beware.the.bear

1. Identity is often impermanent. You will change a lot, especially if you are a kid or teenager. This is to be expected. Don't be surprised if you're often confused or unsure about yourself. Even as an adult, I still question my label and I expect that from myself. I just question it less so than before and feel more firm in how I see myself. Let yourself try a million labels and test the waters a thousand times if it's going to help you feel sure of yourself. Gender, hobbies, therianthropy, all of it is allowed to be tested, dropped, changed as needed. Just be wise about it and meaningful. It can take years before you even begin to settle down at all in some cases. You may even consider things you wouldn't have considered before with experience, i.e. going to places you've never been able to go before. And please, don't be afraid of questioning the "common" theriotypes! We're a minority of individuals in the world as it is, you can identify as a wolf, cat, or dog if you feel it best suits you at the time!

2. Being an adult will change your experience. You will probably go from being very animalistic to being less so. It will be in the background of your life, but you will still experience it. It will just be different now. It may even seemingly fade away all together for a time (human life is stressful after all), but it is common for things to ebb and flow. Don't expect to experience every possible feeling, shift, or even high intensity animality 24/7 like you may have as a young kid or young teen.

3. Your therianthropy might go away with time or you might realize that the term doesn't suit you anymore. That's okay. You weren't an impostor or a fake, your experience was still genuine. Let yourself be honest with yourself. You also cannot fake something you are not actively faking. You would know if you're faking what you're feeling because it would be intentional, and it could also come back. Regardless of the outcome, don't fret on what might or will happen, focus on the present and now. How you feel in the now is more important than the future sometimes.

4. Social media is not the end game of therianthropy. Living your therianthropy is. Not everyone will approve of you, and the amount of followers and comments you have don't dictate your validity. Don't fall into the trap of being a certain way to please others. You are meant to explore yourself, not put on a facade to entertain everyone else. Don't scramble for a label just so you have a "role" in this community, and you don't need to post every single thing if you don't want to. You have a role in this community even if you're looking at the whole spectrum of animals and honestly, I love following people who question things anyways. Anyone who considers you a fraud for it or puts you down isn't worth your time or energy. A label of any kind isn't worth crying over or feeling like your value or opinion is dependent on it, especially online.

5. Not everyone has your best intentions at heart. This is self explanatory. Be careful about who you tell about your therianthropy, and especially be careful about people taking advantage of your therianthropy to hurt you. This is especially true online where anyone can lie about their real intentions.

6. How you see yourself comes above all else. You are human too, at least biologically. Not everything you experience will be a theriotype thing, and your experience doesn't need to be perfect. When I was growing up, research down to the fine details meant everything. Now, I identify as what feels right and makes me feel complete. I am not perfect in what I identify as, and I never will be. I am an animal having a human experience. It is to be expected that I will experience lots of things, including empathy, odd cravings, and weird reactions. Focus on what soothes you, what you expect when you look in the mirror, and the overarching way you feel in life. Look at your shifts, look at how you feel in various situations, etc. Research helps, but in the end, it's your label(s). You could even not be a therian at all, you could be a spirit of some kind or a fantasy creature etc. Keep your horizons wide and your doors open.

7. Psychological and spiritual therianthropy are both equally valid. One is not more "real" as an experience than the other since it's a belief and an experience as a whole. Your therianthropy could be caused by a mental illness or be related to neurodivergence, but that's fine. You're still a therian, whether you believe it's because your soul is an animal or because your mind is one or both. Even if your therianthropy disappears one day, the experience is still valuable and is real to yourself (which is who it matters to the most).

8. Therianthropy is a spectrum. Some people are deeply animal and never waiver, never lose their traits, and are perpetually the "perfect example" of their theriotype (note: social media makes them seem this way!!). Others feel it very lightly and may have no shifts at all and experience their therianthropy in a more gentle, symbolic way. Both of those and everything in between is real.

9. Being otherhearted is just as valid as being a therian, and can still be just as important. Identifying WITH something can easily be as impactful as identifying as something, and can have important meaning that's worth being appreciated. I've been rodentkith my entire life because of the wild mice that I watched growing up, and those have a deep, explainable history to me. I talk about it just as much, and it impacted my life drastically even if I don't currently identify AS a mouse. It's okay to even just be otherhearted and nothing else.

10. My final point: just be genuine about it. Be gentle with yourself. Be kind. Be safe. Remember to live your experience offline too, and remember that everything you see online is idyllic and romantic. You are going on your journey in the way that is meant for you, and no one else can tell you who or what you are. You can trust yourself, and even if you're "wrong", you weren't wrong for considering something. Walk on your path, and expect that stumbling now and then is just part of the hike. You've got this.