Why the real lycanthropes often hide...

This is an essay written through a compilation of thoughts and musings discussed in #forest one evening (actually very early morning.) Our discussion was on how many of the lycanthropes start out very alone, believing themselves to be alone in a world of humans, with no others to understand them, until - if they are lucky - they stumble across a place at the right time...

���� This is not a world where it pays to flaunt what we are in front of humans, so the real lycanthropes hide and wait. One does not see their local lycanthrope pad out into the middle of the city square, clamber up onto the old statue of a significant city founder and start baying, crowing, or howling that they are a lycanthrope in the middle of lunch hour. Such actions would probably cause the poor sap to be committed the moment they touched ground, gain a significant amount of publicity, and get themselves locked away somewhere away from the rest of the "normal" folk.

���� In today's world, one can have help when your bloody gerbil dies on campus. If someone keys your car, there is someone you can talk to nearby that has had the similar experience and doesn't mind talking with you about it in the middle of grocery store. If you are homosexual, bi or whatever you have help and a voice to listen to your frustrations, but not if you are a young lycanthrope...

����� Where does the young lycanthrope go when he realizes that he is not what "everyone else is" inside --when the only voices around them are blaringly human? W.A.S.P.?� Dismissed as being mentally ill (in a world whose very definition of lycanthrope is a person who "thinks" they are something else)? Or simply closed to the entire concept? Where do they go when their feelings build up inside - they want to run around in the forest on all fours or hang upside-down somewhere dark? What if that son can't tell his parents he's a fox inside? or a mongoose? What if that daughter can't tell her parents that she's feels more like a raven? or a bear?

����� The newly awakening being, whether wolf, raven, bear, fox, mongoose, bat, buffalo, or something else -- often feels as though there is no one else in the world that feels as they do. That they are destined to be alone and misunderstood for the rest of their lives. That life becomes one of loathing, perhaps -- where each day that passes becomes more painful.� Those that� believe they are alone in their lycanthropy sometimes also believe they are� the only one with this "insanity". The cities become uncomfortable to be in. The walls close in on them.� The slowly decreasing areas of trees and natural areas that could provide some respite from the feelings the expanding cities can bring are sometimes so pained themselves (in spirit)that they cannot help ease the feelings of dying life around them. What started perhaps as depression in a young lycanthrope, which may at one point have been more easily hidden, becomes more and more extreme. Some would even wish for death rather than continue in a world where "no one would ever understand." So the real lycanthropes hide themselves from the outside world... to hide themselves from a world that is not ready to embrace their natures as "natural." Sometimes they hide in the trappings of mankind in an attempt to distract themselves from their own inner turmoil, buring themselves deeper inside their own mind -- perhaps away from their own consciousness and the sight of those around them. But despite such burying, the truth remains inside, sometimes desperately clawing away at the youth's subconscious -- pleading -- demanding -- needing to be faced and dealt with. And until the lycanthrope reconsiliates with who and what they are and becomes one with it, accepting themselves as they are in their own heart, they will never truly be at peace (wherever they hide themselves.)

The older lycanthropes hide as well (even perhaps those who are content being what they are... or have even found others who understand them), knowing that showing themselves unneccesarily only exposes them to more redicule and misunderstanding from a world of people they want little to do with anymore.

������ I have seen many people� claim to be "so misunderstood." In reality, they know nothing of what it is to be truly misunderstood; they wave their flag of angst against the world saying "see how I have suffered" or "look at me! I am suffering!" In the meantime, the real beings who are suffering often suffer in silence -- too private or feeling alone to share their pain with others who may not understand. The goth movement a few friends of mine are into is much like that. A bunch of people dressed up in as much black as possible, saying how misunderstood and angst they are.� The wear the adornments and clothes that just about every other said goth does. They listen to the same music as the other goths do.� They are "just like everyone else." In the meantime, the "real" goths get lost in the circus of wanna-bes.� The real goths, much like the real lycanthropes, get drowned out in a flood of those who think they are or want to be -- those who can out-goth the goths... or out-were the true lycanthropes.

����� And these false people flaunt in front of others and scare those who truly wish to be understood into hiding -- bottling� up � themselves from the rest of the world -- afraid becuase they are alone and alone becuase they believe themselves to be so. Humans are the best at making life hellish to the minorities, and many� don't want to understand things outside of their own circles of belief. They don't want to believe that anything outside of their own self and their groups could possibly be a valid way of life. So we (the true lycanthropes) and others like us are forced to create places like this (an IRC chatroom) where two wolves hundreds of miles away can communicate in real time, and learn perhaps.. that they are not alone -- that they are not freaks. . .and that they do not HAVE to be discontent with themselves -- they can live -- be free -- be themselves - and have no one to answer to but themselves.

����� And the self is the hardest judge of them all, is it not?

������ Live.

������ Be what you are.

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