Emotional changes - before or after HRT

[AshleyT]

Well, I'm just 24 hours into HRT and I've been thinking about some of the changes that might happen over the coming months. My doctor pointed out that I should expect emotional changes, which is backed up by a lot I have read from general info and from other people's experiences. In particular, he used the old 'you might find you cry a lot more easily at movies etc', which got me thinking.

I have always had a reasonable emotional response, and I tend to associate on a very emotional level with things like music, memories etc - albeit that to the outside world I have perhaps been seen as a bit emotionally introverted (in my male guise). What has really stunned me in the last few months is that since I have been able to not only fully acknowledge my female brain, but allow it run rampant, many of the emotional changes that HRT is said to induce seem to have happened already, almost before I started counselling. I've noticed in the last few weeks I already cry far more easily at things - jeez, I even teared up at a commercial the other day - and there are other aspects in the way I think that seem to have crystallised several months pre-HRT, although I have always been fairly level in terms of mood (calm in a crisis, you might say).

i am interested to know how others have found it, and whether you think emotional/psychological changes are almost a psychosomatic response to HRT - the liberation of the female brain from years of suppression - or whether there is a genuine biological component to it too. What has your experience been pre/post-hormones?

[Tessa James]

I wish we could know exactly from where our emotions come.  I lived a testosterone fueled life and now an estrogen based hormonal existence.  I also found myself experiencing emotional changes before HRT that I assume were from accepting myself as transgender and letting my guard down about "acting like a man."  That was a profound relief and a freedom that remains exquisitely positive.  Once i gave up the guy shtick and allowed myself to feel and act without that filter life took on greater color and opportunity.  I did not realize before that how much work was going in to the daily fake mannerisms and even guarding of speech or trying to fit in with the guys on too many levels.

On HRT for years now I have adjusted to a wonderfully greater range of emotional responses.  When I feel that familiar warmth in my chest and face prior to crying I simply grab a tissue and let it flow.  My anger and impatience are hugely reduced but how much is HRT and how much is simply feeling less distressed and happy where I'm at?  My first week on HRT was characterized by a calm and sort of flat affect that gradually changed to euphoria for months.  I wore a constant smile and now am settling in to routines with continued happiness.  Not all roses, but this sure feels good to me!

[noleen111]

I find myself more emotional now, I do cry more easily now. Watching re-runs of extreme home makeover sends me to tears, as a guy.. my eyes were dry.

In the beginning of hrt, I did get mood swings, happy one moment to been a bitch in the next.. but that seems to have calmed as my female brain took over.

I get my lady juice via injections, and on the day of my injection I can be bitchy, my roommate calls it my pms.

[BirlPower]

I'm not on hormones and probably never will be. I've always teared up at soppy movies but in the past, in guy mode, I always tried to hide/control/stop it happening. Since realising who I really am I don't do that any more, I tear up several times a day for lots of reasons and if the tears want to flow I just let them. Feels way better than trying to hold it in. I think you are right. At least part of the changes are due to just accepting who we are. I would be very interested in how you feel in a few months. Whether the emotions get stronger or more frequent after a few months on hormones.

Hugs.

BP

[Lizandri Roth]

Strange that you posted a threat about emotions the same day I was thinking about searching for a earlier topic about the subject.  I must say, for me the first emotional changes also occurred when I accepted who I am and came out to family.  After that I felt I had no more skeletons in the closet and I felt more relaxed and my feminine emotions came naturally.  But then suffered anxiety because of the fear that I might never reach the point of HRT.

But now 4 months and 16 days into HRT, and the new higher dose of estrogen the endo gave me really changed me into a very emotional being.  And I love it!  I too was more of an emotional guy, in touch with my feminine side as some would say, but rarely cried over anything.  In the eyes of my family I was quite cold with my emotions and kept to myself, hiding from the world.  But I can really feel that the higher dose of estrogen has changed me.  I don't want to be alone now, my 'mood swings' are a lot more obvious to people (harder to hide my emotions now) and I can cry over almost anything, joy or sadness.

Just this morning I came out to my grandmother and she said that she will still love me for who I am inside.  The outside doesn't matter.  The whole time I tried to talk with her I was crying and struggled to get the words out, where as with previous experiences of coming out I never cried.  And when she told me those words the water works began.  If somebody asks me if there is something wrong, then I'm already close to tears.  Even if there's nothing bothering me.  You do have a new range of emotions that you'll discover later on.  But explaining it to someone is like trying to explain a certain color to someone that he has never seen.  Overall I think the estrogen is the culprit for my emotional changes but I love it all the way.

[Emmaleigh]

There is another thread ("Discovering and expressing your femininity during transition") I just responded to, with my experiences leading up to starting HRT, exactly along these lines. But nowhere near as elegantly as what I read here. To chime in, once I began to accept and come to terms with my state, I started dropping all my faked-up 'masculine' role-playing. And I agree, I felt many of those things I read to expect with HRT.
It led me to wonder at the possibility of having forced my brain into a different place, attempting to match my supposed gender, of creating a contrived 'map' to overlay the existing map, and if now I'm allowing it to utilize the original mapping & wiring I was born with. Which in turn is making subtle changes to other areas of my life, both mental & physical. But apparently no research
And the process has deepened & quickened over the past 3 months of HRT. I am certainly looking forward to the future!

[AshleyT]

I lived a testosterone fueled existence and now an estrogen based hormonal life.

Fixed your sentence for ya 

Maybe it's a mixture of both, then - if so, then I'll be really intrigued to see how much further my emotions develop! I took a whole heap of baseline measurements before I started, so perhaps I should add a rainfall gauge to count weekly tear levels...

I am also intrigued to see how my moods are affected by HRT - as I said, I have always been a very calm, level person and that doesn't seem to have changed since my female brain won its freedom.