Otherkin & animal alters

I have no idea if this will be triggering, talk of animal alters and therian people.

So, I know a common term to use for an animal alter is an otherkin. I don't use that because I know real otherkin, in fact I'm married to one. Well, he's a therian, which is a sub-group of otherkin who are animals, as compared to dragon, etc. My husband is a cat and, oddly enough, he believes his cat side is female.

When Milana comes out it always triggers a small, manageable mental shift into the cat for my husband. And Milana is submissive to him so they always get along. They spend most of their time cuddling and grooming each other. So it works out just fine.

Last night an animal came out that wasn't Milana, I don't know the gender so I'm using the word 'it'. At first Paul just watched it, saying it kept making weird noises that he couldn't replicate. Then it followed my cat, Rian, into the kitchen and a few minutes it came back with, as my husband described, Rian dangling from it's mouth. My cat is huge, so I'm personally having trouble picturing this.

So, it doing that triggered a huge uncontrollable mental shift in my husband. He fully became the cat, but thankfully he remembers what happened. It dropped Rian and turned to my husband, who had dropped to the ground and was hissing, according to him. He didn't give full details, except there was growling, hissing, and finally it being distracted by our other two cats. It did something, can't remember what my husband said, but when my husband blocked it from getting to the cats it snapped at him and him being in full cat mode, he retaliated. And, they ended up fighting.

My husband eventually got the upperhand and bit it, then he backed away and kind of waited for a reaction. He said it crouched down and kinda slumped away and went to hide in a corner in the bedroom. After a few minutes he followed, still in cat shift, and tried to comfort it. Then he came out of the shift and had to go to the bathroom, it was during him being gone that I came to in the dark.

My husband thinks it was a female hyena and because his cat form is female then they're going to have to battle for dominancy. He says hyena cause of the sounds it was making, but my husband was mostly in a mental shift so I'm not sure whether to full on take his word on it. But the big thing here is we ended up fighting in those forms and I'm afraid it's going to happen again.

I partly posted this to share the woah, weird factor. And also to ask if there is any advice you have? When my husband mental shifts with Milana, he's still mostly himself and can control his actions, he's just more instinctive and cat-like. With this new one, that control is replaced by full instinct.

I can't control this new one no more than I can Milana. And I know quite a few otherkin who say when they are in a full-blown 100% mental shift, they become the animal (or whatever they happen to be) and lose human logic. That's what happened to my husband. So, I'm at a loss here.

I have no experience with what you have described as far as your H. I know that the nonhuman (sometimes very feral seeming) alters that have come forward have need the same type of mannerisms to help them 'calm' and 'orientate' as you would any animal.

Small movements. Soft voice, no direct (meancing) eye contact or smiles (shows teeth). Offering a hand to 'sniff' and explaining what they are hearing if a noise startles/attracts them. If there is a degree of co-consciousness available 'sometimes' is it helpful to figure out how to practice that for more control? Is there someone inside that can watch for this new one of yours and help to guide it 'out' only when it is safe? (meaning, planned/closed doors/etc so 'it' cannot accidentally knock into something and break it, hurt itself or the other pet, etc?) Can your H practice his own type of co-consciousness so the animal instinct is not too overwhelming?

Hmmm. Just thinking out loud. It was positive to hear that your H tried to comfort this new one and that you both accept each other where you are at.... Take care!

No experience here either but I think it's good he could at least comfort him/her for a little while. I understand he is therian, but he is also an adult - this part of you may or may not be the latter. I hope he's able to see this and not engage this part in such a way later on. There is a reason why s/he is the way s/he is and she probably needs a lot of care and consideration to be able to open up about her experiences. I hope you can find a way to make this work for all of you. Sorry I'm not much help or have much to offer way of advice (I tried to read a bit about it but it didn't give me any real suggestions for how to help. We're here to listen at least.. Thinking of you

You have less control and less ability to learn/gain control quickly, (through no one's fault), than your husband, and I also have to agree with Lifelongthing, your husband is an adult, this part of you may or may not be an adult. So, your husband is going to have to work on controlling his mental shifts, or maybe leaving the room if you switch to that part, or something. Just as you work to gain awareness, knowledge, the ability to co-host, etc., he now has to work on controlling his mental shifts, or having enough control to not fight, or something.


I used to have a friend that wasn't otherkin or therian or anything, but he was very animalistic at times, with a rather primal mindset for the most part. Whenever Kat would start showing her "wolfy" side, baring fangs, growling, circling, etc., it would trigger him in a way, and I've watched from the background as they've circled each other growling and glaring before (in public! ), and I was surprised I didn't have a full-on battle for territory or dominance on my hands. But it was because he was the one who didn't push it. He'd let Kat know he wasn't going to just lay down like a doormat, but he would only hold his ground, never start anything or push any boundaries (basically, he would only defend if needed, and let Kat take the offensive and "run the show"). But Kat didn't want a fight if she could help it (no sense in risking injury to yourself), especially since her dominance wasn't being directly challenged, so she'd just make sure her point was clear, make any "territory" that was "her's" clear, and then that was the end of it.


Could you and your husband perhaps mark out "territories" or something? Or could he learn to be a bit submissive since you already have Milana who's submissive to him, and to avoid confrontations unless he actually needs to step in for a reason? Could he simply be defensive, and let that part of you "run the show" and only react to that part if they start anything? And not by just noises, by actual physical contact or an attempt or something. Are there any "warning signs" for this part of you coming out that you know of yet, where if you start to feel/notice them you can leave the room, or tell your husband to leave the room, or something? Is there anything you can do to help "trigger" your husband to have more control/be more human-ish, like have music he likes on, or have a recording of himself telling himself to stay "here", or something like that (just like how you would try to "trigger"/call an alter out)?


I think that's all I have for ideas. Hope something in there was a bit helpful. Best of luck with this.


-Cassandra

Thank you all for your suggestions and support. We will definitely put them to use.

I talked with my husband last night and he said he thinks he reacted that way cause he was afraid for the cats, especially his. Oddly he doesn't mind Milana dominating them, but something about the new one (who he still insists is a hyena) just triggers the cat in him. He did say, however, that next time he's going to take a different route with the new one and try harder to control himself.

Sadly, right now he's a little freaked out cause he's always had little moments of being cat-like, but for some reason when he met me the cat started coming out a lot more.

Anyway, I would make a comment on everything you guys said but I am so fuzzy right now and feel like I'm about to switch. Thank you all so much!

You probably trigger an ego state in him This is very normal, it's his ego state that is more uncommon. In the end though, if it works for the both of you it should be okay

Thinking of you all.

I really think I'm blessed that he has this ego state, because he was able to start communicating immediately with Milana. She was the for alter to come out in front of him, even though I didn't know she was an alter. lol, I just got an image from her of her licking his cheek and cuddle with him.

I think things will work out with the new one. My husband is pretty flexible so he should be able to use you guys' ideas and his own to find a way to communicate with, well, might as well say it, hyena. lol. (I told my mom he thought it was a hyena and she wasn't surprised, apparently I've loved hyenas since I was little.)

And now I'm starting to enter babbling mode, I had to take nerve pain medication and it makes me talkative. lol

I used to think that I was otherkin thanks to several of my alters, but I was always confused why I couldn't figure how I was otherkin. I guess that's an issue when ALL of your parts are not human. Anyhow, when I first realized Violet was there she was terrifying. I had no want nor any idea how to talk with her. I just wanted to stay away. At that point, I didn't know what she was (either in sense of being an alter or in general). She was just a scary, snarly thing. Eventually I saw her enough that I realized she was a hyena. She was still scary. I had no interest in talking to her. She was that creepy thing that lived in the back of my head. Further after that, I started hearing her voice in my head. She said nothing but scary, angry things. When we first started talking, she did not make a lot of sense. She didn't understand a lot of things, and just reassuring her that things were safe and all right got us a lot of progress. Although we thought we'd made a lot of progress by ourselves, the real progress didn't come until we started therapy. It was during therapy that I was realized she wasn't so much a scary thing as a scared thing. I started babying her at that point...well, as much as she would let me. I bought her things she wanted to eat and tried to find toys she was interested in. The T would talk to her through me and one day she came out. The more the T and I learned about Violet the more we realized she was quite young and really scared. So we treated her like a scared child. We reassure(d) her whenever we can. She is a lot more approachable now, and one day a few months back she took off her mask. Weirdly, she's still a hyena under her mask, but she's a little tiny hyena instead of a gnarly, fiery ghost with flaming eyes. Incidentally, her language skills have gotten a lot better.

Like you, we have a lot of therian/otherkin friends but none of them are off the Internet, so we haven't had the benefit it sounds like they provide. I hope that you have good luck with your hyena.

Yeah I used to think I was an otherkin too cause of Milana being so active in my head.

The hyena hasn't really been active in my head, but I'm sure I'll start hearing her soon. Thank you for sharing your experience, I'm sure it will help me as s/he becomes more active.

I really think I'm blessed that he has this ego state, because he was able to start communicating immediately with Milana. She was the for alter to come out in front of him, even though I didn't know she was an alter. lol, I just got an image from her of her licking his cheek and cuddle with him.

I'm glad. It's always good when the ego states of the SO match with the alters you have yourself. It makes for a calmer relationship and makes switches less dramatic emotionally, I think.

I'm glad he's flexible and want to do what's best for (all of) you. I'm thinking of you