HRT may be working too well

[AnamethatstartswithE]

So I'm a day shy of 6 weeks on HRT. The mental effects have been great, I'd been living with a baseline level of anxiety most of my life, and now it's gone. I think more clearly, and I feel my cognition in general has gotten better. I used to get "stuck" on thoughts which would go through my head over and over again. Now not only has that stopped, my "need" to be feminine has gone too. I can just go through my day without really thinking about it. In essence the medicine that stops me from wanting to be a woman is turning me into a woman. Since that deep seated need isn't there, it makes thinking about things like RLE and surgery seem like a lot to go through for something that no longer bothers me.

I know that some people will take the hormones without socially transitioning, maybe that's what I'll do. I think part of me wouldn't be content since I don't like all of the secrecy. On the other hand if I can be content like this without further altering my body that might seem more prudent. I don't need to make any immediate decision, but I do worry I'll end up stuck in between for the rest of my life. Any words of wisdom out there?

[Randi]

This is not uncommon.  In some people testosterone causes dysphoria.  Eliminating the testosterone nearly eliminates the dysphoria.  Anne Vitale has written about this:  http://www.avitale.com/TNote15Testosterone.htm 

There's no way to win here.  Taking estrogen eliminates my dysphoria, but I end up with a feminine body that I like OK, but with the dysphoria gone, it's nothing special.

I still present as a man, but my body has changed a lot in the past 10 years.  I occasionally take a shot of testosterone to give me back some energy and strength, but after a few weeks the dysphoria comes back.

Life is too difficult without estrogen, so that's the way its going to be.  Sometimes I think I have more in common with FTMs than with MTFs.

[Charlie Nicki]

I'm just starting too and my advice is, take it one step at a time, one day at a time. You don't need to make all decisions now. I was rushing and crashed, so I am slowing down now. Just go with the flow and see how you feel, time will tell you if you need to take it one step further or not.

[judithlynn]

Hi Ana;

Have a look at the post on Low dose transitioning by Luna Ryan.

Basically I have been on a Progynova only HRT  for nearly 5 years and this has kept the dysphoria at bay, but over time the T will re-bound and the only option is to ask your Doctor to increase the medication.  However over time as you increase, you go from a low dose to a transitioning dose. It will be hard to find the right balance. Right now you feeling that after 6 weeks - you don't think  you now need to transition, unfortunately will not last. You will find that you go in sort of waves and plateaus. After 6 weeks you have probably hit your first plateaux.  Over the last 5 years I have had 6 sort of plateaux,  and end the end the dysphoria returns and the T level rises. Until you get your T levels down to a normal female level - between 0.00 to 2.5, you will still get these dysphoric breakouts. But on the other hand with Estrogen in the 240-300 level, you will get feminisation. How much will  depend on your genetics.

I cannot discuss my dosage levels, but I can tell you that I tend to fluctuate it on a cyclical basis, which I find works for me. So my dosage is higher for the first couple of weeks and then I lower it  from Day 16 to day 24, increasing it back on Day 25.

Interestingly I find that I am the most productive work wise between days 16-24, but in days 1-15 I can be in a bit of a feminine haze.

Of course with this increase, just as  an Adolescent girl, your mammary ducts and areolae will enlarge  and you will get the appearance of fatty tissue that cushions your pelvic area with the distinctly female soft flesh, with ideally feminine rounded curves of the breasts, hips, buttocks and thighs . Of course this is the somatic emblem of a woman's sexual essence.
Judith

[JoanneB]

I've been on & off low dose HRT several times over the decades to "Quiet the noise". For me even at low dose levels after about 3 weeks It was working.

Today, I've been doing full feminizing HRT and especially the AA for about 8 years. I also still live and present primarily male.

Balance

[SadieBlake]

Right now you feeling that after 6 weeks - you don't think  you now need to transition, unfortunately will not last. You will find that you go in sort of waves and plateaus. After 6 weeks you have probably hit your first plateaux.  Over the last 5 years I have had 6 sort of plateaux,  and end the end the dysphoria returns and the T level rises.
....
Interestingly I find that I am the most productive work wise between days 16-24, but in days 1-15 I can be in a bit of a feminine haze.

Judith, that's your experience, the OP may have a quite different one, certainly my experience doesn't match what you're saying -- my T levels went straight to feminine range when I started estrogen and because I was leery of the effects of spironolactone on potassium levels, I never took any and observed that physical and emotional changes were everything I wanted - testing verified that I didn't need an AA.

My thought processes also became more clear with estrogen and the two times I cycled off, one as a test, the other mandatory prior to vaginoplasty surgery both returned me to an unquiet mind.

OP, like you, one of the things I experienced on starting HRT was finally feeling feminine and hence greatly reduced urgency or obsession with transition. On the other hand I was pretty sure from the same time I decided on HRT that I'd be proceeding to GCS, however ultimately HRT made that "just a decision" -- one that I'm completely happy with today.

To me transitioning socially means how I relate and communicate with people, where most folks here seem to use that term to indicate passing physically. Whatever the name, I've been working actively to move my mind and interactions to a more feminine place for a couple of decades, however HRT obviated much of that, much of what I'd had to do the hard way began to simply come naturally.

[laurenb]

If you're in a good place right now, I say just ride it. I'm almost a year into HRT (December). My internal chemistry is now fully inside the female range. While I'm on record as saying my transition is a very slow process, it may in fact be so slow as to never actually cross into full social transition. I feel so much better relative to my former dysphoric state. There's so many serious factors to weigh relative to social transition. Family relationships and the not insignificant costs and the societal attitudes. My therapist says that I present as a soft male. As time goes on, I can part time present female better and better. I'm kinda old (pushing 60) and in a stable marriage so presenting male doesn't require me to look highly masculine anyway. I already present earthy-crunchy androgynous hippy style. And since the libido left the building, I have this level of serenity I've never had. I'm enjoying my female friends and I think they mostly react to me as if I were just another woman anyway. I can part time present and as time goes on I intend to come out as trans without the full on social transition to most people I know. For me this is a more comfortable approach and as I male-fail more often there won't be any surprised looks. I probably wouldn't have SRS done since I'm not a big fan of surgery (or the completely dysfunctional health care system) nor do those disappearing things down there bother that much, so that's not that much of a factor. Anyhow - for what it's worth - that's me doing me. Good luck, take your time and enjoy the peace.

[Deborah]

My T level has never risen again either.  It took a year to get it down to the bottom but since then it's stayed there without change to the point that I have reduced my spiro dose.

If I might be philosophical for a moment I think you need to ask yourself what is your purpose in taking HRT right now.  Is it to feel good and without dysphoria or is it to make a full and immediate social transition?  If it's to feel good then all is well if you are feeling good now.  Don't worry about what comes later as that will come in its own time.

Like you, I thought I needed an immediate full social transition before I started HRT.  How could I have known anything different?  I had never felt normal for my entire life and didn't even know what that meant.  All I knew was continuous and never ending dysphoria.  Now that it's mostly gone I just live for today's happiness.

Other than my voice, this isn't really about passing or not passing.  I present somewhat androgynous all the time and get gendered female or not at all most of the time now anyway.  It's more about all the things that Lauren wrote above.

Sometimes it feels that in this forum or in the trans community at large there is a sort of stigma against those of us not rushing full speed ahead.  I just quit worrying about it.  I was different before and apparently I am still different but now I am free to be me without dysphoria and all it's crippling effects.  If what I need to do later to keep the dysphoria away changes then I'll worry about that then.


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[AnamethatstartswithE]

Thank you everyone for the input. I think part of my problem is that I have a "once I decide to do something, I do the hell out of it" type of personality. I do also worry about deciding that I'm happy with this and then hitting mail fail. I don't know, this whole experience is just so far outside of what a normal human goes through that it can be very vexing.

[laurenb]

Once I decide to ... remember we ex-males are socialized and taught to be this way. It is a learned behavior mostly in men but also in type A women. I used to run. I started to in order to lose weight when my son was born. It turned into road races and then a marathon and then cycling and then cycling double centuries. Finish what your start. Do what you say you're going to do. All or nothing. OMG it's crazy.

At one point my hip gave out and I had it replaced. No more running. I started walking. One has to exercise unless you have a physical job (I'm a engineer so...). Walking is hard to get obsessive about but it's only an example. Then I started on HRT. Wow. After some time I realized I don't have to obsess and be objective driven. I can be with things and decide how to react. I don't have to be the winner of some race going on in my head. Let the HRT take some of the load of being male for so long off.

[Charlie Nicki]

Thank you everyone for the input. I think part of my problem is that I have a "once I decide to do something, I do the hell out of it" type of personality. I do also worry about deciding that I'm happy with this and then hitting mail fail. I don't know, this whole experience is just so far outside of what a normal human goes through that it can be very vexing.

Oh I can totally understand that. I can be very indecisive as well so whenever I do decide something I'm like "ok I have to do it RIGHT NOW and do all of it before I lose my drive again". It happened with transitioning as well, but I learnt the hard way that nothing good comes from rushing.

OP, like you, one of the things I experienced on starting HRT was finally feeling feminine and hence greatly reduced urgency or obsession with transition.

This is happening to me right now. I'm on HRT and it seems like it's enough, for now. Don't really want to go back but I'm not in a rush to move forward either. I'm just going with the flow.

[AnamethatstartswithE]

I used to run. I started to in order to lose weight when my son was born. It turned into road races and then a marathon and then cycling and then cycling double centuries. Finish what your start. Do what you say you're going to do. All or nothing. OMG it's crazy.

he he he, on Sunday I'm doing my 11th marathon.

[Shellie Hart]

I'm one of those that is only privately transitioning. I already had the somewhat-typical female shaped body (mostly because of very long legs with a small torso) but HRT has put me on the fast-track in that my shape is truly feminine now and is pretty impossible to hide anymore. It's my choice and I'll deal with it as things progress. My breasts are still growing (after 18 months) and are now my most obvious "feature." I gotta admit I hope they stop growing soon. I am working hard at ignoring the looks and glances, but the future is a bit scary, I have to admit. I can tell some people have a hard time processing seeing a dude's face on a woman's body. As I've said a million times, with HRT be careful what you wish for. As for me, HRT is definitely working too well....

[RavenMoon]

This is fascinating. I too, have had anxiety all my life. Not exactly low grade, but it's a constant buzz in the background. Some days it really causes me problems.

I'm a month away from turning 60, so it's been with me since I was a kid. Some times it's not noticeable.

Lately my dysphoria is kicking my butt. I'm not in HRT yet. I'm very sure I'd feel better.

If you think about it, for cis people, they don't desire to be female or male, they just are. So it makes sense that estrogen would alleviate that urge. 

But I won't be happy until I look in the mirror and see the person I see in my head. That will be a great day indeed.

Just wish I started 20 years ago (at least)


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