What are some of the emotional changes you went through being on T? How did you feel emotionally before and after?

Quote from: Organous on November 28, 2013, 04:45:22 PM
What are some of the emotional changes you went through being on T? How did you feel emotionally before and after?

I feel like it is a lot harder for me to get choked up about something. You know that feeling in your throat where it's like a huge lump and your eyes well up? It takes a lot more "heart ache" to get that feeling for me now after 3 months on T. I find though It's a lot easier to pinpoint exactly how I am feeling and express that.

Quote from: thatboyfresh on November 28, 2013, 04:51:34 PM
I feel like it is a lot harder for me to get choked up about something.

This, and it also takes a lot to get to the actual crying stage. After starting T I have cried once despite of having a lot of "opportunities" to do so. And even that one time was over the ending of one game, meh...

I have also noticed that I have more mellow reactions to certain things where I would've normally lost my temper and whatnot else. It's more like "oh well" and shrug these days. But when I get more reaction out, it's much more intense than it used to be.

I don't know if this counts as an emotional change but I'm more straight-forward with my opinions nowadays. I used to keep a lot of them to myself mostly because I didn't want to start a s*itstorm. Now, I don't care if I start a storm. I have a right to my opinion just like everyone else. I guess that's increased confidence?

Before T, I was a basket-case.  I'm not exaggerating.  I was looney - I would cry, scream, feel anger and rage and depression and overreact to the slightest perceived insult or hurt.  I couldn't control my emotions and self-harmed.  I was honestly feeling out of control and suicidal.

When I started T, it was light switching off a light.  It just...stopped.  I became calm and laid back, less reactive to "insults" and hurts.  Less inclined to read into things that people did and said.  But the drawback for me has been losing the ability to feel emotions quite the same in a way - I don't get sad very often anymore.  I struggle to cry, even when someone I love passes away.  The strange thing is that I can still get pretty choked up on certain movies and with beautiful music - but for "real life" issues, it's just not there. 

I've been on T for about a year and a half now, and for me to cry, I have to have just gotten my heart ripped out. Which has happened in the last 6 months, and I was kinda shocked that I could finally cry. Weird thing is, I'm still pretty brokenhearted, but I can't seem to cry. It was just a "do it a couple times and its over" type deal.

I also get angry easier but I've always had somewhat of a temper, not to say that I have some kind of roid raging uncontrollable temper tantrums, but things can frustrate me a lot easier than before. Contrary to what some people worry about, I didn't by any means develop violent tendencies or anything. I'm not sure if its because I'm growing up or if it's because of the T, but I also handle situations a lot better. I can kinda "man up" and hold myself together over things that usually would've constituted a nervous breakdown.

As far as self-consciousness and whatnot, I have a lot more pride nowadays since I feel more comfortable. I'm at a job now where nobody second guesses my name or what I look like, I'm just Jason and that's it. So having that makes the emotions of being in a pre-T/dysphoric/uncomfortable lifestyle a lot less obvious (for lack of a better word). I also used to have some horrible depression, and that's seemed to calm down. Not sure if that's related but I think the handling situations better has made the being depressed die down. All in all I feel pretty good. T has done a lot of good for me I think. A lot of changes that I needed and I think it aided me in growing up, especially since sometimes being trans will make people feel like their growth as people has been "stunted".

The emotional changes have been the best part for me. I finally feel normal. I used to be so emotional, the slightest thing would set me off and I was annoyed at everything all the time. Annoyed or depressed were my two default settings. Now I'm just like "whatever" about most things that would usually have sent me into a rage. I sleep much better because I don't have my brain rambling about a thousand stupid worries every night. It's all just been switched off, the brain fog is gone, and my actual personality finally has a chance to shine through. I'm infinitely more confident and happy on T.

I'm not on T atm but I am taking a self-designed OTC mix that has actually tossed my T levels through the roof on their own, though it's mostly an experiment so who knows how long it will last. Point is I used to be very emotional, think things out a lot (such as if someone had a bad day, I instantly had a bad day, and thought about it for a week). But, lately my mind frame has totally changed. I feel relaxed and generally unemotional. I really don't feel anything but baseline for more than an hour or two and focus a lot on the task at hand or immediate present. Once in a blue moon I'll get fits of aggression where I get inconsolably angry for no good reason, but it's super rare. I would say it's actually a relief to feel this way Vs. the last 22 years of my life! I have a feeling that treatment with LOW dose T could help a lot of emotional disorders in people who react similarly to myself.

I'm still a mush and I still cry, but definitely a lot less than before.  It's not that I'm colder, just more chill, and things don't affect me as much.  I'm relatively low key.

I can echo much of what others have said here. I still can get emotional, sad, angry, whatever, but it does feel a lot different. I only cry if I am really really sad - before I used to cry at many emotions, like frustration. I can very easily say that I feel better all in all. It was an adjustment at first though.

Okay, completely off thread here, but the nerd in me has to ask.

QuoteAnd even that one time was over the ending of one game, meh...

What game? I have my suspicions!

Quote from: Mr.X on November 30, 2013, 03:49:53 AM
Okay, completely off thread here, but the nerd in me has to ask.

What game? I have my suspicions!

Persona 3. |D I actually started bawwing already during the last boss battle.

My suspicions were wrong! I thought it was ME 3. That ending plain sucked, but was very sad as well.

Sorry for pushing this thread off target. Do continue.

It is harder for me to get angry or frustrated, but I have more of an urge to hit people when they piss me off. My feelings are more condensed and direct than before. It helps with the crying because my feelings aren't a smorgasbord of feels.

I have been talking about this topic with many trans guys before and almost each one of them told me that after starting testosterone, they were incapable to cry, no matter what happened. Some of them have told me that they really missed being able to cry but that never was problem to me. You know, before going on testosterone, I was really moody. One moment, I was laughing out loud and the another moment I was crying - it was insane. But after going on testosterone, I turned much more stabile with my emotions. Nowadays I feel I can trust my own emotions the way I wasn't able to do before going on testosterone.

A lot of the same things happened to me too, like not getting choked up as easy as before. The ASPCA commercial still gets me slightly but no surfacing tears anymore. I find also that I have an easier time pinpointing why I'm upset or mad and I don't mind letting someone know what I think anymore, when before I was too afraid to get on someone's bad side. And before I started on T I had ended up pushing my family, friends and everyone away because I didn't feel like anyone would want me around, like I wasn't good enough or like people wouldn't want me there, but I don't feel that way anymore and I want to be around my family and friends now. I'm getting to know everyone again as Brayden and I'm completely comfortable. I guess my confidence has just gotten a big boost after starting on T.

Quote from: thatboyfresh on November 28, 2013, 04:51:34 PM
I find though It's a lot easier to pinpoint exactly how I am feeling and express that.

Heh, it's interesting seeing this from the other side. I'm a month and a half on E and so far I've cried for no reason at all and a few times I've felt a ball of emotions in my stomach that I can't seem to identify, but it's kind of intense.

Quote from: Ashey on November 30, 2013, 04:30:36 PM
Heh, it's interesting seeing this from the other side. I'm a month and a half on E and so far I've cried for no reason at all and a few times I've felt a ball of emotions in my stomach that I can't seem to identify, but it's kind of intense.

No wonder guys say women are so difficult to understand..

on topic, it was easier to get over anger and sadness. Before once I started to feel those emotions it was like a torrent and it was difficult to get out of that thinking. While now with just a simple distraction I'm over it.

I have a lot of the same things to say. Overall, I think that my emotions in general are more muted--which does not mean "robotic" or "soulless," it just means that they aren't subject to the sparklefire peaks or horrifying abysses that I used to experience. Within about six hours of my shot, especially, I feel really, really chill for awhile. Frankly, I don't miss the higher highs that much, and every time my levels dip and I get a glimpse of what it used to be like to feel fear, pain, and sorrow, I'm glad to be done with it. I'll take a smaller range and a steadier helm, as it were.

Pain is a different story for me now, too. Really horrible serious pain is still as bad, of course (my nurse declined to bring me my pain medication on time once while I was recovering from hysto, and I bawled like an infant) but if we're talking about everyday, banged-your-shin-on-the-coffee-table pain, it has much less of an emotional effect. For the first time in my life, pain was only pain, and a late-night coffee table mishap didn't make me tear up like my best friend just slapped me in the face.

The thing about crying is true for some people. One day when I had had a bad, dysphoric day a few months after I started T, I came home and decided to just cry in my bedroom to get the feelings out and be done with it. But...it just wasn't in the drop-down menu anymore. I tried for a few minutes, profoundly puzzled, but it was like trying to hiccup on purpose. I sat there going "Hnnnnhh....hnnnnnnnnh" for a bit and then I was like, well, s***, what do I do now? Turned out that physical exercise was helpful, as was writing my feelings down, which used to just make me angrier/sadder/more whatever-bad-feeling. Finding ways of coping with it is an individual thing, though, and some guys seem to still have good access to crying when they want to. Note that I started on a much lower dose of T than is standard, so you may get this even if you go low and slow.

I have not noticed increased aggression. Transition on the whole enabled me to let go of a lot of my rage toward the world in general, and it seems to be easier to say "whatever, f*** you" when I'm cut off in traffic and forget it instead of steaming for hours.

I will go against the grain, since my experiences have been different. I'm just as able to cry now as I was almost two years ago. I haven't gotten a worse temper, I'm more chill but it's my life that has changed, not my emotions. I'm in a better place in relation to my body and my life, which had resulted in being calmer. I don't think hormones change your emotions. It's everything else around you. If you have a stressful life, you'll be just as stressed regardless of hormones.

I think the things you expect are what changes your emotions. I didnt think I would cry less because anyone who says men cry less hasn't been paying attention. People argue that point to me but my father bawled like a baby at the birth if each of his kids. He cried when any of us were hurt, hell he cries at the end of some movies.

I didnt expect anything about my emotions to change and they haven't. The mind is a powerful thing. If you think that hormones will change you into being what is considered by your culture to be male, you probably will. But I think it's more about falling into societal norms than hormones muting your emotions and turning you into a tearless rage fiend. My sex drive didnt even change, I'm just more comfortable being those situations now that I was.

But like I said, people tell me that I'm an "extreme" case and that I am not "normal" for a trans guy. YMMV.

Quote from: Ayden on December 01, 2013, 12:13:17 AM
I don't think hormones change your emotions.

I have to disagree. Hormones can definitely have an effect on your emotional state. I know for me, there are things I didn't expect. And emotions I can't even identify. It's all a result of the change in hormones. If you feel they aren't affecting your emotions, well, it's possible too. Like you said, YMMV. *shrugs*