Mildly annoyed at the trend of people... Forgetting that many of the strong experiences one can feel about alterhumanity are historically very very common in otherkin and therianthrope? This is not... Beef toward anyone, in fact this popped up bc I checked in on a non anglophone alt-h server, but god. Like speed round. As a note this is gonna be more therian linguo heavy just bc I'm very tired, a therianthrope, and mostly was in therian spaces so it's what I default to but a lot of those are applicable to otherkin n fictionkin.
"can phantom shifts feel like physically shapeshifting"
-> yeah this was an experience talked about not uncommonly on forums. A lot of therianthropes expressed the feeling of "a pelt under your skin begging to breach out" or feeling limbs push out against their skin as the phantom shift took place. Sure a lot of people also feel very mild phantom shifts. Both exist. But this experience is in fact a phantom shift experience. We called ourselves "weres" for a reason. Seems more common in people who distinctly see themselves as werecreatures, but this is not abnormal for a phantom shift, although preferably you should do a doctor check if you feel pain (also an experience ppl talked about, but it's not usually thought of as "normal" just bc. Well that's kinda bad and may hide an injury or whatever so it's better to check mundane reasons first. But painful shifts seem to exist you should just be very very certain nothing else could be causing it).
"I can't turn off being an animal / I can't stop my instincts at inconvenient times / I don't feel suited for human society"
-> this one always surprises me when it's presented as bizarre for otherkin/therians. That was like... A baseline therian experience. Yeah no a lot of us can't either. Usually the difference is that this feeling is at an all time high when in situations where you are constantly pressured to "human" correctly, socialize and have no breaks to wild it out, which corresponds a lot to The Entire Duration Of School and is therefore a more common complaint amongst teenagers than adults. It gets a bit easier as an adult sometimes if you're lucky to have opportunities that let you manage your life around instincts and such, although sometimes, well, you gotta play by societies rules to survive n it stays hard. Also a commonly reported experience. You do learn! But some people are better at hiding instincts than other, some instincts are easier to hide than other, etc.
"I have shifts I cannot control under very intense emotions"
-> "Berserker shift" is a controversial term due to a variety of reasons that span the usual "that's too weird, don't talk about that", the fact you're still responsible for what you do while shifty, or just bc it sounds kinda... Edgy, from a first glance, but it IS a term from our history and a lot of people do report the experience of going fully animalistic if freaked out enough. Sometimes alongside extremely strong phantom shifts as described in the first point! I've heard of people who had complete verbal shutdown and could neither speak nor understand speech, could not walk on two legs, reacted with growling spitting and biting, just the whole thing. I think this experience is a bit harder to find mostly because it's... Very vulnerable, usually. It tends to require less than pleasant conditions, and tends to be very vilified, so not talked about much, but very much something that is recorded.
Transhumanism, species transition and body mods overall
-> I'm not gonna talk much about this one bc I've said a lot in other posts, but there's a reason trans species and therianthropy are super intertwined and it's... Because a lot of therianthropes did historically attempt to transition or at least modify their body and surroundings to their best capacities. The idea that therianthropes, as a rule, mostly do not attempt to modify their bodies seems to me very incorrect.
"I feel a strong, almost supernatural drive toward nature / I feel in my bones I am nonhuman / I believed I could physically shift during most of my life under the right conditions"
-> This one is going to be a bit hard for me. As a result of having psychosis, I have kind of a mental block over thinking too much about it in regards to myself. It's also I think A Major way ppl seem to be confirming physical nonhumanity, so like, you do you, I'm not Telling you anything about yourself. However I do want to note that these feelings aren't particularly rare amongst nonhumans overall. A reason why so many therianthropes got in toxic groups that promised being able to go back to one's true form was... Because a lot of us are deeply convinced in some way or another that if things align juuuuust right maybe just maybe we'll have our bodies again. It's not hard to. Understand why an entire community defined by being in the wrong body would have this trait. A lot of us felt a strong drive toward nature, a feeling of being displaced amongst humans, a lot of us attempted to physically shift.
"I wish I could have my species's offsprings / I feel dysphoria over my sexual functions / I have sexual drives that align with being weird fetishes in a human society"
-> this one is more getting erased due to puritanism I think but yeah no for a lot of nonhumans it. Does not stop magically under the belt. And it's not a problem unless any theriform animal is involved. Yes even if it's kinda nasty to think about. I will however note for the first point "no theriform animal is involved" kinda still goes, please do not adopt animals, especially exotic animals, under the impression that you can parent them as a theriform animal could? It CAN be possible to raise a theriform animal in a way that would satisfy parental instincts if you're trained for it, but we're not special. We got raised by humans, we don't magically understand our species better than people trained for it. Very imprinted animals commonly make poor parents.
"I remember my past life / I communicate with my animal self spiritually / other spiritual experiences"
-> this one is such a surprise to me to see so uncommon now. Spirituality used to be a cornerstone of otherkin and therian spaces and it's kinda wild to me to see it's so rare now. So yeah no that's very much a thing. I don't think I've seen someone soul search for their "true name" in ages, when that was everywhere on old spirituality inclined forums. I can't speak much on this bc I am not a spiritual therianthrope + point about psychosis made before but I've seen parallel lives, I've seen past lives, I've seen future lives, I've seen misplaced souls, I've seen having a chat with your theriotype as a representation of your soul... Awakening seemed to have a meaning of the... Spiritual event of your soul kinda ripping to reveal your inner self for a while, a singular event in which you start remembering. Was very common on an old french forum over here. Not sure if that was as common in English ones. A lot of people's nonhumanity was not as based on shifts and instincts as on uncovering that hidden self through spiritual means, memories, and such.
Weird Shit Happens Around Me ("I can't digest things a human should digest in accordance to my species, ppl have noted my nonhuman traits as if they could see my invisible limbs, animals react weird to me, etc")
-> noooooted in the past but I think these have always been subject to doubt to be fair. Like you can find records of stuff like that quite easily, but also its very hard to prove in any way, shape or form. So that's a reason it's not in the basics of nonhumanity. But yeah historically a lot of otherkin/therianthropes have claimed Weird Shit Happens. Not rly my case so can't speak on it.
And I think I've mentioned what I had in my brain but this is just to remind ppl like... The therianthrope who wears a mask for fun and is only mildly inconvenienced by their animality is not really a representation of the community historically. Weve always been pretty fucking intense and pretty fucking weird. Chances are, if you are experiencing a very weird thing, it's not particularly a disqualifier of therianthropy or otherkin historically. Not that people might not give you shit about it! Pretty much all the points here, while not uncommon reported experiences, ARE in fact also things I've seen ppl be antagonistic about in the community. Which to be clear is stupid. But yeah it doesn't mean you're wrong, it means they don't realize the extent of our experiences.
