Mental Shifts

So, I've covered phantom shifts and briefly tossed out a mention of a mental shift. I think I should expand on what it means for me, so there isn't any confusion.

By a basic definition, a mental shift is when your mentality and thought process shifts completely or in part into that of your theriotype. For me, I always have some bit of animal in my mentality, so m-shifts (quick way of saying "mental shift") generally aren't shocking. I can tell when I'm more animal than human, and m-shifts generally only surprise me if its a rage-shift (when you become so angry, you shift completely or pretty darn close into your theriotype's mentality). Certain things that tip me off to an m-shift are: jumpiness, constantly scenting the air, dialation of the pupils (which, for my point of view means sharper lights and detailing), twitchiness, loss of motor skills (talking and writing/typing become almost impossible in some cases), and I'll watch people more closely than I usually would. Now, as for my whole, "What I'm thinking" when it's happening, that's a whole other story.

My mental voice actually disappears in some cases. It stays only for brief thoughts, that mesh together into a swirling mass of images and words that are supposed to mean something. A "sentence" of my thoughts during an m-shift would sound like, "whoareyou" or "whereami" or "whatsthatsmell". Usually, it is accompanied by images, sounds, random pictures of things I've seen to help my brain understand what is coming at me. For instance, once, I shifted at school (okay, not once. A thousand times it's happened, but this is an example). During this shift, a friend (who isn't a "packmate" so, they wouldn't get it if I just started sniffing them or rubbing my head against them wanting a pet) came up to me and started talking to me. I was about 75% animal, so I still had basic understanding of English. However, my mind processed her words like this: an image of a pile of yellow hay; an image of the sky; a friendly smile; an image of the cafeteria; an image of a rotten deer; an image from the memory of a kid vomitting violently on a bus coming home. What my friend has said in English: "Hey! What's up? Oh, don't get the meatloaf. Its sickening!" Lucky for me, I speak mental-image quite fluently (hint of sarcasm. Not fluently, I'm easily confused).

Now, I view people differently when I'm m-shifted. For the people in my "pack", I recognize them as family, moreso than my actual, biological family. To me, they (my "packmates") are people who will protect and defend me just as I would protect and defend them. My biological family is simply...just a group of people living and providing me a place to live and eat (granted, I love my bio-family dearly. But I don't think of them as a "pack". Make sense? I digress.). Friends of mine who aren't in my "pack" (my friend Barbara from Ag, for example), I treat with respect, but tend to sometimes not fully understand their relation to me if I'm m-shifted deep enough. In animal terms, Barbara would simply be a wolf who'd passed through my territory a couple times. I allow her on my turf, and I maybe even enjoy her company or her help in a hunt, but she isn't my "pack". If she came to my "pack" seeking shelter, I wouldn't turn her away. However, that level of mutual neutrality varies, depending on how good of a friend you are to me when I'm all human.

Bullies, morons, and disrespectful people are high on my no-tolerance list as a human. When I'm m-shifted, it's even harder to controll the urge to hit them. As a wolf, this urge turns into one of more...violence. Often times when I'm shifted and someone is lounging their feet all over my desk (someone who is a jerk to me or everyone else or the teacher), I tend to want to throw myself at them, pin them down, and bite either the back of their neck or their shoulder, near the collarbone. Then, snarl in their face to re-establish boundaries and to basically say, "Eff off." Animal world: acceptable way of dealing with people you don't like. Human world: lands you in long-term or maybe in an asylum (do they even still have those?). Or both. Or heavily medicated in some jail cell with bulky women named Betty or Crystal-Amber who get paid in singles...uh....wait, what?

Jokes aside, this is basically how I view the people in my life. Friends are simply allies who may or may not be "pack" material; my "pack" is my family, but my family is not my "pack"; and enemies are enemies, no matter the mentality.
What about you? Do you have people who are considered your "pack"? Do you ever want to just pin people down and establish dominance?

Shifting With My Pack

So, over the Easter break (my school was given Thursday and Friday off) , my "pack" (with the newest addition of my therian friend, who shalt be called Vee) and I got together and had a typical teenage-girl sleepover. Only, it wasn't so typical if, say, you were completely human 100% of the time.

On Wednesday night, it was a first time for a lot of things. First time Vee and I shifted in front of the pack; first time I actually play-fought my friends in a long, long time; and first time for...well, yeah, a verbal fight/misunderstanding between my friends and me. But we're not getting into that, because, let's face it: you don't wanna hear it, this is a therian blog, and I really don't want to re-live it.

So. Before Wednesday, Vee and myself had shifted together in front of my friend err...Binx. Trigger music was played ("triggers" are things that trigger a shift. Songs, adrenaline, scents, and emotions are all triggers for me) and after 3 or 4 songs, we were both 85% animal. It went pretty...alright. Nothing exciting happened, really, except that I got to shift with another therian. But, our guy friends (their boyfriends and such) decided to drop by my house. Binx, the quick thinker she is, decided to help us shift back by smacking us in the face. She had moved her hands up to smack me, and right before she did, I told her, "I'm going to lunge if you do that." She, of course, does it anyways and I, of course, lunge. Now, I had no controll over my lunge, I just simply knew that that would be my reaction to her hitting my face. She deflected my lunge and I regained controll and no one was hurt. And I did, in fact, shift back to be my er, "normal" self around the guy friends.

Now, on Wednesday, my small vampiric friend uhh...Midget, was there. She had never seen me shifted, ever, as I (in the past) restrain my shifts around people as best as I can. However, she had insisted all week that she wanted to "play with the wolfies" on Wednesday. So, me and Vee agreed to shift and just go wolf. We gathered into my room, turned off the lights, and let trigger music release our humanity.

After the initial shift, me and Vee simply looked at each other, scenting, recognizing, and acknowledging that both of us were equally alphas (no, not as in a mated-pair). Then, we both simultaneously sized up our packmates. Midget, the one who wanted to play the most, was down on the ground, sitting and watching us with wide eyes. Binx sat in my computer chair, not really meeting our gaze, but having a small grin on her face. Vee and I glanced to one another, then jumped off the bed and crouched low in front of Midget. She was smiling a bit too broadly, and that might've been why I decided to play-fight her first. Smiling generally throws off my wolf-self and it makes me wanna pounce.

Vee sat back and me and Midget went at it. She was stronger than I, and threw me down once. However, I snarled and pinned her quickly against the ground. The fight seemed to last a bit longer, but it consisted of me and her tossing each other around and snarling (mostly from me). Binx had moved to the floor and crouched low, her butt in the air and her upper-body down. Play? said her body. I mimicked her crouch, with much more ease than her, and then swatted at her shoulder. She leapt and I let her leap on me. Just when she thinks she had gotten me down, I twisted and pushed up with all four of my paws on her torso. She came off of me and we both went at it, rolling around on my floor. Her tiny teeth dug into my shoulder or perhaps my back and her nails did the same. I twisted my face around and chomped down on her arm. She pulled back my pony-tail and with a yelp, I released my grip on her arm.

Somehow, I had gotten to her back and she had reared up. My claws dug a deep gash into her back, though my nails were not long at all at the time. She still has a scab and it will most-likely scar. After our mutual tie, she sat back on the bed with Midget. For now, Vee had entered the fighting pit that was my bedroom floor. She was crouched lowly, predator-like, eyeing me suspiciously. I rose to an all-fours standing position and eyed her the same. We circled each other, I backing away and her advancing with each step I took. I advanced quickly, checking her weak points. She backed away, and did the same. The wolf dance had begun.

I had circled her too-wide and ended up blocked by my bed corner. I glanced at the open space near me that required leaping to get to. As I leapt, my thought was "Shewillattackmenow" (yes, I do think in a "hereandnow" type way). Sure enough, she leapt into my side. I twisted and shoved her collarbone with my paws. She falls but retalliates even harder. We wrestle a few moments, then draw back, panting slightly. I lock eyes with her, her golden-green eyes burning holes into my storm-gray ones. In the next instant, we both leapt, meeting mid-air in a bear hug.

I cannot tell you what exactly happened next, but the fight ended, her pinning me down once, me pinning her down. We panted hard, pink, too-short tongues lolling out of the sides of our mouths every so often. Now, after each of my fights, Vee would fight Binx or Midget. I'm just describing my fights as the other two are hard to remember since I just watched. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the shift was over.

I must admit, shifting with another therian is extremely fun. Normally, I'll shift alone and end up chewing on a pillow then taking a nap. So, it is much more stimulating to shift and play-fight or run around or heck, even just have staring contests with another therian or packmate. Hopefully over this upcoming weekend, we can repeat most of the events on Wednesday. I'd love to try and beat mine and Vee's tie.

Therian Right Under My Nose

Er...yes. What the title says. You see, back in September was my school's homecoming dance (silently gags). One of my guy friends decided to ask this girl who neither I nor any of my other friends really knew. At the dance, she seemed alright. Quiet, kind of shy, a bit reserved, but funny. I didn't hardly notice anything that night, simply because our school's dances are loud, obnoxious, and wildly inappropriate. However, about a week or so later, they (my guy friend and this new girl) started dating. She began sitting with us at lunch, and then hanging out with us. I pretty much liked her (a friend-like, not a..you get my point) from the start. She seemed to warm up a bit to my friends and I, and she was really funny and...chill.

But then I began to get a weird tingle. Much like whenever I'm around my "pack" (my two closest friends who I can call at 3 am and know that they would sell their souls if need be). As the year went on, I started realizing these tinglies were actually my er..."weredar" (I did not coin this term. Nor do I particularly like it). "Weredar" is basically a sense in a therianthrope that alerts them to other therians. I didn't really place the tinglies as my "weredar" until February-mid March of this year.

Last Sunday, I ended up telling her about my therianthropy. I had known for a couple months that I'd have to tell her sometime. And my packmates (both are, well..."otherkin" but they get offended with that umbrella term) did not really want me to tell her. But sometimes, you have to take matters into your own paws.

And the instant I did, I could see a lightbulb flicker on behind her eyes. "I thought I was weird or the only one!" were the words that came from her mouth. We shared experiences, some so similar. We both "hunt" people in the halls; we both have therianthropic dreams; we both people-watch religiously; we rely on scent and hearing more than an average person; and we both m-shift almost daily. It was quite a shock to me as well as my friends. But since Sunday, I've felt happier and much more...normal than I've ever felt in a long, long while.

I was really never truly a lone wolf in my town, it seems.

Fight, Fight, Fight...

So, I haven't posted in a while, but I figure that the day-to-day life of a therian is...rather normal. I mean, yeah we have phantom limbs and have odd thought-processes, but usually nothing out of the ordinary happens every single day. So, I am now going to write about things that happen and more experiences than "well, today I had a turkey sandwich for lunch and a MATH TEST!" 'Cause, quite frankly, that's really boring.
(Long post, INCOMING!)

But, something did happen last Tuesday that I forgot to write about. And it's been nagging at the back of my mind since then. So, maybe writing it down will help. Quick question: if you've ever seen a fight (or, more specific to this experience I'm about to tell, someone beating up someone else) does it make your therioside weird out? I'll explain in my story here.

Last Tuesday, in my Agriculture (Ag for short) class there was some major issues that definately should not have happened. Alright, so apparently this girl, we'll call her Sally, was friends with let's say Jane. However, Jane was merely using Sally to get things (clothes, food, shopping sprees, car rides). One day, Sally's mom buys Jane a really nice pair of boots. Jane, however, refuses to pay Sally's mom back. So, Sally decides that she doesn't want to be friends with Jane.

And Jane is the kind of person who will stab your back in a heartbeat. Jane is also friends with a girl named Mary. One day, Mary leaves her own boots (not the same pair that Jane has) in the bathroom by the Ag room. Jane, being the cruel female dog that she is, tells Mary that she saw Sally steal them. So, Mary decides to come to our Ag class and wait for an opportunity to get her boots back. In the meanest way possible.

For about a week, Mary was sneaking out of her own class and into our Ag class. Our teacher, Mr. Limes, doesn't really care (we NEVER do anything in that class except play cards). On Tuesday, Mr. Limes was absent and we had a sub. A short, soft-spoken, quiet little sub. And Mary siezed this opportunity like a hawk with a field mouse.

We were watching a movie (about pigs...?) and all of a sudden, Mary stands up and starts calling over to Sally (who was sitting in front of me), saying "Sally! Jane wants to talk to you! Sally, come here!" and Sally doesn't reply. So my friend, Barbara, tells her "Oh, hey, they want you." But Sally replies with "I'm ignoring them." Barbara and I shrug and try to go back to the movie, but Mary keeps yelling over the movie's narrator. So, Barbara asks her very nicely to sit down and be quiet. This, however, sets Mary off.

Mary starts saying (profanity, incoming) "Well that f**'n bitch stole my boots and I'll beat her f***'n ass!" and stuff like this. Barbara says, really calmly, "Ok, look, just settle down. Fighting is no way to solve things." but Mary keeps flipping crap and and turns on me and my group, yelling "I'll beat all of your f**'n asses, right now! You hear me? You're all just a bunch of *insert town name here* bitches!" Then, Mary walks over and is standing right behind me. By now, I'm all prepared for a fight to break out. And when you stand behind a therian who is so close to m-shifting, you're bound to get bit. I, however, don't do this.

I whisper to Barbara "Should I move?" and she kinda giggles and says "Uh, yeah." Mary thinks she's laughing at her, and is all, "You think this is funny?!" which sets off Mary even further. The sub, the whole time, is practically on her hands and knees begging for Mary to just sit down. Mary moves a little back to her original seat, but then turns back and shouts, "No! Imma kill this f**'n bitch right now!" and she turns on her heel and starts pounding into Sally's face.

Now, our school has a "No tolerance policy", meaning that if you fight back, you're in just as much trouble as the instigator. So, all Sally can do is go into a fetal position in her desk. She tries to hide her face in her hands, but everytime she does, Mary yanks on her hair, causing Sally to look up. Mary then punches her exposed face several times. This happens quite frequently and rapidly. No one moves the whole time; we're all too stunned.

The sub runs and gets a male teacher named Mr. Earwig. He fends off Mary, but Mary somehow wiggles out of his grip and shoves Sally out of her desk, hard. Mr. Earwig gets a better grip on Mary, much like he was bearhugging her arms behind her back. As he's hauling her off, she's still trying to get at Sally. Finally, once everything was over, the room goes eerily still. Barbara helps Sally to the nurse (she got a black eye. I'm still surprised her nose didn't bleed).

The whole time, all of my shifts were full blast. Mental, phantom, I think aura (when your own aura takes the form of your therioside) shifts were all happening. If therians could physically shift, I think I would have. My ears were burning, everytime I tried to talk, my diaphragm tightened, making my words come out kinda bark-ish. My neck and shoulders had the tingling sensation of phantom fur standing on end. I think my eyes were dialated, as well. Through the whole thing, I was fiercely resisting the urge to snarl and go for Mary's throat. I'm both glad and upset that I didn't attack Mary. Had I attacked her, I probably would have succumbed to the wolf and lock-jawed onto her throat. Which would tack on "murder" and "assault" to my record. And probably freak everyone out.

So, the story poses a strong question: when fights or attacks happen, do you shift? Do you have the urge to do something? Do you want to help one person or help attack the weakling?

My Typical Day

Before any alarm reaches my ears, a very ansy canine is mentally pacing in my brain. She wakes up before the sun or my alarm and paces. Sometimes (like when I first awakened) she'll bark and when it's really important that I wake up, she'll howl. So, at 5 minutes before my alarm buzzes, I'll be awake and finding clothes for the day. I usually end up m-shifting (that's a shortened way to write 'mental shift') at night, and so in the morning, all my senses are buzzing. The eerie silence of my house, the smells that are being woken up as I move about the rooms, my eyes finding my way in the dark.

Rain will not calm down until I am fully awake and have eaten. She'll pace madly, then flash images in my head of deer and the woods and running. I'll sate her with cereal (though she's flashed images of bacon or sausage or a still-squirming deer, because cereal is gross to her) and continue on with my daily routine. Make my lunch, brush my hair, brush my teeth, then stumble out the door into the cold, dark mornings. That's when Rain is the happiest. Out in the quiet morning air. The sleepy time between 4 and 7 AM. Because the humans aren't motoring along and rushing off to meetings or McDonald's. She barely resists the bus (the only resentment is from the noise, is what I have gleaned from the images and mental noises). However, once we've arrived at school, things change.

You can't will away your therioside. Your wolf or tiger or bear or kitten or fish or beetle stays with you. Though I've named my wolf-side, technically, your animal-side is you. However, I've come to think of myself as two in one. Granted, it's my viewpoint, and I'm not saying it's the absolute norm or rule. Just remember, a therian's therioside stays with them.

And so, naturally, at school, Rain is with me. Fighting tooth and nail to leave. If it's a rough day, I'll m-shift. The giggling will sound like disgusting cackling.  Their makeup is caked grossly onto their faces, while too-red lips draw back into a bared-tooth snarl. Their speech is bothersome. They ask a question, and prompt a response, even though my body has given them one. A flick of the ear, a twitch of the tail, a shift of my eyebrows. But they don't see and I must answer with words.

On alright days, Rain's fleeting urges are suppressed. They're still there, haunting my thoughts, but I can ignore them. On days like today, we're in harmony. I can convince her to relax, and she'll lapse into a state of mental rest. Some days, I really wish I could just be completely wolf. But I can't because the woods near my house have a pathway run right through them, where people jog or walk their dogs frequently. So, I have to make due with m-shifting in my bedroom.

Rain will also relax around my "pack". My two best friends, who I can count on for anything. They make the wolf in me practically sing with joy when I'm with them. My one friend calls me the alpha, however, I really don't like that title. Sure, most of our get togethers are at my house, and they come to me for advice, but I've never controlled their lives or bossed them around. Rain doesn't mind this so much, simply because she sees the two as my "betas", and not as weaker or lesser beings. (Yes, certain humans make me want to pin them down and nip their neck, they're so disrespectful).

So, once I've finished for the day, gone to my classes, loaded back up on the yellow noise-machine, Rain is either exhausted or ansy all over again. So, I walk from my bus stop back home, and enjoy the time I have while I'm outside, and let Rain relax a little in the sun (or the cloudy air, if its overcast). Then, I'm back home.

And, after I do homework, check Facebook and my blog and everything else, I might m-shift, then climb into bed, and fall asleep. Then I'll wake up, and do it all over again.

Phantom Shifts

Phantom shifts, for me, aren't really shifts, since I almost always have ears, fur, and a tail present. However, they are the most frustrating shifts for me, as I feel them, and my mind tells me when they're moving or when they touch something, yet neither me nor anyone else can see them. I know they're there. But they aren't physically there.

Now, when I say "fur", I mean the scruffy fur on a wolf's shoulders. When I'm angry or afraid, I get the tinglies all up and down my shoulders all the way to the hairline by my forehead. I can only pin this as fur standing on end, like a canine does when it's threatened. It isn't goosebumps, because I'll check the mirror and see no bumps, but it feels almost exactly like it.

My tail is quite possibly the most helpful and annoying thing about me. I know it isn't physically there, but often times I find myself balancing better if I twist or swivel something back there. However, most times I'll sit on it and after a while, my tailbone (the human, physical one) goes all tingly, then completely numb, while my butt tenses up, cramps up, then falls asleep. So often times I'll have to readjust my sitting position, and sometimes have to move my tail with my mind.
On the topic of moving tails, I can wag it and if I'm laying on my side, I can thump it against the ground (or bed or whatever I'm laying on), which in turn tells that part of my brain that my tail is coming in contact with a surface. My mind provokes a memory of the sound a tail-thump makes, and I'll hear the noise somewhere in the back of my mind. It'll also sometimes wag when I'm happy without my own doing, or tuck between my legs when people yell.

Lastly, my ears (both the phantom and physical ones) will move in reaction to sounds. The phantom ones will react, which tells my mind that my ears are moving, which tells my physical ears to move. More often than the sound-reactions are the emotion-reactions. I remember recognizing my human ears reacting this way and being really shocked. It was right after my dad was yelling at me on account of chores, then as he dismissed me, I noticed that my human ears felt like they were tugged backwards, against my head. I shook my head, and they slowly moved back to a regular position. As they moved, my fear and feeling that I had let someone down faded as well.

So, anyone else have phantom shift stories? Times when they hit their tail on something, or gesture with a wing? =)

When You're a Wolf

When I was younger, even before my awakening (that's what it's called when a therian comes to realize what/who they are) I had a mild-ish obsession with canines. When playing "House" with my friends, I would always pick dog (sometimes cat, though very rarely) and I was usually the best "dog" to have when you're 7. I would sit, stay, roll over, play dead, fetch...the works, really. I even ate and drank out of bowls on the floor, without using spoons or forks. Everything a kid wants in a dog, without the mess! I also had a strange attraction to the woods, and often I would stare out my window and wish I could roam without my mom worrying about my whereabouts. Then, when I got to public school (4th grade), I realized that kids my age weren't still playing "House" or "Animals" anymore, and so I dropped the urge to play those kiddy games.

Though I stopped playing "dog", I was still a fond friend to various stuffed animals. I had bears, lions, dragons, but mostly canines. I had a favorite one, named Spot, who was a Dalmation Build-A-Bear. I think Spot is still somewhere in my closet, actually. However, when middle school came, I had to drop the stuffed animal phase too, since that wasn't cool.

It wasn't until seventh grade when my awakening happened. Sixth grade was a pretty wonderful year, and I made lots of new friends. In seventh grade, the friends I had hung out with in elementary school left. They all switched into a rival school, and we never saw each other. This would have been a short, mild case of loneliness, had my awakening not hit me. It wasn't so sudden, really, but it did happen without fair warning.

I suddenly got the feeling like I wasn't supposed to be here. I felt like I didn't belong...usual angsty teenager stuff. But it got weird. I started having urges to howl, I could feel limbs and tails that weren't there. I felt my ears gain ghostly add ons to them, and the ears (both phantom and real) started reacting to sounds, and more importantly, emotions. I perfected a snarl and a growl and even had a nasty bark, all within a week or so, due to the urges. My sense of smell increased, though not in the way you would think. It wasn't like I could smell a tiny speck of dirt among a thousand grains, but scents became more personal to me. A human nose just goes with the flow, and smells whatever passes in front of it. My nose smelled something, then demanded I followed it to the source. My friends all gained their own smells that I can pick out of crowds with ease, now.

I also got a terrible case of the who-am-I's. I questioned if I belonged in my group of friends, if I belonged at my own school. Sometimes I thought I should just go and die, or run away. I don't know how or why, but when scrolling through the internet, I found my answer. I couldn't tell you what I looked up, or when I looked it up, but I can tell you this: I realized I wasn't alone, and I realized I was a therian.

I really hate labels. I do. But telling people I'm a therian is the easiest way I can tell them. Someone came up with a word to shorten out: I'm human on the outside, but inside I'm an animal or a mythical being, and I am not your definition of normal. Which is great. If there wasn't a word for it, even better. But I'm ranting, so pardon.

I began lurking on therian forums, and began to come to terms with my therioside (my wolf-self). I also had my first shifts, mostly mental shifts. Phantom tails and ears are always on me, so I don't think phantom shifts count. But I'll get into my shifts later. All I can tell you is that your surroundings are different when you're a wolf. Now that I'm older, I realize that life is pretty different when your a wolf.

Day Two: Religion

Ok, so some of you might be saying "Oh, she's pagan!" or "She's a hippy woman!" No. Let me just say that, right now. No, I am more or less Christian. While churches give me the creeps, I do follow most Christian morals and ideals. I don't like modernized Christianity, and how man has totally wickedized (is that a word?) most of what is in the Bible. I do believe there is some higher being up there, but I don't believe that this being is all loving or all hateful. If he/it made us in it/his image, wouldn't he be humanesque? So, he would make mistakes, and actually have other emotions other than "wrath" and "love". This is just how I see it, and I'm not claiming Christians are wrong, Bhuddists are wrong, etc, etc.

Now, second thing: Therianthropy isn't a religion. Many people in the community believe (and its widely accepted) that therians are a result from reincarnation. But that doesn't mean you follow a rhino god, or a bear god or whatnot. When a therian barks, it isn't a prayer to some wolfy deity. A howl is not some ritual song. No, it's just therian nature.

So, yes, there are heavy Christian therians, and there are probably Islamic and Jewish and Bhuddist ones too. So, don't you worry your pretty little head that these hippy, pagan animal people are going crazy and will end the world. Because that isn't who we are. We're people with normal jobs and schools and beliefs. Just with an animal side.

I'll start getting into more of my life starting tomorrow (or the next time I post). But I just wanted to clear out confusion for some people before I start to get into that.
So now that you know a little about me, I'm just going to jump right into my life. Try to keep up, and ask questions that are relevant.

Day One of Blogging

Well, since blogs are the newest form of a journal, I s'pose this is how I'll write out my life.
For now, I'll start with the basics. Just the things you need to know before you read, or comment, or troll (god forbid those people exist).
First things first: I am a therianthrope. Obviously, by the title. Before you go rolling your eyes or looking up the term on Google, let me just give you the gist. Basically, a therian is a person who identifies with a specific animal or multiple animals more than people. You share a mind/thought process that is akin to what your animal is. You don't turn into a therian, nor do you pick your animal. It just happens. My animal side is a Timber Wolf, and let me tell you, it isn't pretty and cuddly. But I'll wait for a later post for those stories. Just you wait.

Second thing: I am not crazy. I know alot of times, I might seem crazy, but I'm really not. I know the difference between reality and fantasy. Therianthropy is real. So don't call me crazy. I've heard it too many times.

Now...we'll get into the heart of the matter. So, some of you may be wondering "why?". To which I reply, "Because I must." I feel like I need to keep record of my experiences, and to share it with those who might be suffering and need answers. Heck, I might make a friend or two. And also, I think it'll keep me sane. Life has taken a rough turn around a bend right now, and writing is the best form of stress-reliever for me. So, I write this. My life, told through virtual journal entries. I'll try to stick with this daily. At the very least, weekly.
So hang on tight, and welcome to the world, through the eyes of Wolf.