modern society I found myself trapped in. they lived out there, in the wild, and they could. I found it wonderful and fascinating.
maybe thats why so many therians, though not all, take on creative or nature based careers. as a form of escapism. thats certainly the case for me, as someone soon to go to uni for zoology and conservation. its my happy place, my home. no city or street could ever compare, much as it should, and no person could hold my attention, fascinate or teach me as much with words as I would get from observing those of my kin. every morning when I go to feed the cats, we let out yowls of greeting that may seem strange to anyone else, but to me its the most natural thing in the world. saying hello is congnative effort, struggle and perception, predicting how someone else will react, lifting my tail in pleasure or flicking my ears or closing my eyes with trust feels so much easier, more complete- even if some of them arent even possible. instead of devoting thought to doing these things, like I do with most aspects of my day, I have to think about stopping them, holding them back, to fit in to human society.

hope this helps, sorry for the ramble and thanks for the read!
always happy to talk or expand on anything if you like
-Rain

To answer your questions right away, and through, possibly reflect on the essay itself:

Did you feel disconnected from humanity before recognizing your nonhuman identity, or did that feeling develop afterward? Do you feel your nonhuman identity developed independently of your relationship with human society?

I've personally acknowledged my nonhumanity before I became aware/capable of understanding there was a wider human society to begin with, particularly my phantom wings. That was also around the time when I insisted that I was an anthropomorphized bear, though that phase fizzled out eventually.

My disconnect from humanity came once humans moved away from defaulting to my needs and desires, so away from childhood games and imaginative play and arts and abstract competition to a more concrete path towards reaching adolescent, then adulthood milestones. Goals which held no meaning or appeal to me, values that feel backwards. That is when, having been left alone on my side of the trench, I began wondering what am I if not a human like them.

So it evolved independently, but I wouldn't have realized it's deviant from human experience, wouldn't human society disappoint and frustrate me to its core.

Does the idea of nonhuman existence appeal to you because it seems more immediate or less burdened by human social expectations and/or abstract thought?

Nonhuman existence 'appeals to me' because it explains and validates my needs and desires and boundaries that seem in discrepancy from human ones, takes away possible shame and pressure to perform something alien to me. I feel confident to identify as my 'type instead of a human because it fits those much better. But it's also more than just environment that makes life, it's also the body you're experiencing the world in, and being Fae means being free of the corporeal shell I'm so uncomfortable in.

Have neurodivergence, trauma, disability, or other life experiences, such as your race or queerness, shaped how you relate to humanity or to your nonhuman identity? (Share only what you're comfortable discussing. I've read many threads on this forum about this question, so I already know that many of us see at least one of these aspects as fundamental to our identity.)

I'm neurodivergent, and that definitely introduces needs and functioning of the brain that the neurotypical world doesn't know how to handle and often doesn't like accommodating, but I grew up in a very neurodivergent-centric environment, and still grew alienated from my peers. At the end of the day, the people who fall within my marginal identities are still people, still human, with the same set of basic truths and aspirations I disagree with.

If alienation can lead people in so many different directions, what do you think makes an animal identity resonate specifically?

Many critters here inform their 'type search on mannerisms and body language that doesn't align with the 'correct' human one. Animals are well researched and, most importantly, observable, so it is possible to learn the patterns in their behaviour and lifestyles, which are then concrete frameworks for critters who don't feel human to compare with. With mythical creatures, extinct species, or even concepts, it's much harder to dig up any confirmable information to relate to.

It can also feel like a more concrete, confident explanation to present when confronted with why you feel a certain way about things that are natural to humans, why you seek solitude, etc., a more final argument than just calling yourself a recluse.

Just a note that you won’t be able to edit it after 2 weeks. That’s when the “no longer editable” cutoff is.

Edit History

This comment is reserved to document the editing history of the essay, as I have a feeling it may be necessary :"]

Acknowledgements

I'm planning on crediting all contributors to this speculative essay/theory (oh, how intimidating it is to call it as such!)

• Social: struggling to fit in with others.
• Cultural: rejecting society's expectations and values.
• Existential: feeling disconnected from what it means to be human.
  

• A person has certain traits, experiences, interests, or ways of understanding the world. These shape how they relate to humanity, their own consciousness, and the nonhuman world.
• They may feel alienated from human society, overwhelmed by its expectations, exhausted by their own thoughts, or simply more connected to animals. Trauma, neurodivergence and disability may be large contributors in said feelings.
• These feelings may intersect with an existing affinity for animals or a particular sense of identity or bodily experience, making a nonhuman identity especially meaningful to them.
• Over time, these experiences may become part of how they understand themselves, even if they initially lack the language to describe them.
  

• Do you feel alienated from humanity, or comfortable being part of human society?
• Did you feel disconnected from humanity before recognizing your nonhuman identity, or did that feeling develop afterward?
• Does the idea of animal existence appeal to you because it seems more immediate or less burdened by human social expectations and/or abstract thought?
• Have neurodivergence, trauma, disability, or other life experiences, such as your race or queerness, shaped how you relate to humanity or to your nonhuman identity? (Share only what you're comfortable discussing. I've read many threads on this forum about this question, so I already know that many of us see at least one of these aspects as fundamental to our identity.)
• Do you feel your animal identity developed independently of your relationship with human society?
• If alienation can lead people in so many different directions, what do you think makes an animal identity resonate specifically?
  

Hey just letting you know that we took care of this yesterday.

I hope everything works.

LP,
Dusty