Alterhuman identity. Delusion or distorted thought? I'm including all that have body dysphoria later on
I have a licensed therapist that I see weekly, and decided to ask her about my therianthropy/paranothropy, yes, after years of analyzing it, I've finally realized that I am also a therian!
Anyway, we got into discussing delusional thinking after she brought up something about my maternal unit's narcissism. She said that delusions are not what we talk about when it comes to "unusual beliefs" or perceptions.
Delusions must cause a significant level of personality changes, behavior changes, and a complete inability to distinguish reality and their beliefs.
Because otherkin, therianthropes, and alterhumans are keenly (and in some cases painfully) aware of their humanity, yet still ascribe to a "belief" system, this would not count as a delusion.
Even in alterhumans who experience shifts, these would not fit the definition of delusion. More so an automatic impulse, but not an all out inability to recognize the human biology.
I then asked her about my own experiences being alterhuman, and she was quick to point out that my distorted thought patterns only occurred after I was forced to compare myself to others. Once my maternal unit began punishing me for my alterhuman behaviors and perceptions, that's when the distorted thought patterns began to occur.
I didn't automatically "get" the whole being human thing. It wasn't something that occurred to me! Many others grow up around humans and "get it" from an early age. I actually had to be taught!
That's when I began to think of myself as a burden to the world, when I began to develop species/body dysphoria, when I began to hate myself for being human. These feelings and thoughts only became more prevalent when I learned more about human nature, and all of the cruelty we inflict despite claiming to be an empathetic, caring species.
I despised the fact that I was taught to view myself as human, and that I had no choice in the matter under the threat of punishment and scoldings from deviating from how my maternal unit wanted me to think and behave.
Thus, those who claim alterhumanity is a delusion have most likely have not ever heard of this term.
Even those with gender dysphoria can have these distorted thoughts either created, formed, or shaped by how they are treated by others. Refusing to acknowledge that our experiences are not real, labeling us as mentally ill, crazy, in need of therapy, and so on is only either the DIRECT CAUSE of the issues we have, or it directly affects and acerbates them.
Those who keep mocking us and telling us how "disordered" we are, and trying to change us is for some the whole reason we need therapy in the first place. It's a self fulfilled prophecy for the haters. Driving us to seek help, then pointing and saying "see? I knew they were inferior and mentally unstable!"
In hunter/gatherer societies, if a man said that he was a woman, it wasn't usually met with this kind of mockery. He was seen as a girl by the community and was allowed to hang out with the girls, and do what the girls did. They were rarely shamed for their identities, and instead were treated as equals, and in some cases even revered in these societies as they were physically stronger than the other women. Also vice versa for the women who identified as men.
In our society however, we try to conform people instead of just accepting them. We pathologize those who are different. This is most likely only contributing to the dysphoria these people experience, and the validation they seek.
