Therianthropy
What Therian means (to me)
Even though I’ve only been a Therian since 2020 i’ve watched it change so drastically, people fight about what it means, and what I originally learned about it change and got lost, so I felt I needed to write down what it means to me. Maybe to help others, maybe just preserve my own ways, whatever it is it’s not something I want to be lost.
Whenever someone asks me what a Therian is I always tell them the short sentence: “it’s someone who mentally, spiritually or physically believes they’re an animal” and I still find this the shortest and easiest way to describe it, doesn’t mean that it’s fully correct obviously it’s missing a bunch of information but it gets the idea across. Another thing to note is that Therians can fit under individual, multiple or all of these categories at once, it's strictly based on the individual.
What Therian overall is
It’s a person who find themselves falling into one of the three categories previously mentioned, and finding themselves to be in one of those categories and an animal. To specify what animal means here, this is referring to creatures that do exist on earth and are any creature below humans. This does not include extinct, mythological, or otherwise non-physical earthbound creatures. (There is terminology specifically for these other categories and should not be mixed with Therian.)
I am now gonna go through all three categories and try to write down what I remember learning about them starting with:
A mentally shifting Therian
Is someone who experiences thoughts of an animal, this can include thinking like them, having mental desires like them, or being of the same intellectual level.
A spiritually shifting Therian
Is someone who finds their soul, or other spiritual connections be that of an animal, this can include being an animal in a past life or being connected to another animal on a spiritual level.
A physically shifting Therian
Is someone who finds their physical image to be that of an animal, this can be seen from having accessories and having a mental disconnection between the objects false aspects causing it to become part of you. The physical shift can also refer to seeing yourself physically as an animal even if others may not see the same.
Based on what I’ve learned, I am a “mental-shift Therian” but I’m still learning, so no information here is considered complete.
Foxes is the creature I think closest match to. So here, have some foxes.
My first shift like experience;
My first experience: I was sitting relaxing bored and the next thing I know I get this energetic feeling, a kind of wild one. The feeling like now I want to be an animal. It happened so quickly and randomly especially at night. So I find myself starting to act like a fox as it is the animal I'm most attuned to, but as much as I have this wild urge to be a fox there is also still my human side saying that "you are not allowed" or "you should remain calm you are indoors".How being a Therian is to me these days (August, 2022)
I spend so much time in the furry fandom that the lack of other therians near me and no time to just be wild really has caused it to be non pronounced. Though in saying that it's been incorporated into my life. I make fox like noises in reaction to certain things naturally without even realizing it, I still can get very wild, perhaps a full shift if certain conditions are met and I've been told my personality is a lot like a fox.