Emotions

[Inkwe Mupkins]

I think people put way too much emphasis on gender, genes, hormones, and not nearly enough emphasis on how we were raised, societal conditioning, etc.

I was raised with all brothers and my mother wasn't very feminine. I was never taught that boys don't cry etc. and my brothers would cry if they didn't get there way or if they fell down and had no mark on them they would still cry...one did this until he was about 14. However one of my brothers still does this and he's 14. My mother never made comments if either of us cried either.

So I guess I've never been nurtured that crying is bad or good it just is. I didn't expect T too do anything because it didn't for such a long time. I guess I was just curious about others experiences because most say that T has made them cry less or made them quick to anger...

Before I used to get angry very easy and I would be destructive(break things but not toward people) and I would cry very easy as well, then I shut down emotionally kinda except for the anger for awhile...now I never get angry(it takes alot) but when I do it's very intense. It seems now when I experience emotions its stronger physically...like my heart rate is faster and my bp is higher, etc. What I was getting at was if anyone had experienced a difference in the physical part of emotions....I bury my emotions now, not because society says too...but because my heart beats so fast my chest hurts and I get short of breathe, because if I allow myself to get angry I feel an urge to hurt someone.

[Kreuzfidel]

I understand the theorizing about the manner in which we were raised and other environmental and societal variables having an effect on how we, as men or women, express or repress our emotions;  however, I, like Inkwe, was raised in a household and continue to function within an environment which nurtures the free expression of the entire emotional spectrum regardless of gender and yet I (an initial skeptic of the reports of T contributing to emotional changes) am now experiencing an emotional desensitivity that I once believed to be psychological or environmental.  I struggle to cry, yet I remain empathetic.  I don't have anxiety attacks and meltdowns anymore and I don't know how to explain some of it - certainly the psychological burden of not being on T has been lifted, thus alleviating some sensitivities, but others I can't explain.

[Arch]

I was raised in a conservative family in which any kind of emotional behavior was considered unseemly. Anger, sadness, fear, grief, pride, it didn't matter. Because of this (and because of other factors, like having the deep dark secret of being trans), I've always kept my feelings in check as much as possible, all my life. Then I finally realized that crying is a healthy outlet, and BANG, it was gone for months, at a terrible time in my life when I was under tremendous pressure and really needed to let it all out. I could get into my car, drive down the freeway, and yell in fury at the top of my lungs, but the crying just dried up.

I still felt the misery, the grief, the fear, but I lost the ability to express it in a particular way. I found it very easy to channel it all into anger, however, and to express that anger.

I am convinced that the T was responsible.

[Arch]

I found it very easy to channel it all into anger, however, and to express that anger.

I should point out that I was certainly not comfortable feeling the anger and frustration, nor was I happy at expressing it. But it would build up until I had to blow. So I vented. Crying didn't work the same way. I would get to what I though was critical mass, and then nothing would happen. Nothing.