Question for transmen: Before HRT what did Estrogen feel like?

[Andrea J]

Hi, I just dropped in on the FTM board to ask a question that I have been wondering about. So "MTF" transsexuals usually find being on Testosterone psychologically unpleasant. One person described it as causing a kind of mental buzzing that was always there, before being cured by HRT. So I was wondering what it's like on the other side? For "FTM" transsexuals what were the psychological effects of Estrogen before HRT? And how did you feel about them?

I'm particularity interested in the mental effects as physical effects are frequently disused.

[wheat thins are delicious]

I can't really remember, it's been a little over two years.  I remember everything made me emotional though.

[Green_Tony]

I'm getting T soon. I can say that for myself, estrogen and progestin are HORRIBLE. I find my feelings were even more "muted" when I had progestin shots for birth control. So we'll see if I can feel things more clearly on T.

[Elijah3291]

I cant remember much of it, I know it felt very wrong.  I was crankier and when I got angry I cried instead of standing up for myself.

[Jeatyn]

I can relate to everything that's been said so far. I also understand the "mental buzzing" analogy. I felt like I was on the edge of a nervous break down 24/7, especially during that time of the month when hormone levels are at an all time high. I got annoyed/angry/upset to the point I felt like I was going to burst and I would have panic attacks.

Going on e-blockers was the most amazing thing, and being on T feels even better. I can honestly say I've never been happier, or more at peace. The background noise buzzing has mostly gone away. It's like a crazy rage filled fog has been lifted.

[aleon515]

I can only answer half your question. I don't have estrogen in my system right now (or maybe only very tiny amts), it was a huge relief to me. It just feels so not me to have all those emotions swirling around. I've heard people say going on T was healing and so on.

--Jay J

[Magnus]

Honestly? It made me feel ill. Constantly. Just a general malaise all of the time (and which I didn't even realize how bad that was until AFTER the T started taking over too if you can believe that). I can't say for certain if that was directly because of the female hormones or if it was in fact due to my Insulin and other non-sex hormones being off-kilter that did it to me, but that's all I can really say about it. I didn't like it. What's more, my body was NEVER able to regulate those hormones properly to the effect of that I had to have birth control pills control it for me otherwise I would simply bleed and bleed and bleed until I turned white as a sheet and too wiped out to do anything. So yeah... female hormones are NOT compatible with my body. Your mileage may vary.

T makes me feel healthy though and that's something I hadn't felt since before the incorrect puberty hit at 11 years old. It's also assisting my body by forcing my cells to uptake the Insulin (my body overproduces that to about the level of five different people - very high and very dangerous) so it isn't coursing through my veins, causing havoc and making me feel even worse than apparently the female hormones did. I'm praying that alone will enable me to continue my treatments with it on the county health program and that they can't give me any chit about the trans stuff because this IS now medically necessary for a 'legitimate' health problem (to use their turn of phrase, of course WE know the HRT is necessary for the trans thing alone but... I digress. Bigots, pah!).

So now with that stated, I'll go further to express that I'd rather be dead than be forced to have those hormones take my body back over. They truly are that horrible for me. That would honestly be the worst thing that could possibly happen to me and not just due to the trans thing, but for health reasons too. I don't want to go back to feeling sickly all of the time. Hell no! That was the closest inner-circle of hell for me and I'm glad to be rid of it, at least for now!


____ Oh, but, I never experienced the emotional thing that the female hormones supposedly cause. Just never effected me that way. Didn't get all teared up, but I do believe I was more 'down'... depressed, I suppose. That's gone away with the T for me. I'm more outgoing too... something I never thought I'd be. Though, I still prefer my own company. Well anyway. That's all I can really add here at the moment.

[FTMDiaries]

Sadly I'm not on T yet so I still suffer the monthly hormonal swings that I've hated since I was 12.

Oestrogen is an absolute nightmare for me. Not only am I genetically susceptible to putting on weight in the presence of oestrogen, but it also screws me over emotionally. It's just too easy - and too predictable - for me to burst into tears. If I'm sitting watching a TV show with my family, they all know at which point they should look over at me to see tears streaming down my cheeks. And they all turn to stare at me every time (they think it's hilarious), which makes me even more uncomfortable. Even a 'sob story' on the X Factor is enough to get the tears flowing. Ugh, I hate it.

But worse yet, I get teary during business meetings when I get frustrated at other people's incompetence. That is a MAJOR problem for me because it automatically means that my male colleagues think of me as a 'silly little girl' and they don't take me seriously any more. I can tell you with confidence that this has had a negative impact on my career.

The week before Shark Week is the absolute worst emotionally, because I tend to get very anxious, withdrawn and super-duper-emotional to the point that I could burst into tears for no good reason. During that week I won't answer the phone, open my post, or do anything else that involves unnecessary interaction with other people because my tolerance for their bull is at an all-time low.

So yeah, I guess I'm trying to say that (some) FtMs and MtFs have a shared experience of unwanted hormones making us do things that feel unnatural to us.

[Andrea J]

Thanks for your answers everybody, they were very interesting. So it seems like the primary effect of estrogen on FTM's is to make you much much more emotional than seems right. I suppose that stereotypically estrogen is considered to make people emotional but I'm a little surprised that answers are so much in line with that stereotype.

[mm]

FTMDiaries, I agree with you completely.  I am pre t also and get those big hormone changes every month.  They seem to be getting worst, my dysphia is I know.  It use to bad the day before and the first day of my shark attack, now it 3-4 days before.  I can see how I do in school and working with others on projects.

[aleon515]

Thanks for your answers everybody, they were very interesting. So it seems like the primary effect of estrogen on FTM's is to make you much much more emotional than seems right. I suppose that stereotypically estrogen is considered to make people emotional but I'm a little surprised that answers are so much in line with that stereotype.

Re; the stereotype. I think the whole thing of the stereotype is that women would feel vs think. I think this is insulting. I think, though, that the whole gamut of emotion appears to be semi-linked to estrogen in some way. When I was making estrogen I teared up during commercials for telecoms and so on. I think the key here is that it makes me more emotional than seems to be right for me. I have heard of mtfs feel that they were more in touch with their emotions which also seemed right to them.

--Jay J

[conformer]

I was VERY emotional and took everything personally. I also linked just about anything to the pain of being trans and that was the reason for most of my emotional issues.

Testosterone helped me get a grip of all of this, but so did growing up and learning to understand myself.

[Natkat]

Estrogen for me where like a ticking bomb who gave me stress and reminded me all the time that for each day, hour and minut my body where changing and working to give me female looking features I hated. It where a fight agenst my body and me and made me rather tense and easy irritated.

as I got on homones I imidently relaxed as I knew finally my body where working my way, and I shouldn't worry about it.

There where few things I missed by being with Estrogen. I did had more fellings, being on T I feel its harder to get out with my deep fellings as I could before.
also it was pretty hard getting used to the sexdrive.

but beside that it had only made my mind and body better,

I was more agressive and so before, and I took alot of pills for period pains and so on, Now I take around 0-2 pain killer pills where before I took around (8-22 maybe at a mounth)
I really hope im not going to lose them for my current situation.

[mangoslayer]

I never thought these things were related until my endo told me, but i had extreme ADD/ADHD before I went on T. I'm not really sure how it works but my endo described it as transsexuals have white noise in their brain. I would definitely say i had like a mental fuzzy feeling. Since starting T I've been able to focus without taking stimulants.
I have no idea if this is true or not but its what my endo told me.

[Twin Hammer Tommy]

Pretty horrible.  I can relate to what other people have said about feeling on edge and ready to snap all the time.   This was alleviated a little bit by social transition but not enough, and after being on a T for a bit, it went away completely.   There were some months (during the bad week) that I felt like my skin was crawling and just having any other person in my space was incredibly unnerving.

But unlike some others, I actually feel more emotional in some ways than I used to.  In the sense that the emotions are more genuinely felt and real.  I'm like a lot of guys who can't cry as easily, but it's sort of like...  does anyone remember the movie Pleasantville?  How everything was in black and white until people started opening up and living how they wanted?  And slowly color and vibrance started to seep into everything?   Going onto T was like that.  Like I was turning into a real person and I was just a shell before.

[Andrea J]

But worse yet, I get teary during business meetings when I get frustrated at other people's incompetence. That is a MAJOR problem for me because it automatically means that my male colleagues think of me as a 'silly little girl' and they don't take me seriously any more. I can tell you with confidence that this has had a negative impact on my career.

It's so irritating when people don't bother to listen to what you say, and instead just assume that anything you say is no better than their opinion of you. Perhaps we should start here and say we will be careful not to do this. Because I imagine people that do it don't realize they are doing it.

Anyway, I hope you get to sort out your estrogen problems soon.

[Carbon]

The week before Shark Week is the absolute worst emotionally, because I tend to get very anxious, withdrawn and super-duper-emotional to the point that I could burst into tears for no good reason. During that week I won't answer the phone, open my post, or do anything else that involves unnecessary interaction with other people because my tolerance for their bull is at an all-time low.

There is actually a pretty big difference between MTF and FTM or cis women here : we usually have stable hormone levels, while cis women's go all over the place. If we get our hormone levels to a point we like we can mostly just keep them there, whereas FTM's only get this once they actually start T.

I'm on basically a have dose of MTF HRT and I've noticed a few physical things (like my acne clearing up) and mentally I feel more centered, "inside myself," and get overwhelmed or anxious less easily. It could just be the relief of finally  starting HRT, who knows.

This is an interesting topic though, it's really interesting to hear FTM people's experiences with different hormones.

[Felix]

Estrogen for me was frailty and the tyranny of emotion over logic. I'm always going to be a bit sensitive and I don't ever want to become cynical, but on estrogen I was way more swayed by feelings than I'm comfortable with. Also my eating habits and sensory experiences were a little haywire and inexplicable before going on T. Everybody's different, of course.

[ozoozol]

Guess I'm odd, then.  I never noticed anything mental or emotional that I could attribute to estrogen or fluctuations in hormone levels, though that could be because my hormone levels were never typical to begin with.

Once starting testosterone, I did notice, for example, that I had more difficulty multitasking, and that it was easier to get past fears (like climbing unsteady ladders to hang holiday lights), but those observations answer a question that wasn't asked.

[AdamMLP]

I'm not on T or hormone blockers so I don't have anything to compare to, but I find that one of the only indicators to my emotions is tears.  I can watch something and not be emotional about it but my eyes will start filling up with tears.  I can feel empty all day, and only realise that something's wrong when I get to my room at night and burst into tears.  I got into a lot of trouble at school as well because whenever I got told off, even if it was about something totally minor or something I didn't care at all, I would start crying, unless I swung the total other way and retaliated with anger.

The evil time of the month tends to screw me over a lot as well, sometimes making me feel really really awful, and makes me start leaning towards suicidal thoughts, which then scares me to death because there's no way I want to go back there.  Those feels sometimes stick around longer than the actual bleeding, so I'm not sure whether it's estrogen causing it, the fact that I bleed, or if estrogen starts it and my natural tendency to get depressed carries it on.  As I tend to feel that way a day or two before it starts then I'm thinking it's probably the hormones.