I am sitting on an emotional swing. Each day it gets more intense. Genetic females have had a lot longer than me to come to terms with the rollercoaster of moods but everyone who experiences it has to start somewhere. I can’t ‘man it out’ anymore, 40 days and 40 nights of HRT and I’m already losing subjective cognition of my testronic existence; slowly the maleness falls from grasp.
I’ve had to ask friends to remind me sometimes that I’m just going through the side effects. Again, I don’t know if it is because I started hormones, or their actual effects, but doors are unlocking in my mind. I’ve really learned about friendships I’ve needlessly strived for that are beyond their sell by date – I visited one of the old friends I’m having to let go of and noticed for the first time in a long friendship the light behind her eyes that process any way to avoid talking about either of our real issues. A year after the fact I finally recognized the emotional abuse that is still a large cause of suffering from my last relationship – I told those close to me and they say they knew for a long time, they tried to tell me.
There are other revelations now that force me into a new life. A cornucopia of general life issues coupled with constant hormonality combine into painful birth squeezes of a new life; the water broke, the contractions are more frequent, powerful – there’s no stopping it, it is coming.
My aesthetic transition is really suffering now, not just because of facial hair but because of the emotional pressure. I spoke to a woman who apparently had GRS but lives satisfactorily as a male without heavy dysphoria, content in the knowledge she is female. Hearing this struck a chord and she said there were only a few in many years she had met who are like this. Again, when I was a young child I wasn’t thinking about sneaking into my mother’s room for clothes and make up, I was trying to get rid of my penis, not as a Skoptic, but because I was female.
I don’t really care often enough who knows I am female so long as I do, and the people I care about do. It still hurts to be called by masculine terms, but I feel I’m constantly facing off between constant counterbalancing weights of dysphoria. It’s less urgent, but I’m still thinking about and I wonder if I can ever come to peace.
After some diligent sleuthing by Mia, we found that this woman had in fact de-transitioned because she had passing issues and other issues that are her business. I myself am not trying to cop out of transition, although it really is taking time finding my way. There is much more to the story with this woman for another time.
The point I want to make here is that it is important to be gentle with yourself. On top of everything going on in life, there are also the unquenchable effects of cross sex hormone therapy and trying to figure out how to transition and do it in a world that isn’t always happy to let you live your life. Even without external grief, the internal experience is such a battle that I can understand putting oneself at risk.
I feel the level of personal risk is the same, but different in nature. I’m just as on edge, I’m crying like crazy, freaking out, hating the world. I was so wrong about the crying; cries feel different, more frequent, because as before I cried when I was desperate, now I cry because I need to cry. It needs to come out just as I need to talk more about stuff – if I don’t vent, I break down. I’m notoriously bad for talking about my issues with people, now I have to. Afterwards, I don’t feel as bad as I would before, sometimes I just switch and I feel good again for a while.
I have less violent urges, lower sex drive, lower sexual functioning. After a week without an erection or a real desire for release I decided to try and force it. After a long time of distraction and confusion about what I was doing with what I was touching I got there and it was as arbitrary as expected from something so forced. Straight afterwards I grabbed a toffee crisp from the fridge and bit into it. The chocolate made my senses explode! I loved chocolate and was iffy about sex anyway but the gulf widened considerably and that’s just what happens sometimes. Now I don’t have ‘morning wood’ so much as I have ‘morning tofu.’
I was naive in not listening to other women way ahead on HRT, I thought I was special, aware enough, emotionally centred enough to beat back the waves of hormonal change. Don’t get me wrong, it’s only like that sometimes, often enough I feel as good as I ever have.
I was really worried about how much my emotions would intensify and whether it would put me in more danger, and it is hard, it is very hard.
My mind is working overtime absorbing all this new emotional information. Sometimes I panic, other times I am just a sponge for information and beautifully contemplative thoughts that will take a long time to unravel.
Tough as it is, I rejoice in the new challenge, the new lease of life. This is a perfect time for realisations that lead to effecting positive personal change that will fuel hopefully the release of a lifetime of untapped potential for the rest of my lifetime’s emotional strength.
This is only the beginning, it has to hurt to get better, this is how we heal. We show ourselves now in survival so we can prosper when we come to truly thrive.
A thousand words for your silent thoughts. All the things you wanted to say but didn’t and forgot, written on an invisible page.
Red moons’ eclipse shines dark, a trillion stars within the tear of a galaxy. A thousand tears for your silent thoughts; you are Mars as a girl.
A moment not to think, so precious and unaware of it. A thousand scars for your silent thoughts, etched into those forgotten memories.
Planets do not decide to shift or spin, invisible forces do not act on whim. A thousand truths for your silent thoughts; you are Mars as a girl.
Let’s get straight into the good stuff my appreciated readers! (Disclaimer – Talk of sexual functioning)
HRT Update
Day 21 – Sexual thoughts could be nice. Masturbation could be fun but I can’t actually be bothered. The last push to erotic drive isn’t there; no flying mast exists to pitch my flag. My sex drive feels like how it did during the terror of my revelation – almost non-existent. I would have to force it. Use it or lose it they say, otherwise atrophy over the years is an actual concern. Gross, but those are the physical propensities. In coaxing an orgasm (how beautifully sentimental ;P) it felt different again, more layered rather than pointed, but to only a small degree of difference.
Another slight example of weepiness, where tears fall without becoming fully fledged crying.
Day 22 – My pubic hair seems furrier, the only hair that seems to have been effected so far.
Day 23 – My tear ducts looked drier and more deeply set. My eyeballs seemed a different shape and didn’t look as though they fit as correctly within the socket, not in a good way. Eye changes are documented on HRT, so I will keep, er…an eye on it and consider eye drops if it gets any worse.
Day 29 – I did some heavy exercise 4 days ago and am still suffering muscle fatigue. I literally only tapped my shin with a tennis racquet by accident and have this massive bruise to show for it (which stayed longer than any bruise I’ve ever had) – I’ve done this loads of times and never got anything other than a tiny red cut. My upper arms look smaller when not flexed but still defined, whilst my forearm is still as big, which looks weird.
Had a few cries. It’s around that time of the month for me anyway, although there were a few sobbing, weeping tears that were new to me.
Day 31 – My face looks much softer. My mum says the angles of my face seem less harsh. I can look at my face and kind of see it, even with facial hair, but only looking straight on.
Day 32 – Definitely got some back fat growing. I’ll embrace this until I get to the point where I hate it like any other bodily insecure woman…Embrace the back fat my curvy beauties!
I realise I haven’t had morning wood in a while, sexual thoughts are much less frequent, and more appropriately sensual for me personally, which I think is just an individual trait.
Day 34 – I wasn’t exactly crying when I woke up, but the feelings towards crying were new. I felt morning sexual desire but it’s easier to turn off without having an incessant erection tripodding all round the place. It’s slightly frustrating but it works for me because it no longer demands I take action.
Day 35 – I feel my emotional repertoire growing. Emotional statements and events seem more powerful in how they affect me. I was wrong about the tears. As much as I cried and nearly cried often before HRT, now, during even simple emotional moments, I have to fight if I want to hold back the tears.
Just the pressure of putting a kettlebell against my arm when working out now leaves me with bruises.
It took a friend to remind me of the hunger HRT brings; I’ve been munching constantly without knowing why. Losing fat is much more difficult on HRT, in fact, the female body needs a lot more fat than the male body in general so it makes sense that my body wants me to eat. Now I know why women must be so disciplined and obsessive about diet and exercise to have a body they can be comfortable in.
Here is the video version of my One Month HRT update:
I have been told that the effects come in waves, and I’ve certainly noticed that in between the long periods of imperceptible change that there are moments when I know something is happening. Living in one’s own mind and body for so long, these changes, however slight are very recognisable and welcome. Dysphoria has become more of a physical issue rather than a mental one.
I have been spoiled by the laser sessions I paid for because I know what it feels like to have a hair-free face. My first NHS laser appointment was only a patch test, with an IPL laser and an alexandrite laser like I’d been getting privately. It was much more impersonal than the private treatment and they didn’t mess around. I was told each session would be for 20 minutes every 6-8 weeks, whereas the previous sessions took about 45 minutes. They told me it would hurt more on HRT……they were very right, it was almost unbearable. My skin was singed for a couple of days afterwards requiring much more stringent aftercare with SPF 30 moisturizer and Vaseline rather than the pure Aloe Vera I’d been using. Thankfully I was prescribed EMLA cream which is a topical anaesthetic, but I’ve been advised it’s still going to hurt.
The horrible thing is, whilst general dysphoria may lesson over time, incidents of dysphoria can become more severe. Having to deal with facial hair the past two months has basically kept me at home, I hate it. I don’t want to attempt to cover it with make up because I don’t think I can, although my trans friends say this is silly. I haven’t presented fully nor worn makeup once since starting HRT because I hate my face hair so much and it is really putting me back.
Things have been tough recently – I almost gave up being public about my transition as I feel I’ve lost so much support in the year since I’ve come out. These are problems relating to the relationships I have with people rather than specific trans stuff, but being trans does play its part. Going through what is the biggest change in my life, I want to share my experiences because objectively I think they are pretty fascinating.
However, people have their own stuff to deal with, sometimes they don’t want to talk about it, often enough they don’t know what to say. Some people have never brought the topic up, maybe because they feel it is disrespectful, that it’s none of their business, or that they simply don’t care. After a while of bringing my issues up without any response I have given up, although there may come a time when I start blurting it out again and people can deal with it, or not.
As much as I try to make my trans experience as low key as possible, I still need to talk about it with people, I need to bounce ideas off people, so I’m learning that aside my closest friends who even no amount of education my information could prepare them for, having trans friends is absolutely necessary. Throughout these very difficult times I want to thank Mia and Faith on WordPress for their friendly ears, empathy and support, along with the other fantastic women I’ve been sharing experiences with all over the world.
If you haven’t reached out yet, do so – knowing other people are going through almost identical experiences at points is entirely heart-warming and refreshing and plenty of us want to share it, even in very intimate details only transfolk could truly appreciate. Many exciting and unique secrets are shared when the transfolk get together.
Whilst I am it, can I ask if anyone reading this knows where Rimonim is? His blogs are beautiful but he has just fallen off the map since July and I can’t get in touch with him. Rim, if you are reading this let us know you are ok!
Myself, I have had to give up entirely on my hometown. Trust can be a tough sell for me at the best of times, and I’ve learned the hard way the difference between mere acceptance, vocal support, and actual help. Being trans is not a pitiable situation, I do not feel humbled by the fact someone would accept me and use appropriate pronouns etc; to do so would make me less of a person in others eyes’. Respect for my situation is a standard that does not need to be earned – I used to think trans activists were being aggressive when they said this but now I understand. As much as our new trans friends help us, those who have been with us on our life journey so far need to step up and play an active role because that’s what good friends do. And good families.
Being trans seems to not only be a detector for unpalatable strangers, it is also an indicator of who is really going to stick up for you in this life; it’s seeing which people would visit you in hospital without actually having to go to hospital. It has taken a year and a serious breakdown to realise just who is there for me.
There are big losses, but it made sense to spread my net wide to give myself a better chance of reeling in the keepers, so although I am sad, I don’t regret my courage in trusting more people than I could expect to be trusted in the long run. I am lucky to have a couple of lifelong friends at my side, so I can say that anything else is trimming fat, even in losing friends I’ve had since I was a teenager.
I decided I would not be forced back into the closet, that I would trust others to live up to their own nature and announced my medical transition to the world. What I decide to share is not because others ask, but because my freedom cannot be bound.
What I have learned is that transition is such a personal journey that the best resource we have by far is ourselves. In understanding and loving ourselves we can appreciate the changes much more, we can celebrate the goals we have worked so hard for even if no-one else knows how much we sacrifice. We can ground and connect ourselves so much more to the world around us and get a deeper meaning about what out experience on this earth is.
If there were ever a time in life to seek out those most solid and enlightening mental, spiritual and emotional resources that will help carry me through the rest of my life, this is it.
I have learned that I can stick to a task as I have been practising my voice at least twice a day, EVERY day, for the past six months. It is very slowly getting there, I’d say I’m at about a 5 out of 10 now – my voice is gender neutral, or sometimes like a fake whiney female. I still smoked through this process and made some ok progress but when I’m not smoking it sounds so much better.
It is a gruelling process, listening back every time to a voice that just isn’t right, but just keep going anyway. I have ONE recording out of hundreds over the past six months where I heard MY voice; not a glimpse of what I might sounds like, but what I intend to sound like as my ‘genuine self’. I cannot replicate it yet but it is the single most encouraging thing so far. Recording each session makes a real difference, because although my voice still sounds wrong I can hear the tiny little bits of progress over weeks and months. I’ll have a new blog with lots of voice tips as soon as I can get to it.
I thought the honeymoon was over, that the initial euphoria I experienced starting HRT was forever over after having a major emotional slip. I almost gave up on everything and everyone. I almost deleted this blog. Instead I feel myself growing stronger, more resolute. I am finding solutions within myself for my problems and growing closer to those who help me. My mind isn’t necessarily clearer, but I am gaining a truer understanding of myself by hormonally being the person I was always supposed to be. I won’t give up, because this is just the beginning of a new life, and the hormones haven’t even truly begun to work their magic yet!
Starting HRT is a brave step – it is a lifelong commitment, it is a sacrifice of all that I have been and never should, it is saying to myself with clarity and passion that I know who I am and that I will do whatever it takes to get there.
Hopefully got some real good blogs coming up soon on voice, sexuality, and all that I have learned on my first year of transition, so stay tuned. A massive thank you to everyone who has shared in my story this past year, and everyone who has let me share in theirs.
Peace and love,
Amy Xx
P.S. Here’s something a little extra I recorded, hopefully a little uplifting and affirming….or just weird and stupid 😛
Don't make me choose! 