Human-Feline

what being an animal person means to me

UNFINISHED

I am a human-feline. That is what I am and also an important part of who I am. Of course physically I'm human, there is nothing feline about my appearance or genetics. As far as the rest of the world is concerned I'm human. But as far as I'm concerned I'm not. At least, not fully. Mentally and spiritually I am a human-feline. That's not a statement I take lightly, it's something I have spent much time searching for, questioning, trying to disprove and procrastinating over.

I first stumbled across the term therianthropy in early highschool, I must have been, what... about 12 years old. Quite a long time ago now. Since that day I've had many battles with myself over just what it is I am. But that wasn't where my felinity started. I have always been feline, it's just what I am.
Other kids would play animals, but I wasn't playing, I was just being me. For a while it was great, until they got to the age where they no longer wanted to play. I got to that age too, but the difference with me was that I wasn't pretending. When I stalked the leaves blowing across the playground, when I got startled and let out a hiss, when I felt a sudden stab of pain and cried out as a cat would; this wasn't make believe, this wasn't me playing games, this was me being me. This was what I felt, what I thought. This was who I was, who I am.

Therianthropy has always been a part of my life, but for a long time before I discovered that there were others who felt like me I was in denial. Being me was being different. Other children didn't understand why I'd act the way I did, it wasn't 'normal', so I hid it. Or at least tried to. I tried to suppress my feline feelings, pretend they didn't exist. I didn't understand why I felt like I did. I didn't think anyone else felt the same. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon a community one day full of people just like myself.
My first gut reaction was to run, I'd been hiding this for so long and reading the words of others describing what I felt made it all come rushing out again. So I went, and I continued to pretend I didn't feel what I felt. But over the weeks and months that passed one word burned in my mind. Therianthropy.
I couldn't forget what I had glimpsed. It opened up a whole new world full of new possibilities. Could it be true that others felt what I felt? Maybe I wasn't crazy after all, maybe I could explain this, maybe there was a reason, maybe I could finally understand why I felt what I did. So I went back. I looked up that mysterious word. Read about it, listened to what others had to say, looked up everything I could find. At first I was still sceptical. I found a lot of crap, a lot of ridiculous claims made by people who seemed to have lost their grip on reality. I wanted to push it away, believe it was crazy. But as I kept searching I began to find more and more people who were serious about what they wrote. People who weren't playing games but sharing their personal feelings and experiences with others. People who had spent years delving deep into themselves in an attempt to find their true selves. I could relate to a lot of these people. Recognise some of the things I had experienced and felt in their words.

Therianthropy. It was a big step for me, I took my time and was nervous about adopting the term, but I did. It was an eye opener and a turning point. Instead of trying to deny what I was now I wanted to understand it. I wanted to accept me for me and to find out just what me was.
It's kind of the 'norm' within the therian community to have one or two theriotypes, usually one, any more then two and people begin to get suspicious. We're a suspicious lot, actually. I didn't notice it so much when I first found the community, perhaps it wasn't such an issue back then, but now anyone claiming anything is automatically grilled to death unless they provide logical and rational explinations to back up their words. Unless they confess to being new and clueless that is, then they're just told to go away, research, spend a good amount of time soul searching and then come back once they think they've found answers so we can grill them then. At least that's how it seems to work within the community I'm a part of. It's not such a bad thing really, there are many other therian communities who just accept anyone, they're generally the ones filled with p-shifting werewolf vampire hybrids that go nutty on a full moon and eat the neighbours kids. Roleplayers, posers and delusionals. But anyway, I'm getting off topic now.

Since it is generally accepted that if you are therian you will have a specific theriotype that's what I went looking for. I knew I was feline, I knew what I felt, I also knew what I saw. I had many dreams of myself as a large black feline. A panther I thought, but since a panther is not an actual species of big cat I still had to find what I was. Leopard or Jaguar. They both pulled at my strings but leopard was a definate winner. The way they look, the way they move, their behaviour traits, body language, it all felt right. Or at least closer to right then I'd felt before.
So for two or three years that was me. A panther, aka black leopard. It seemed to fit me, but there was this little niggling feeling that I was missing something constantly playing at the back of my mind. I'm sad to say I ignored this feeling for a long time until something happened to make me begin to question again. I often dream shifted back then, almost always seeing myself as the large black feline I had come to assume was a black leopard. But around that time it started to change, black fading away to sandy gold-brown, remaining in patches to form a beautiful spotted coat. A leopards coat. But not a normal leopard... the hair was longer, the build slightly different. Little details that had been hidded under my black veil or that I'd simply not paid enough attention to before.

I was leopard and yet I was not. Leopard held such a familiarity, it felt so right, so *me*, but there were still other parts of me that didn't fit. Perhaps I wasn't a leopard, maybe I was some other cat. So I went back to searching, looking at other cats. They all seemed to hold some pull, some more then others, caracal was one that stood out, tiger also and cougar. Others too, many of these I could relate to, many of these I could follow back throughout my life and find ties and connections. Dreams and shifts... feelings. But while they stired something in me they didn't fully fit. Nothing really seemed to fit, not perfectly at least.

After some discussion and self questioning I came to believe that the colour black was symbolic. I saw myself as black because it is a dark and mysterious colour. It hides things. When that colour went I saw it as a sign that I was ready to move further forwards in my search.

And so I did, looking deeper into myself and finding out more and more about leopards and other cats. It was then I found something I never knew existed, the amur leopard. I have yet to find an animal encyclopidia that lists that cat and 99% of big cat information books and websites seem not to recognise it's existance. It was a hard cat to find, but the instant I saw it something in me clicked. I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but there was something so familiar about that cat. I dug up every bit of information I could find and everything just seemed to fit. It all slotted into place so well I could hardly believe it. Amur leopard felt right. But then so had leopard before.

Velvet Wings
April 2007

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