Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuma
meta - trans talk has a lot of potential.
hey jo. cool thread concept, might be ahead of its time right now. i'm curious how the process of conversion (sry if wrong or offensive terminology) affects mental health - do you have mood issues, have they changed with the course of physical transformation and drug regimens?
Thanks Tuma. The whole process is referred to as transition, and the surgeries are called gender confirmation surgeries.
EVERYTHING changes with the hormones. I went on them in November 2016. The anti-testosterone kicks in immediately, but they build up the estrogen more slowly, because it can cause blood clots. So there was about two or three months where I had zero hormones. It was a very weird time. It felt like I was just going through the motions of life - very calm and even keeled - but everything also felt kind of pointless.
The first mental change I noticed was that sports were no longer as compelling. My team (go Pats) were in the Superbowl and I could barely follow the game, because I just kept getting distracted chatting with my girl friends. So I thought, well that sucks, I've lost something, and I started wondering what I was going to gain.
A few days later, I was driving into work and I remember being overwhelmed about how beautiful the blossoms on the trees looked. I couldn't remember colors being that vivid. I don't think that's an affect of the hormones directly, but I think I'd just had low grade depression all my life from the gender dysphoria. It had lifted, and the whole world looked more vibrant (and has continued to do so).
I guess the thing I would miss most, if for some reason I ever had to give up the hormones, would be the easy way I can access my emotions. It really is like having a sixth sense. Someone will say something to me, and I can very vividly tell that the emotion behind it is different from the content. I remember a woman saying something perfectly pleasant to me, but it was as if she'd just punched me in the face, and I realized that she wasn't being sincere which, in turn, meant she was being a total dick. The flip side is I can kind of go into my own head and lose myself down a chain of implications, which is part of why women need to talk things through with one another. The fact that emotions get such a bad rap in society in general is lol ridiculous to me.
My friend commented at the weekend (as I dragged him to the third nightclub of the night) that hanging out with me is like hanging out with a girl in her 20s. I'm
fairly sure he meant this in a good way
. It's like getting a new lease of life - I get to do everything I've previously done in my 20s and 30s, but this time its a lot more fun, because I'm the gender I'm supposed to be.