How has HRT changed your perception of your body?

[adrian]

Hello girls and guys

I'm not too far into my journey (or possibly passage) and I'm not remotely close to starting HRT, although I currently feel I absolutely want (i.e. need) to. So I'm currently trying to figure out what my motivation for going on HRT would be, and what I really expect t to do for me. (I know that inwardly I'm arguing with myself whether any of the things I want to happen are really "good enough" reasons to put my marriage at risk, but that's another story).

One of the things that bother me most is how my body feels. Even when dysphoria isn't at its worst I feel (as many of you describe it too) that something is "off". It's a constant background noise of not feeling entirely right. This "noise" has been there all of my life, I think, and while it's not always super debilitating, it makes me feel "incongruent" with my body somehow. This bothers me a lot, much more (I think) than the social aspects, like being "misgendered" and treated as a female. So even when I lay in the dark with my eyes closed, my body feels "off", like it belongs to someone else really. (Sorry, I don't have a better way of describing it, but I'm simply assuming that folks on here get what I mean ).

I don't have to look into the mirror or be with other people to experience this. (Yeah, I know this feeling is most likely still a by-product of the social relationships and of the perceived discrepancy between who I feel to be and what I see in the mirror).

So my question to those of you who also experienced this "off" feeling is, how did this change when you went on HRT? Did HRT make you feel different/better, even when you weren't passing and correctly gendered by others yet? Do you think that was only a "side-effect" of feeling great about finally starting HRT?

[Jessica Merriman]

My body no longer feels "strange" or foreign. With all the changes it is now aligned with how I felt on my inside growing up. It is a pleasant change and all is right now! 

[Rotika]

Jessica, i'm totaly with you
on this question. Glad u asked.

[Tessa James]

I am nearly 2 years into my transition.  I used to have what i called a persistent feminine shadow person following me through life.  I also felt like some kind of alien in a human body.  I could hide and deny her but once I accepted myself with the help of therapy I was out full time within weeks.  Like so many others, I shunned the mirrors other than to try and shape a lumpy man out what was not.  Now my feminine self has fully emerged from the shadows and is center stage in my life.  I am loving my body changes and dress to advantage.  With the physical changes are emotional and sensitivity changes.  My skin is softer and more sensitive--including to bruising so no more hockey.  Just kidding about that one as I have not played since a kid. But really, the changes are profound and very welcome affirmation of my inner but once hidden truth.  What I once looked like was not who I was.  Even my sense of balance, posture and gait are impacted.  I feel and move differently.  What I can not parse out is how much is due to my past efforts to hide any mannerisms that might have let people, including me, think i was not a man.  You are right that for many of us starting on HRT is a very euphoric experience but the changes, including a calm sense of feeling right were night and day level changes for me.  Absent the shame and hiding being free to physically express myself is an absolute joy.  I will note that my dysphoria is significantly reduced other than noticing my genital package now appears even more unfit and unwelcome.  I am working toward some surgical intervention on that score but the insurance industry is not making it easy.  All part of the journey.  Passing is nice but just not as critical as feeling like my true self.
I can only imagine that a similar process works for a FtM, FtA, or any trans man in transition.  I envy the voice change the guys get and note how so many love to sport a bit of beard or mustache.  Best of good passages and journey to you Adrian.

[Jenna Marie]

I kind of hate to say this if you're trying to talk yourself out of HRT, but that "background noise" reducing was the first effect I ever had from it. The sense that my body was off/wrong/abnormal didn't fade entirely until enough female secondary sex characteristics had shown up to make me feel like things were being fixed, but it did at least quiet down a bit as soon as I could feel like I was *progressing* towards getting it all corrected.

[adrian]

Thanks for your responses

I kind of hate to say this if you're trying to talk yourself out of HRT, but that "background noise" reducing was the first effect I ever had from it.

I'm not trying to talk myself out of it really. But I'm trying to understand better what I might gain. I know it's probably different for everyone too.

This "off" feeling is so much more elusive than the other things - so it's interesting to hear how this felt for others when they started HRT.

[EvanAidan]

I felt the same way. Today was my first T shot. although I did let my fiancé do it for me. Lol.

But my whole life it has been like I internally know this man who I am meant to be but looking in the mirror made me sick, unless I knew I could pass, although my voice definitely threw off my passing. Anyways, I just now took my first shot, and I already feel like a million bucks. I know that nothing is going to change over night, but just knowing I'm taking that next step feels amazing, and knowing I'll start seeing results shortly. Even when I started coming out at work, and in life in general I started to feel better about myself, because I knew I was being perceived by some people as a male and that made it a lot better.

I hope this helps a little bit.

[Rachel]

I am 52 and been on HRT 16 months. I look like a guy and passing would be difficult, although my therapist says I could pass. I always (since 5) felt like I was in the wrong body. There have been a lot of positive effects. It was like a gray haze was lifted and over time the dysphoria is at a point where it is livable. I think therapy but it may have been a combo with hrt that the battle and hurtful person lost and is dead ( I know this does not sound stable). I had a battle in my head all my life and it is now subsided. I am Trans* and I told those who matter to me most.

I joined a gym and want my body to be beautiful. I want to plan ahead and buy personal trainer services for 6 months. I paid for the gym membership for a year. I will be asking for my therapist pre pay costs quote. Why, I am making plans to stay around. This may not sound like much but for a while I had a very short term outlook. I think the best thing (for me as I do not pass) is I am starting to like myself.

The gym I go to is LGBT. My trainer was having me do certain exercises and kept saying look at yourself in the mirror (she knows I am trans and I had people looking at me in gym attire, I look trans or have oddly shaped protruding pecks). So the mirror thing is something HRT (at least for me) did not help.