Thoughts on being a furry
How it helped me, why it's important, and why I protect it.
If you know me, you know I grew up in a super conservative family where emotionally immature parents raised me in a religious setting. From an early age, I developed a fucked-up worldview, and my identity became seriously screwed up.
It’s taken many years to start to even realize the depth of the abuse and trauma, let alone properly deal with it. It’s not surprising that someone who was so forcibly repressed and had their childhood stolen would be interested in being part of a “silly” fandom that allows for extensive expression and some level of immaturity that I could never have as a kid.
As I've been reading the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents (Library, Bookshop.org, Amazon/Kindle/Audible), I've found a lot of the symptoms described match me. From the feeling I couldn't depend on my parents, to the feeling that if I was already taking care of myself, I should become an adult as quickly as possible.
Now with parents being given technology to track and monitor their kids, and even putting cameras inside their children’s rooms to monitor them, I find it hard to fathom just how terrible life as a kid who is in the position I was back then would be now.
So I’m here, weird gryphon/chakat/wolfin person, thinking about how important places like the fandom are for kids who were in the place I was. Having had access to the fandom and the people I met two decades ago absolutely changed the course of my life–significantly for the better! Of course, today's world won't let anything good exist. Politicians are trying to demonize furries, ban books, and pass "child protection" laws to censor internet access from the young and the poor.
I worry that folks today (kids or otherwise) won't have the same access to resources to figure out who they are. Won't get to see how messed up their families are. Won't have access to the support network to get them free to live their best and truest lives. This is why, even though I see the issues with the fandom and some people in it, I still view it with optimism. It's ultimately a community made of a lot of broken people doing what they can to help themselves and each other.
