Happy Therianthropy Day! I might sleep all day today because I stayed up all night. Though if the full moon is bright tonight, I may head outside and have some fun with any shifts I get.

Have a fun Therian Day Guys!!!

Thanks for the great information BearX!!

Oooh I thought this was just something that the preteens in the community started as an excuse to feel special (like on Instagram there's "therian pride friday" and there's been numerous attempts at making therian pride days throughout the year). I didn't realize that this one actually had history!

I'm attending a pseudo-convention thing today so I guess that'll be my celebration

My last day on the job. What's not to love?

Today is the first full moon of November, 2017. The first full moon of November has been a sort of de facto "Therianthropy Day" since the mid 1990s. It was when, 23 years ago, on the weekend of November 19 & 20, 1994, the first official AHWW howl was held.

I was unable to attend it, although I did make the two that followed. I was a broke college student and had no transportation at the time. It was fun reading the post-howl reports on the newsgroup, though.

I always felt it was a good time to have an official celebration of therianthropy, since the AHWW newsgroup itself was created in November, 1992. Very momentous for therians, November is.

It was first proposed as a sort of holiday in March of 1996, in this thread on AHWW, should you want to investigate the history. Ultimately, AHWW decided to use it, and it stuck. It went through a few iterations of names, "International Werewolf Day", and then the less species-specific "Awereness Day" (since were is the older term for therian), and after the term therianthropy caught on, "Therianthropy Day".

So, happy "Therianthropy Day". Hope it's a good one.

(2017-02-13 12:11)LycanTheory Wrote:  

(2017-02-13 2:01)Alliana Wrote:  Gosh, now I feel old being around such youngins! XD

I felt old too when I first came here (34, going on 35) but I guess these youngins have rubbed off on me. I sure as hell don't feel as old as I am and I've seen a nice uptick in the number of members our age joining as of late.

Age is nothing more then a pair of numbers It doesn't matter how old you are. What matters is the amount of experiences and wisdom you carries.
I've seen a girl of 7 carrieng more wisdom with her then the 77 year old woman I saw earlier. and vice versa too.

(2017-02-13 2:01)Alliana Wrote:  Gosh, now I feel old being around such youngins! XD

I felt old too when I first came here (34, going on 35) but I guess these youngins have rubbed off on me. I sure as hell don't feel as old as I am and I've seen a nice uptick in the number of members our age joining as of late.

Gosh, now I feel old being around such youngins! XD

(2017-02-02 19:22)Kisota Wrote:  

(2017-02-02 0:14)BearX Wrote:  My understanding is that many folks experiment with identity when they're young, also. Trying out goth, hipster, etc... until they get a better grip on who they are.

Yup! It's very natural and not inherently a bad thing. Adolescents around that age start to be a lot more self aware and it's normal and healthy to go through different phases and try on different labels.

Of course, it's such an important time for identity development and such an impressionable period that it's important to give proper information and guidance when possible. Gotta help those young folks understand that therianthropy isn't a trend to bandwagon on.

I think it's easy for young people to also stumble across therianthropy and not only misunderstand it, as PinkDolphin said, as being about wanting to be an animal and bark and wear collars... but it's also easy for them to genuinely think they are experiencing therianthropy. The so-called "med student syndrome." That's why I think it helps to encourage people to consider what their experiences were like before they ever heard of therianthropy. Not that I expect everyone to come into the community with a fully-fledged and well-formuated, cohesive sense of an animal identity. But the "me too!!" effect definitely occurs sometimes.

There's obviously difficulties when it comes to even interacting with minors online, let alone such young ones. And legal issues.

I have recently considered my phantom shifts might be an effect of being in the community and knowing of it. It's a subconscious effort for my brain to try and super impose these limbs, ears, tail, etc. Because it was as of late that I realized before acceptance happened in May of 2015, I felt no phantom limbs. I had mental shifts, and instincts emerged all over the place that I sure didn't understand. I am for lack of a better term, an like those 14 year olds. Naturally I am not seeking a trend. Especially for something that causes me personally so much heartache (species dysphoria), fear and panic, and even when I had a mental shift full blown after accepting and knowing a tiny bit about the community. I prayed for 2 hours in a panic state for God to "take my fursona away".

So I feel our mind adapts to new information. So personally I feel my mind didn't know it could superimpose limbs phantomly onto my body til I knew of them. Now I feel it's my brains way of trying to complete the picture. Feeling those limbs might even be my brains way of trying to ease my species dysphoria.

Who knows. I feel my wolf ears all the dang time. Gets annoying. That's about the limit.

I do think as we learn more can emerge to because our brains might not realize what we should do.

Like I used to hiss at dogs vs growl or snarl. This was two reasons. 1; I feared growling and snarling, so I shifted the vocalization to something different. 2; until I accepted and thus learned of the community I didn't know what wolves made sound wise. I knew NOTHING of wolves prior to May 2015.

I feel our minds experience these events and try to make sense of them. Things, like vocalizations that slip out might go from one sound to another. Because like real animals, wolves included. These sounds must be taught. Young wolf pups do not know how to howl right. Their father's teach them.

So when people say, oh you should know all things you do prior to learning either of therianthropy and or your type. That's just not true. We all must learn to correct any mistakes or mislinks in our behaviors from our therioside.

Lee

(2017-02-02 19:22)Kisota Wrote:  Yup! It's very natural and not inherently a bad thing. Adolescents around that age start to be a lot more self aware and it's normal and healthy to go through different phases and try on different labels.

Of course, it's such an important time for identity development and such an impressionable period that it's important to give proper information and guidance when possible. Gotta help those young folks understand that therianthropy isn't a trend to bandwagon on.

I think it's easy for young people to also stumble across therianthropy and not only misunderstand it, as PinkDolphin said, as being about wanting to be an animal and bark and wear collars... but it's also easy for them to genuinely think they are experiencing therianthropy. The so-called "med student syndrome." That's why I think it helps to encourage people to consider what their experiences were like before they ever heard of therianthropy. Not that I expect everyone to come into the community with a fully-fledged and well-formuated, cohesive sense of an animal identity. But the "me too!!" effect definitely occurs sometimes.

There's obviously difficulties when it comes to even interacting with minors online, let alone such young ones. And legal issues.

Altough I can't properly explain in english, I will make a try!
Like Kisota said, it is normal for young people to try out differnt ways to express theirselves. Many different identitys, and that's totally healty. Kids who can't try out things duo parents who don't let them are often frustrated, feel caged and make more mistakes.

If a kid never flied in a plane, he will be scared to fly in a plane.
Not to forget he will probably not know how to take on his belt, call for help in the plane. Even going to toilet. He will be helpless, make mistakes and will have more stress then people who fly in planes often.

It's like someone who has never met a dog.
He will be more likely to not understand the dog. He will be more likely to treath the dog incorrect. etc etc

Some people think to try out different identitys (emo, punk, ..) isn't the same as meeting a dog for the first time or flying in a plane for the first time.
But actually it is the same.
If you are goth, you do different things, feel different, dress different, meet different people than when you are emo. For emo's just the same as for even Therians or Furrys.

Furry's aren't the same as Therians either.
I've never been in a furry comunity. I am not a furry. So I won't know how it feels to be a furry. I will understand furrys wrongly. I don't do the same things furries do.

It's a bit like transgenders. Kids nowdays often identify as trans, for a short period. As a 'try-out'. Even those kids who decide they aren't trans after all, they will understand other trans peoples better then non-trans persons. Look at many older humans.
My oncle of 80+ will never understand trans people. He will say trans people have a mental illness. That's wrong. But he doesn't know. He has never met trans people, nor been one hisself.
He has no experience, so he will make mistakes.

I hope this was a bit correctly explained, since my english is a bit poor to explain some serieus subjects.

My understanding is that many folks experiment with identity when they're young, also. Trying out goth, hipster, etc... until they get a better grip on who they are.