Jayne,
Thank you for your reply. Yes—this does help clarify the picture.
QuoteYou don't want to be female. You just want to quiet the inner voice that tells you should, and keep living as an ordinary man.QuoteNo, it's the other way around. I want to quiet the inner voice that tells me I should be female.
That's actually what I meant to say. My apologies for not being clear enough.
QuoteYou believed that taking female hormones would silence that voice.
QuoteI believed that taking the hormones would somehow satisfy the inner female desire and as a result that inner voice would be silenced.
Yes—I see.
QuoteYou underwent therapy and electrolysis in order to be able to get hormone therapy.QuoteNot true. I had no desire to ever start hormone therapy. It was a last resort for me. I was hoping the therapy would have fixed me. If I wanted hormones, my first therapist would have been more than happy to give me the letter after the first few months. It was actually my therapist's suggestion to give hormones a try because nothing else was working. I started the electrolysis because neither my wife or I like facial hair and I dislike shaving, so if it helped ease the dysphoria, then that would have been a win win solution.
I do see. Yes—this does change the position of the pieces on the puzzle.
QuoteAfter having taken the hormones for some time you realize that the voice has not been silenced.
The unchanging intensity of the voice makes you feel distressed, as the reason you've underwent the whole difficult and expensive process is to silence it and keep living as a normal man.QuoteTrue on both points.
You also say you neither look nor act feminine. As you say you just want to go on being a normal guy, the implication would seem to be you you don't want to either.QuoteI'm not sure I understand what you mean with this point. I want to be a normal guy, I don't want to be a girl.
I understand. It was the wording that puzzled me. No "normal" man I've known wants to act or look like a woman. In that context I wondered why the you said "don't..." rather than "don't want to..."
Since the "don't...! form could be interpreted to imply a barrier, i'd have from the context as a whole—wanting to be a normal male—expected a "don't want to."
QuoteYou underwent two years of therapy in order to start hormone therapy so I'm sure you know their physical effects. What degree of physical change would you be willing to accept if the voice is silenced?
QuoteAgain, not true. I did not undergo therapy so that I can get access to hormones. HRT was never a goal. It is just where I have ended up because I have run out of other options. I was led to believe that the voice could be silenced with minimal physical changes. That has not been my experience, hence my current distress.
Again, my apologies for not being clear enough. I did understand that you took hormones hoping that it would silence the voice that insists you be female. My false assumption was that the therapy (and electrolysis) were perquisites for the hormone therapy. What I meant to ask was what degree of possible physical changes you were/are ready to accept provided that the voice would be silenced, and what your thoughts and feelings are regarding them.
QuoteLow doses probably—usually—induce the change slowly, but you're taking a higher than normal dose. This would seem to imply that you're willing to accept even significant physical change. In any case, your appearance would be likely to drift away from the male norm sooner or later. What are your feelings regarding that?QuoteI have become desperate. I just want the noise in my head to go away. If I had access to a gun I would be very afraid that I might pull the trigger just to silence the noise. I don't want to die, I want to live! But this inner voice is making it almost impossible.
I can see you must feel trapped in hell. It sounds like you'd accept even physical changes as long as the voice that says you should be female is silenced. I can only imagine how hard that must be.
QuoteAt first glance it seems that you hope that not feeling any change on the hormones means you're not transgender. If you've considered other possibilities, what are they?QuoteI have been in and off this forum for over two years now. During that time I had tried to find an explanation for why I feel the way I feel. I would think that I am some kind of sick and twisted pervert, I am having a major midlife crisis, some other kind of mental illness that I don't know about. No explanation seemed to fit. I tried to accept that I am transgender, but I struggled to make that fit also. During the two years in this forum, a great many people suggested I try hormones. If I am trans, then I will feel better, if I am not trans then I would feel worse. I resisted. I did. It want to go on hormones. Eventually I could take no more and my therapist told me I should try hormones. As you know, I don't feel better or worse on the hormones. I feel no change at all. So now I'm back to square one wondering what the hell I am.
Yes—I see.
Personal experiences can only be anecdotal, but if it is of any help it took me several months on hormones to begin to forget the distress that had driven me to take them. Physical changes were just beginning to manifest, and could probably have been reversed should I have quit at that point.
To be more explicit, I did feel some euphoria at the beginning, but my situation was completely different from yours. I know I wished the changes although I was afraid. To you it would seem something you've been driven to as a last resort.
I'm glad that you're proceeding under medical supervision, as adjusting combinations and dosages may yet help. If your doctors are understanding, it should at least be easier to experiment than if you were on your own.
QuoteGiven that you just want to be a normal man, why did you choose the name Jayne01 for this forum? Quote
The name is meaningless. I am not very imaginative at coming up with usernames. It just a name that keeps me anonymous. It's a transgender forum so I figured that a male would pick a female name. As I said, I am not a creative person.
My apologies if this question seemed inappropriate. It just crossed my mind that people tend to react differently if someone going by e.g. Brian expresses distress about this inner voice—and I wanted to eliminate the possibility that you were more accepting of it when you registered on the forum than you are now.
QuoteI hope this clarifies some things for you.
Yes it does. Thank you.
