after reading this post, I think I am wrong for using the word "zoanthrope" while I'm unsure if my experiences are clinical zoanthropy or not, specially by not being psychiatrizated (?)
I do have a background of psychosis, but I feel constanly conflicted between saying I do and saying I don't. I don't consider my transformations to be a delusion — to me they are very real, but I do think others/humans would perceive it as some kind of "hallucination" or psychosis, even if I don't agree with that —, which is required to be a clinical zoanthope if I'm not mistaken ? Or is it having them being considered delusions by humans ?
Also, I have suffered while in therapy because of mistreatment and I am honestly afraid to go to therapy again, but I don't know if calling myself psychiatrized would be correct. Because of my previous experiences, I am currently hiding what I experience and trying to deal with it in a non-harmful way, but even then I'm not that confident that this is psychiatrization (?)
but maybe it would be if my experiences were discovered by humans. I would be psychiatrized
I also did not know about zoanthropy only being used in contexts of clinical zoanthropy. I was actually afraid that the word lycanthropy was used this way and zoanthropy not, specially because most people that know about this condition usually know about "clinical lycanthropy" and not "clinical zoanthropy", but, again, it seems I was wrong.
I do not wish to harm zoanthropes with sanism. Seeing lots of them being frustrated with the separation of "clinical" vs "non-clinical" reveals a valid anger to me. This is also stealing one of the few terms they still have available to them (as in "not appropriated by other beings") to talk about very similar but different experiences. This is commiting, as Kala said in her post, the same thing the therian and adjacent communities have done to zoanthropes: isolating "different" communities, stealing their terms, harassing and excluding individuals to drive them out of these places (etc).
on a side note, I also dislike the way a lot of shifters talk about their experiences to "dial up their realities" and I try my best not to commit this same mistake, specially with how kind zoanthropes have been to me in the past regarding my experiences and explanation of theirs. Seeing that some differ zoanthropy from pshifting by saying "one is delusional and the other is not" feels like reading some say "one is real and the other is not" to me, even if the intent was not that while writing.
Being honest, I got distressed by reading the post for the first time but my stress got smaller by the time I had finished.
I still consider myself a zoanthrope. I don't want to be differentiated from clinical zoanthropes (as I said in my original affirming reply to Mal's post); maybe this will sound off as appropriation, and I don't want to do that, but I feel like this term enconpasses what I experience, and by reading this (↓) paragraph —
— specially the first highlighted excerpt (which reflects what I experience I'd say ?), I now think I was wrong by previously saying I was a "non-clinical" zoanthrope. Why, of course, would I call myself that if it wasn't to separate the experiences of clinical zoanthropes from mine ? Their experiences from my "true" ones ?
I don't want to do that. This doesn't feel right and it is sanist in various ways. I am not a non-clinical zoanthrope. If I truly believe in what I have said in the recent past about situations like these this is also not something I should do, neither something I find right and, as Kala said, having suffered with previous rejection from the general alterhuman communities (specially the therian community) does not exempt me from engaging in the same behaviours — but I am also not exempt from changing and understanding different perspectives.
on a final note, I am still learning and that includes my own opinions, my views and my identities. Nothing is static and, specially in the internet, in which what I believe in is usually fed to me in extensive programmed echo chambers, it's hard to change.
Despite that, I am trying to change.
Sometimes I get distressed because of it but I am trying to change. I am trying to expand my views and to be able to endure and coexist with different opinions. It's still hard for me; my anxiety and other neurologic conditions make this extremely difficult for me.
But I am still going. After all, I just am who I am today because I was once corrected by a very kind and understanding person who helped me change. Who helped me lessen my, at the time, vast alienation. I will never see this stranger again, but I am infinitely thankful for them being present in my life at some point.
This ending is not to "show myself off". I don't believe I'm better than anyone else. I just wanted to share something I realized. Thanks for reading.
