Modern Day Werewolf

All of my life I've felt like a wild animal in a cage, pacing around the walls, looking for the reason why. As a child I did everything I could to be anything other than a human. I was a dog, every species of dinosaur I knew, a wolf, a lion, even a cat if my playmates insisted on playing house instead of some more interesting adventure game. I refused to be human. Anything felt more right than that.

When I hit my teens the feeling became even more insistent. I had grown out of pretend games, but I felt like my real life was one. The people directing my life wanted only the best for me, but they didn't allow me to shine through all their plans for me. I felt lost. I didn't know who I was- only that I wasn't anywhere near who my parents wanted me to be, and I didn't know how to proceed.

The feeling of disconnection only grew. I was tired. So much more tired than seemed reasonable, or allowed. Every day in high school I was wrung out, and keeping up my grades took so much of my focus that I had literally no extra minute for things that might repair my soul. I felt broken. I felt wrong.

A lot of teens seem to feel bad about their physical body. Some of them stop eating, some find other ways to physically harm themselves. I did neither. Instead I would imagine what I wished my physical form would be. I would concentrate on having a bushy tail and pointed ears. I could practically feel a muzzle coming out of my face. An invisible and intangible coating of fur would cover me. And this began to happen when I wasn't concentrating, even when I didn't want it to. Against my will, my fingers began to fold over whenever I was relaxed, becoming the closest thing to a paw that a human hand can. I would lie down to take a nap and wake up on my side, "paws" stretched out, knees bent, shoulders crammed as close to each other as physically possible, draped over the furniture like some sort of Great Dane.

At first, the way my imagination took the concept and ran freaked me out, but it felt so right- so much more "me" than when I was upright, pretending to be a normal human being. I had recently discovered the internet (as it was relatively new, lol) and got brave enough one day to search the word "werewolf". What I found changed my life and my feelings about myself.

It turned out it wasn't just me, that lots of other people (though obviously still a small minority) had similar sensations of feeling not human. And they weren't all teens, either- many of them were older. The term to describe this unique kind of body dysphoria is "therianthropy", and those who experience it call themselves therians. Many of the sensations described, such as the feeling of "phantom" limbs (for example, a tail), sudden shifts in your perception of your mental image (known as a "mental shift") and the feeling of being in the wrong body were all things that had already become very familiar to me by happening to me on a regular basis.

On the advice of other therians, I began to research animals, trying to figure out what I was. Many of us, for reasons unknown, are some species of wolf, though there are plenty of other types, too (big cats are also common). I still remember the shock I felt the first time I saw a photo of a Mexican Wolf. I had been startling myself for years passing by mirrors- it used to really spook me to see a human face staring back at me, and I would have a moment of who is that? The second this photo loaded, it was like I was looking in a real mirror for the first time. As a matter of fact, the exact photo in question is now my profile picture on this blog. It looks more like me than anything I've ever seen. Just like most people feel recognition seeing a photo of their own face, I only feel that recognition when I see my wolf self. This is the main reason I draw myself as a wolf- to do otherwise would be like drawing somebody else.

As my sense of being a wolf has persisted over the years, I've encountered plenty of theories as to why. As a teen on various forums I found that many of my fellow therians believed that they were whatever species in a past life and the feelings of being that species had carried over. Another popular theory was that they had the soul of a non-human animal and it had- either by mistake or by design- been inserted into a human body instead. Raised an atheist with two scientist parents, neither of those theories particularly appealed to me. If we are reincarnated animals, why the bias towards certain powerful forms? If I don't believe in a higher power who spends a lot of time inserting souls into bodies, then how can I believe that he or she made a mistake? And so I've come up with my own ideas, based on my own worldview. I used to think of therianthropy as some sort of psychological disorder and assumed that the wiring in my head was somewhat wrong. Having given up the pessimism inherent in that theory, however, I've begun to think of it as more of a result of many factors. The sense of unreality I sometimes get (as well as the mental haze I lived in for most of ten years) I know now to be caused by narcolepsy. My desire to connect with other species, and the way this was denied me for most of my life, probably also contributes, as does my extremely vivid imagination. I've always been an artist and a caretaker by nature, and have felt a bit out of place with our society's expectations of me, making it difficult for me to relate to what a human is "supposed" to be. Plus, I don't feel that it's a huge jump behaviorally from human to wolf. We have similar social structures, hunting tactics, basic needs, and complex emotional lives. I think it's fairly common to see ourselves in wolves- so why couldn't I see a wolf in myself?

It may seem out there, but all I know is that ever since acknowledging this side of me I've felt much closer to who I am. I still get my "paw hands" all the time and feel like I have wolf ears on top of my head. Fortunately, my fiancee thinks it's adorable, and my friends have always accepted it as a weird me-quirk (one of them happens to be a Siberian tiger therian). While my parents and other family members have never directly found out, I doubt any of them would be in the least bit surprised. If you know me, you know I'm wolfish, whether I've told you about it or not.

More Creepy Nonsense

Last night was kind of nuts. Then again, I've been getting more or less the same amount of nonsense every night this week.

I'll start out with my first of three doses of Xyrem. I'll fall asleep, not dream a damn thing and then wake up to my alarm for dose number two. Then I'll fall asleep again, only this time I'll dream something I don't recall much of later so that it seems like I did still get some actual sleep during this chunk of time, even if I dreamed a little. Then I usually wake up pretty confused to find that my alarm went off half an hour ago and I didn't hear a thing. Then it's down with dose number three, and that's when the nonsense happens. Every night this week it's been crazy, visual, complicated dreams that I'm positive at the time are real. They're part cool, part interesting, and usually part disturbing or creepy. Last night was no exception.

I only remember the very end now, but I know there was a lot more before it. I was sitting at a table with my high school history teacher, coloring something with crayons while we watched DVDs on this old television. The room was very plain and kind of dark. We watched something I liked first, but then it turned into this educational thing about dead bodies. It got stuck on the menu with all these pictures of corpses, and the music was really creepy. Everything kept repeating and I was trying to not look at it, but I couldn't tell my history teacher about my rotting things phobia because I was embarrassed. Eventually she took it out and then we were watching a documentary about the history of Middle Earth (This isn't too surprising as I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and have read everything Tolkien wrote multiple times). Most of it was from The Silmarillion, and then my dreams began to twist the stories into new stories, and insert my original characters into them. It was pretty epic and detailed and visually intense. It reached the end of a tale in which everyone died, and suddenly I woke up and realized it had been a dream. That's cool, I thought, as I sat up in my old bedroom- the one in the house we moved out of almost two years ago. I was on my bed, trying to shake off the remains of the dream, and I realized my girlfriend was sitting on the edge of the bed, talking to my mom who was sitting on the floor. My dog came over and licked my hand and I was startled to see that he had shrunk. He was suddenly small enough that I could pick him up with one hand. I think I asked my girlfriend about it, and she acted like it was normal for dogs to shrink randomly, so I figured it was no big deal. Meanwhile, the two white yorkies from my last dream were running around and yapping.

At that point I realized my mouth really hurt. I touched it with my finger and there was blood on it. I realized I had left my nightguard (I don't have one in real life, I just know people that do) on and for some reason this explained the blood. I pulled it out, but it was stuck on my teeth, and my mouth started bleeding more and more. I discovered a lot of black string was also caught in my teeth, but pulling it out just caused more pain and bleeding. I started to panic and ran into the tiny bathroom attached to my room, where I had to hunch over uncomfortably to look in the mirror, because for some reason the ceiling was slanted and low. I looked in the mirror and saw blood dripping out of my mouth, the nightguard half in and black string stuck all in my teeth. I started trying to get them out gently, and to rinse my mouth with some water. The sink was filthy and disgusting, covered in this slimy, leftover food. I was so frightened by my loss of blood that I stood there trying to rinse out my mouth anyway.

And then I actually woke up. It was really hard to shake off the dream. I went into the bathroom, straightaway, just to make sure I wasn't bleeding. Of course everything was fine, but sometimes you just have to check. I slapped my face with cold water and felt a little bit more in the here and now. It wasn't until I had some caffeine with breakfast before I really felt like part of reality.

More Like Me

Well, it's been about three weeks since I lowered my dose down slightly. As expected it's been quite the rollercoaster, and I've had many lows the past few weeks that left me feeling really discouraged. I've had the occasional day where I was glued to the couch because I was too tired and spacey to do anything, and some days where I was anxious. Plus several strings of nights of really bad sleep- full of nightmares or just lots of tossing and turning. But the last few days I've actually been feeling pretty good, for me at least. The high dose side effects are gone- I'm not anxious and my appetite is back in full force- and I've actually had the energy required to accomplish things when I want to. But I think the best thing about how I'm feelng right now is that I feel much more like myself again. On the higher dose I was stiff, awkward, nervous. And I had more energy but had trouble relaxing or even enjoying things without being too stressed out. Then during my lows the past few weeks I've been too tired to do anything and unable to focus. The past few days have felt so good because I can relax when I want to and focus if I need to, and I feel much more in control of my life again.

It's funny because the higher dose had me more mentally grounded in reality- I spent more brain power on my senses and practical thinking and less on imagining things and making stuff up. But I really think my natural state is when I'm off on some crazy mental tangent, imagining up creatures and worlds or bending this one around for fun. I think I feel more like myself again because my mind is back at its occasional vivid wandering, and my imagination has been much more active. And I'm glad, because my imagination is by far my favorite trait- plus I think that's what is going to get me a job someday, if anything can.

But I'm not going to worry about that for now because I'm in the middle of a lot of really fun projects for classes. And I'm somehow managing to get it all done and to do a good job, and even enjoy it. So I'm definitely happy about where I am right now. Here's to hoping the feeling stays around.

Imaginary Therapy

We all know by now that I have plenty of issues because of Narcolepsy. So maybe it's about time to explain how exactly I manage to deal with said issues. Just to warn you, this is going to sound crazy. But then again, this illness is pretty freakin' crazy, so I see no problem with using the craziness in my favor.

I've been dealing with depression for a long time. It hasn't been easy. In my high school days I was at total rock bottom- in the I feel like dying range. I had this awful demanding schedule I could barely handle, I was terrified that I was going insane (what with the hallucinations, etc) and felt like I couldn't get help from the adults in my life because I was sure they wouldn't understand (yeah, I was at that phase of teenagerness). And so my brain came up with a really effective way of keeping me alive- it gave me an imaginary therapist.

I don't know, honestly, how much having Narcolepsy is directly tied to my extremely vivid imagination. My mind's eye, at times, has been clearer than my sense of sight. I can zone out and see the most rediculously detailed things happening in there. And when I dream/hallucinate, it is as real as my waking experience. Before medication, it was more real because the waking world was much hazier. I really needed some help back then, just to get through every day.

You know that "little voice in the back of your head", as people call it, that reminds you to shut up when you're about to say something stupid, or tells you to stand up for yourself, or tells you to keep trying even when you're discouraged? That gut feeling you get that tells you what's right even when you can't articulate why? Well, my brain turned that wiser, more grounded part of myself into a full-fledged imaginary friend. It gave him a name, gender, interests, appearance and identity slightly seperate from me. The advantage was that I was getting my own best advice in the guise of someone else, so I would actually follow it. And this therapist was in my head, so he knew what I was thinking and usually why I was thinking it, even when I didn't. And because I had completely isolated myself from any access to a non-imaginary therapist, it was the best way to deal with my problems, because now I had someone to talk to who already knew what was exactly right for me without getting to know me first because he was also me. Am I sounding insane enough yet? XD

After awhile, I actually came across a forum of like-minded imaginary self-therapy people. They came up with a slight twist on it, which they call daemonism as a reference to Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It's called The Daemon Forum in case you're interested. I think it's funny (and it makes me feel slightly less insane) that other people without Narcolepsy came up with a similar thing completely independently. I firmly believe that a big imagination can get you through anything that comes your way, and I highly recommend using it to your advantage.

Nowadays I'm not on that forum anymore, but I still have my imaginary therapist. I keep thinking maybe I should try seeing a non-imaginary one, but frankly don't see the point. My internal self-therapy works very well to this date, and I honestly don't think I need anything else.