I've always felt non-human. In one way or another. Pretty much right around my time puberty hit me. But I think that this community is important cause it made me realize that I'm not alone. Most people don't feel the way we do. Most people can't even understand why we feel like this but it made me feel a lot better to have a community that understands my feelings. They don't mock me or criticize me. It's fine to ask questions but this community doesn't talk down on others who have different feelings. I really enjoy being in a place where people understand my feelings and don't talk down to me like I'm a child.

It's important to me because without it, I wouldn't understand that I actually am my theriotypes, and not just obsessing strangely over specific animals. I feel really welcome in it and it makes me less self conscious about expressing who I actually am.

(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.

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

(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

@EvergreenLion

I can agree with that. But you shouldn't withhold speaking your mind. I even said the same thing to taguel who I soundly disagreed with.

Communities always change with time and that isn't a bad thing necessarily. Change is the only constant.

I do have a problem with therian herbivore v predator drama, and it's not new at all. I have a problem with any animal based rivalry/drama stuff, because we are all humans right now...so I see it as a fabricated dilemma. Role playing gone wrong.

No one is being hunted down, no one is competing for resources or territories. We are just folks on the internet, that have various non human identities & mental/spiritual experiences.

We could all do well with a little more lightheartedness, humor, take things a little less seriously. It's not the end of the world or community. I've seen the falling apart narrative plenty of times. Yet, everything is still around for the most part.

I've reached a point of speaking my mind freely, ignoring drama, and making fun for myself in the community. People you don't like? Ignore em, no need to make a fuss, they can't really do anything to you anyway lol.

Want to speak your mind? Do it, if it's not for malicious reasons you should never feel you can't speak up about something.

Feel like you can't be yourself? It's an illusion, you can always be yourself, just gotta stop caring about what people think of it. (Easier said than done I know)

This is coming from a guy who has faced discrimination online and in real life for their spiritual beliefs, culture, skin color, features. Ignorance and close mindedness is plenty in the world. I continue not to give a damn. It controls nothing in my life.

(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

This place has quickly become important to me in a myriad of ways.
One is that this community seems to be populated by a wide variety of people and not just young teens who are feeling..discombobulated over their inner identity.

It is nice to see posts from people who are older than 20 (or even 30) to see how their perspectives have changed and matured.

This place has also been a recent support for me as my father died on the 14th of December (of this year) and I am wandering around in a sort of fog so it is nice to have that support.

It is interesting for me to observe the variety of ways people feel and even express their kin or theriotype.
In short this place is far more mature in its theme than many places I visited and I hope it stays that way too.

(2022-12-18 6:57)kaiyoht Wrote:  Hmm. The top of this page says that I last visited Therian Guide on 23-03-2022, so... just shy of 9 months ago. Oops. (I don't even remember if I posted then; it's certainly longer to when I was last consistently active.)

Outside of this forum, I'm not particularly active in the "therian community". Don't get me wrong, I'd be interested to go to a howl, I like talking with people, etc. But... part of it is, I never put the effort into finding more of the community or other places to participate. Part of it is I get busy with life. Part of it is, my therianthropy is a very personal experience and sometimes it's just easier to not bother with other people if their experience is too different (or even worse, they want to make a claim about which of us has the "right" view of my own experience).

When I do check in, it's nice to see other people's perspectives on things and learn. It's nice to see when other folks have similar experiences. I like feeling like I'm not totally alone in my weird feelings. But it's certainly... I've gone long stretches without any of those things, and that's fine too. I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the community "important" to me when I'm only around a few times a year. If I do stay for a while, though, these would be the reasons why.

I definitely get you on the the not wanting to be bothered with the people that claim there is a right or wrong therianthopy view or experience lol. Or feel there is some competition to appear the most "realistic" therian or something *eye role*. Honestly there's many things I find annoying, and off putting myself that people do. But there is good and I'm not even really here for just myself at this point. Welcome back, for now anyway.

Hmm. The top of this page says that I last visited Therian Guide on 23-03-2022, so... just shy of 9 months ago. Oops. (I don't even remember if I posted then; it's certainly longer to when I was last consistently active.)

Outside of this forum, I'm not particularly active in the "therian community". Don't get me wrong, I'd be interested to go to a howl, I like talking with people, etc. But... part of it is, I never put the effort into finding more of the community or other places to participate. Part of it is I get busy with life. Part of it is, my therianthropy is a very personal experience and sometimes it's just easier to not bother with other people if their experience is too different (or even worse, they want to make a claim about which of us has the "right" view of my own experience).

When I do check in, it's nice to see other people's perspectives on things and learn. It's nice to see when other folks have similar experiences. I like feeling like I'm not totally alone in my weird feelings. But it's certainly... I've gone long stretches without any of those things, and that's fine too. I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the community "important" to me when I'm only around a few times a year. If I do stay for a while, though, these would be the reasons why.

I got bullied in school, yeah, not like I could do much about it because my conscience had a hold on my reaction to it. =/ That and the teachers sucked at that school, thought I was always the instigator.

But yeah, never called a monster I don't think.