Over the past year or so I've been doing quite a bit of work to figure myself out. Not just with regards to who I am but also *what* I am. And now, after a lot of thinking and talking to friends (you know who you are 🧡), I've finally gotten around to writing down my thoughts on the whole Therian/Otherkin topic that's been worming around in my brain for so long how. You can read the whole post on my website, but I'll also be pasting it below for your convenience!

TL;DR for those already familiar with Therian/Otherkin stuff: I have a strong desire to be a bird physically and have mild species dysphoria. There is no spiritual aspect or connection for me, but your experience is just as valid of course!

Link to my website post: https://arios.space/posts/therian/

If you look at my socials you’ll probably see this symbol pop up occasionally: ΘΔ This Greek Theta and Delta is used by many folks in Therian and Otherkin spaces to represent themselves, including me! For those of you unfamiliar with these terms, they broadly refer to people like myself that don't (fully) identify as, or "feel" human.
Sounds weird? Well, there are folks like myself out there for whom a their human body or mind feels "wrong" and whose experience in life more closely matches something else.
That "something else" is often a real animal, but can also be a mythical creature, an anthro character or anything in between.
How that experience manifests varies from person to person, but everyone I've talked to agrees on one thing: that nagging feeling of being in the "wrong" body and desiring to be something physically different.

Now, if you're thinking "that just sounds like a fursona/a furry thing?", then don't worry, I also used to wonder that!
It's true that many therians/otherkin have sonas or are otherwise active in the furry community.
I think the best way to differentiate them is that a fursona is - generally speaking - a character that someone creates and then "plays", often based on their own personality.
And to be clear, that's a wonderful thing! Fursonas are a great way to explore aspects of yourself and to experience the fandom!
But for many of us folk, the order is reversed - we have non-human experiences and tend to look for ways to better express that.
And while many of us have art of our species that may look like furry art, it differs in that the characters in those pieces aren't just characters - they *are* us.
You might see the term theriotype used to better highlight that distinction - a theriotype is the species that a person identifies with/as.

If all of this sounds a bit vague, it's because the individual experiences vary a lot from person to person!
Really, both "Therian" and "Otherkin" are just terms we use to describe that common feeling of ... not feeling human.
For some, this manifests as a spiritual connection to their species, with potential past memories or out-of-body experiences.
Others experience "shifts", where their perception suddenly changes to match that of their species, often uncontrollably so.
And many of us just don't see who we think of as ourselves in the mirror, but *do* see us in whatever species we associate with.

So what about me then? Well I, like many folks in this space have always felt a stronger connection to animals than my "fellow" humans.
I've always had a very strong desire to experience life not as a human, but from some other perspective - sometimes a mammal but mainly as a bird, ideally while still keeping my intelligence.
At times, that desire feels less like a wish and more like something that is "missing" or something that I "should" be, but am not.
I never quite knew where to place these feelings and thought of themselves as "silly childhood dreams", but really, they are just part of who I am.
There's a couple of ways in which they manifest for me:
I experience strong joy and a sense of belonging when I see animals that I associate with (corvids and birds of prey especially).
I almost feel like I understand them in some intimate way that just isn't the case for my human experience.
At the same time, i get intense feelings of envy and self-doubt whenever I see a character in media that is able to turn into an animal form - it feels as if that's something I should be able to do but can't, and it can hurt.
On top of that I feel a general ... disassociation towards my physical body:
While I don't *hate* it in the same way some folks do theirs, I also feel pretty distant from my physical self and sometimes get feelings of "missing" parts, especially wings and the ability fo fly in general.
Folks have come to call this feeling "species dysphoria" as an analogue to the gender dysphoria that many transgender people feel, which i think is an apt description.

By the time I joined the furry fandom, I had already been (subconsciously) making characters for myself to express these emotions better.
Those characters then turned into my phoenix sona Ari/Arios, who really *is* me in the sense that I identity as him more than I ever have as my physical self.
While identifying as a mythical species might seem a bit odd, it really is the best representation that I've found for how I feel - that strong longing to soar up into (and beyond) the sky is pretty central to my being somehow!
Eventually I found friends with similar feelings to myself (you know who you are 🧡), who then introduced me to the Therian/Otherkin community and made me realize that I'm not alone with my experience.
I use the Therian/Otherkin label for myself now, but I'm not too picky with that - all I know is that my experience in life is quite a bit more non-human than what seems to be the baseline.
It's why I like using ΘΔ to represent myself - it's less about a specific quantifiable experience and more a general feeling and association with my fellow critters.
I should also note that there is no spiritual aspect to it for me: I've never been a particularly spiritual person and while I do have a deep appreciation for nature and animals, I do not feel the same connection to it I've seen others describe.
That is not to say that either experience is more or less valid though! Ultimately, it's just that - a hard-to-explain personal feeling that people are trying their best to express to others.
In my opinion it's also best to avoid trying to rationalize things too much, instead the important part is listening and trying to be understanding of each other and our unique (and sometimes painful) experiences.
After all, every one of us is just a little critter made of star(hah)dust trying their best at this whole life thing, and a little bit of kindness can go a long way towards that <3 ΘΔ