WHEN did you discover it?

[SoulScream]

At what age did you becaome aware of your therianthropy? Or even when you first learned about the tpoic and ideas associated with it?

I was first introduced to the subject and began my therianthropic exploration just after my 16th birthday. So I've been aware of my therianthropy for almost exactly 4 years. Sure seems like a long time though.

[King_Parliament]

I found out about my Teriathrophy when I met a girl at school who shared the same lust for nature as I, about 15 1/2. For months we talked about creatures, she drew them and I liked to write about them, until I found I really seemed to have thing for wolves. One day I ended up on a werewolf site read the lore, myth, and fact for one of my stories. I began to think and began analyzing my behavior, cutting it into a million tiny pieces, then checking what animal it was. Well lookee there, Wolf, what a suprise!

It's been getting worse (better?) since I decided this 6 months ago (I'm almost 16), as I've been growing further obsessed with wolves. I accept that 21% of my active brain is wolf, and I love it. I've even considered asking my parents to cut down the trees around my windows so more moonlight can come through. The scary part? I found nothing wrong with the demand. Shoot, I even growl when provoked and wear a little vynl bag with a tiny wolf statuette in there.

Dream Job: The Wolf Jane Goodall. It'll take months of patience and acceptance, but wolf packs do accept people if they recognise their scent and find them just background stuff. Oh, dreams of pictures, essays, money grants, research teams, and enviromentalist awards...

Ach, I feel I talk too much.

[Ahroun]

What therian was i found out 2 yars ago. Despite the fact all my life my parents told how much i looked as a wolf/dog behaviour.

[Wolffy13]

I, also, realized I was a therianthrope just shortly after turning 16, although, I didn't know it was called therianthropy.

[SoulScream]

Off topic: INVADER ZIM!!!!

Okay, get back on topic. *waves everyone back to discussing when they became aware*

[Argyros]

I didn't know what therianthropy was until about six months ago, but I have always thought I was a wolf or a dog. When we moved to a rural area several years ago, my canid side formed itself into a definite shape; that of a wolf.

[Alphawolf]

All my life, I knew something was missing, but I never connected it with therianthropy until around May.

[YoungFang]

I sort of knew something was there all my life as soon as I had the internet I could find out about it and that's exactly what I did and I've done for about four years now since I was 13.

[AdamWolf]

It was about 4 years ago that I first started getting on the internet and learning about therianthropy and investigating this side of me with more serious thought. Before that it had been a process of awakening I suppose you could call it. It had always been present but it began to make itself more and more known to me. The wolf was present more and more in my thoughts and dreams and it got to the point where I figured it was real or I was just nuts. So one day I just found myself searching the net and discovering that I wasn't alone and there was a whole wealth of information. So that would be when I started to learn about therianthropy and myself. Tricky to say that at that point was a 'discovery' moment, it was turning point though...

[Bear]

I was 15 , fascinated with shapeshifters and came here in search of answers to those prominant questions like : Why do i growl? why can i growl so well? and why do people say i look like a bear? lol well anyway you get the point.

[Wolf-Bone]

I seem to be in a minority sometimes in that the internet had nothing to do with my self-discovery. At least the first several years of it.

For me, it was as simple as it almost always is. "I felt like a wolf (or whatever animal) inside". It was about as much as that, and I felt no need to really analyze, rationalize, or justify it. This began when I was about nine years of age. At the time, the word "spirituality" wasn't even in my vocabulary. I was a wolf, at least in part, inside my head, and physically very much a human boy. And I was fine with that.

I remained resigned to that idea for the next approximately 5 years. It wasn't until the seventh grade that I felt a real desire to have some sort of understanding of this belief I'd held for so long without any aparent external factors causing it to persist. For whatever reason, that was also the beginning phase of my desire to transform (I'd never heard of a "P-shift" before). To be able to turn into a wolf, a wolf-human hybrid, of just lose my physical form and be a free-roaming wolf spirit. Anything in between would've been fine by me. Of course, as long as I could change back at will. I think alot of that had to do with the natural mockery of politics that is Jr.High social life. I needed SOME sort of imaginary possible alternative to the joke of an existence I was living, so naturally I'd fantasize about a life where my mental being was a reflection of my physical being. Thus I'd still be the outcast, but at least "they" would have a pretty good reason to want nothing to do with me.

So, not long after grade eight, we finally had a computer and internet access, and believe it or not picking apart my weirdness wasn't the first thing that came to mind. I was more excited about reading the wrestling dirtsheets and fan-pages for bands and stuff. I could FINALLY use lyrics archives to figure out what the hell Bone thugs-n-harmony were saying on thier records. THAT alone to me, pathetic as it might sound was far more mind-blowing at the time. It wasn't until I was bored one day searching on Lycos and got the notion "hhmm, I never thought of this before, but I bet I'm not the only one out there like me". Well, I wasn't by a long shot. The first site of its nature I ever bookmarked was called The Werewolf Page, and it was my first experience with the were community. THAT was when I was introduced to all the terminology, and to be honest I was actually taken back by the fact that there were people who analyze the shit out of this stuff. Even more so by the ones determined to find a way to physically shift.

Over time I began doing more extensive searches, and found sites like Were.Net, Lycanthrope.Org, Werewolf.Com, Werewolves.Org, as well as countless geocities and yahoo pages and groups. Each one sending different signals about what "wereism" is or is supposed to be. For example, in the heyday of The Werewolf Page, you weren't too popular if you challenged the idea that physically shifting could be possible. The first real conflict I ever got into in the were community was with probably the board's most popular member at the time, a guy calling himself Rex Beowulf. Now Rex was one of the main guy's leading the quest to discover the key to p-shifting. I had been reluctant to interfere with those discussions, but I never hesitated to post my own ideas in seperate threads. Well, this guy just REFUSED to see me as anything more than a wishful thinking, juvenile, wannabe werewolf, with this idea that I was a werewolf in spirit, and sometimes mentally (an M-shifter). Of course if we had the exact same argument today, which one of us would be the wishful thinker?

Over all, I think it's safe to say that while the internet had little to do with my self discovery, it did play a part in fortifying my beliefs. After about six years of having everything I've known in my heart to be true subject to criticism, skepticism, and blatant flamage, and despite every other change in my life and philosophy, at my core I'm still the werewolf boy in a human body who is fine with it.

And damn I really wrote more than I had to there didn't I.

[lobo_en_fuego]

Well, I was 15, and from all the weres I have talked to it seems that around the age of 15 is the most coomon age that we find our selves. With a few exceptions of older people who just tried to ignore their inner beast and the young who just have a good connection with spirituality.

[Silent_Darkstalker]

heh, Poeple just like bringing this topic up again, and again and agian... um.. yeah dont mind me..


short and simple: i'v always known i was connected to canines and felines.. then at the age of 12-13 (somewhere around there) i found out about the word "therianthropy" and i looked into it.. and said.. hey thats me.. then i moved on with my life..

[Ravens Eye The Dragon]

Its been apart of me all my life. I probaly became truly awar of it when I was about Thirteen. I just started relizing this conection ever time I saw a picture or watched a program. Something of the wolf just felt right inside. I don't go out of my way to act out the charateristics, but my friends and faimly have made comments on it so it comes out on its own accord. I believe everone carries a totem one way or another. Mine just so happens to be the Wolf and it likes to rear its beautiful little head.

[McKitty]

Always knew there was 'something' in me that was different and then about two years ago, I had a dream in which I became one with my Phenotype, the Lion and ever since then I've been a happy-go-lucky (as long as there's catnip) lionness in a average human body

[SoulScream]

Seems to be a theme...I notice many always seem to "know" before they know. Ya know? I was refering more to when was that moment when you suddenly sat up and said "Ah ha! I think that's it", like when people who always knew find out that theres this thing called therianthropy and that it explains (for the most part) what they have felt all along.

[wolvenmoonpriestess]

I was 16. I have been "different" all my life.. though it never had a name... as I grew older family and friends gradually shaped me as they wished me to be... and I pulled back alot of my nature that was "inappropriate" behavior of a young girl. When I was 16 is when all hell broke loose so to speak. It actually really started probably about a year or two before when I started having weird dreams in which I was running with wolves as a human or as a wolf... some dreams were thrilling, some scary, some embarrassing. But it was when I was 16 that I first experienced my first mental shift on a camping trip. To say the least I was horrified, terrified of myself. I thought I was loosing my grip on sanity. I did not have internet. I didn't have means to find others who would able to comfort me and guide me. I was scared shitless. I didn't go camping for years after that... and I had made a personal vow that it would never happen again. I detached myself from just about everything.. and locked myself up inside good and tight. I could feel my insides struggle and twist, my spirit twisting itself inside my body.
I found some relief when I named it totem. That was easy to do as that was something OUTSIDE of me, it wasn't me. However that relief didn't last long when I was again trapped inside misery of my own forging. It was a little after I turned 20 when I finally found my peace and freedom.
I have benefited from my online experience in that it gave support in order to do my last step in growing.... it weakened my resolve gradually until the chains that I had forged had weakened and finally broke...online was where I had met my mate and he had helped a great deal in doing that.

So pinning it on a specific age is kinda hard in my case LOL

wolvenmoonpriestess

[david bill]

sorry to ask this but ((sounds stupid)) um what is therianthropy?

[LV426]

sorry to ask this but ((sounds stupid)) um what is therianthropy?
Therianthropes are individuals who feel a deep connection with one or more animals, or sees aspects of animals manifest in his/her behavior and personality. Many therianthropes believe that an animal spirit is an integeral aspect of their being. Many also experience mental shifts, in which their personality takes on aspects of an animal, to a point that it is readily recognized by the outside world. Some see their animal aspects as a balance to their human selves, teaching them their place in the natural world, and so, many are environmenally- oriented. Still others simply know they have a connection to an animal, even if it doesn't seem to manifest behaviorally. A rare few individuals claim to be physical therianthropes, beings that have the ability to physically change form, yet no proof has ever been brought forward. Finally, not all therianthropes feel a connection with wolves; There are werefoxes, werebears, werecats, and so on.

[MisterRogers]

Everyone is different. We have different eye colors, different hair styles, different personalities. But, I think it's okay to be different, don't you? I like you just the way you are. Yes, I do, do, like you, I do!

[silenceowl]

At what age did you becaome aware of your therianthropy? Or even when you first learned about the tpoic and ideas associated with it?

I was first introduced to the subject and began my therianthropic exploration just after my 16th birthday. So I've been aware of my therianthropy for almost exactly 4 years. Sure seems like a long time though.

4 years here too. but ive always felt it, i just did not know what it was intell 4 years ago.

[lachrymal]

i've known that i was different from the rest of humanity my whole life; and everyone i was around knew i was different...i just didn't give my oddness a name until i started studying therianthropy

[Shiver]

I only just became aware of what therianthropy is recently... based on the replys I guess it's about normal to be discovering it around now (I'm 17). I still have many doubts about a lot of it but I've always believed that people have animal like traits and each person is more like a certain animal. Just never knew there was a name for it ^_^.

I've been thinking a lot about it recently and a lot about my past but I'm not sure if I am a were or if I am what my wereside(s) would be. I guess I'll have to learn more about myself before I figure anything out. Hehehe Growing experience yay!

[werebeast]

i discorved it about 3 months ago when i started having dreams about werewolves. then i found a girl that live in the same town as me and she is a therian to(i think i should ask her).

[Rhiakath]

For the past eight years, I would have dreams of becoming a wolf, running through the woods, and hunting. They would come to me three nights a month, and everytime i woke up to similar situations happening on the news. I would have a dream about attacking a human, and the next day, the news would tell of a man being attacked by a large dog. Since then I knew that it was me. At first, it scared me that i was doing all these things, i wanted to try and lock myself in my room, but i would wake up to an open door. Then I tried to learn more about it, try to control it, and embrace it, for the sake of those i cared for.