Nonbinary thoughts, Did you change emotionally once transitioning on hormones?

[Satinjoy]

Curious if you perceived a new component type emotional state once starting hormones.  As in the opposite binaries emotions, or blended component, as opposed  to the status quo pre transition.

As my e levels rise, my emotional volatility does too, and I definitely feel a shift 17 months into this towards the more loving, caring and emotional component.

How did your emotions change my dears?

[helen2010]

SJ

My favourite topic.  After hrt I  started to enjoy, trust and accept emotion.   Life felt richer, deeper and as though I was accessing a new strength, power or part of myself.  Before hrt I avoided emotion, empathy was not a strength of mine.  In fact I deliberately chose to present as phlegmatic (strong silent type) as I felt safer this way.  Perhaps deep down I thought that I was always displaced, never quite present and unable to communicate how I felt.  I spent too much time in my head and not enough time living and being.  Hrt has been transformational.

Safe travels

Aisla

[Pikachu]

I'm not on hormones, but my emotions changed after I started to accept myself. As in, I could feel again. Before, when I was repressing my true identity, I was pretty emotionally numb. It was a coping mechanism, I guess. I remember being an intensely emotional child. It feels good to finally be back to how I felt then. To be able to cry again. To feel more empathetic. Just... so freeing. I feel so alive.

[suzifrommd]

I've always imagined women (based on what I've seen on the outside) would be these marvelous creatures whose emotional spirits would have an amazing capacity for giving and love. I frequently fantasized what that would feel like. In my imaginings, it was the most wonderful feeling I could conceive. Of course I knew it wouldn't really feel that way, but it was fun to fantasize.

So what did it finally feel like to have estrogen-powered emotional machinery?

Exactly as I described it in the first paragraph.

Sometimes miracles do happen.

[Kendall]

almost no change for me. physical changes, but no emotional changes.
i was caring loving before and after.
the only major change was acceptance of my body.
emotional change happened after the divorce which happened many years later.
thats where trust was replaced with distrust,
caring was replaced with apathy,
inspiration was replaced with skepticism,
i had more emotional changes in the divorce than hrt
that's just my experience which sounds really different than the other's

[Tessa James]

Oh yes indeed i share that feeling of living a dream come true.  Now it is Ok to love and cry and feel deeply without an automatic shut off.  That switch doesn't seems to work anymore and spontaneous emotional expressions just happen.  It is a relief and may not be all hormonal as letting go of the manly guarding is gone.  I have nothing to guard and nothing to hide and feel so very free to just let it be.

[nicole99]

I don't think my emotions changed at all.

I suspect a lot of emotional change comes more from self acceptance, being more comfortable in your skin, and coming out from under the burden of dysphoria which is essentially depressing. Also there are often a bunch of other stuff going on when we transition. While I think hormones definitely play a part, emotions are just human things and I think your internal thoughts, comfort with yourself and the expectations from society from whatever gender role you choose to play perhaps have a much bigger impact on how you experience and express emotion than hormones themselves.

Men don't cry in my own culture because my culture says men don't cry, rather than men lacking the ability, emotion or need to cry.

But going back to myself my emotions did not change from taking hormones, at least not that I noticed. But my emotional state definitely changed in response to transitioning,  the lessening of dysphoria and feeling more alive than I ever had and perhaps better managing being bi-polar. I would not be so quick to think hormones did this as I think some of us get false expectations about the magic of hormones (they definitely can bring about magical change, but not always and sometimes not to the extent we would like).

[JulieBlair]

I don't think my emotions changed at all.

I suspect a lot of emotional change comes more from self acceptance, being more comfortable in your skin, and coming out from under the burden of dysphoria which is essentially depressing. Also there are often a bunch of other stuff going on when we transition. While I think hormones definitely play a part, emotions are just human things and I think your internal thoughts, comfort with yourself and the expectations from society from whatever gender role you choose to play perhaps have a much bigger impact on how you experience and express emotion than hormones themselves.

Men don't cry in my own culture because my culture says men don't cry, rather than men lacking the ability, emotion or need to cry.

But going back to myself my emotions did not change from taking hormones, at least not that I noticed. But my emotional state definitely changed in response to transitioning,  the lessening of dysphoria and feeling more alive than I ever had and perhaps better managing being bi-polar. I would not be so quick to think hormones did this as I think some of us get false expectations about the magic of hormones (they definitely can bring about magical change, but not always and sometimes not to the extent we would like).

I think you are on to something. 

It isn't the emotional content that changes, it is the permissions of expression.  Because my emotional state became richer as I began to live more authentically, and because suddenly emotional expression was not restrained by both self and societal constraints, my emotional expression in daily life is infinitely more varied and more fulfilling.  That has made my life overall more expressive and allowed me to become more real to the people I am blessed to know.

HRT is a part of it, but as a facilitator as opposed to being causative.  For me it is back to self acceptance and open expression of who I am, discarding the persona that I used to use as a shield against the world.