Some of you may have noticed in an earlier thread that my wife, henceforth to be known as "Sweety", had a meeting with my therapist on Tuesday morning. Just after I posted that she asked me when I was going to get ready. It seems that she expected me to go too, so I rushed to get ready and went along. My therapist was a bit surprised but said that she didn't really know which of us to expect. We talked about are trip, talked about our marriage. Mostly I let Sweety do the talking since the point was for my therapist to get to know her.

Finally I decided that I couldn't wait any longer. It didn't seem that there would ever be a better time. So I told her. I told her I'm transgendered. I told her why I couldn't tell her when I first thought I might be. My therapist expounded upon that. Sweety was upset that I hadn't told her as soon as I had an inkling but mostly seemed to be taking it well. Knowing her, I'm pretty sure that at that point she was just numb and she did say she was liable to blow up later. She had that day scheduled off and I decided to take it off too.

We got the cars serviced, went home and cleaned the bedroom and I installed the air conditioners for the year. As questions came up I tried to answer them and was as patient as possible.

Sweety doesn't quite believe I'm trans and I've promised to provide her with information. Shortly after 9/11 I developed PTSD. I was in NYC that day. About the same time I started developing symptoms I now recognize as low testosterone. She attributes my feelings to both of those although she tries very hard not to invalidate what I say. She can't understand why I say that I will probably not surgically transition. She did say that if I start looking like a woman it will be over and we will divorce. She says that even then she'll be my friend. although I'm skeptical of that I take her at her word.

She wants me to try HRT with testosterone. I've agreed to be open minded with my doctor and my eventual endocrinologist and to ask them how they think I should proceed.

Has anyone tried this? Regardless of how you answer I'll still discuss this with the endo, so be honest. You won't greatly affect my decision.

As part of giving her all the data she needs I'll direct her here. I'm a little scared because when I do she'll have access to all of my posts, posts written off the cuff, while I was trying to get my head around things and understand. Posts that I'm sure will spark further pain and strife. At that point I'll stop reading and posting here at least for a while. It won't be my safe place any longer. Hopefully it will be hers.

Right now I wish I had kept my mouth shut. I wished I had never figured out what's been wrong with me so long!

It's almost sad to have to reply to my own post. *sniff!*

Things are better now. My dysphoria has eased and Sweety is mostly treating me as she ever did. I guess when things didn't immediately start to rocket out of control she came to believe that I was trying to be careful. My plans remain the same. Doctor in two weeks, then schedule with the endo. I've put together the research I promised. She lets me be affectionate and mostly is talking to me again.

I don't know how this is going to go, but my bet would be "badly". I'll enjoy each day with her as if it might be the last, because it might.

I still want to know if anyone has tried T therapy when they're MAAB. It would seem not, though. Additional research pointed out that there may be genetic reasons, at least for some of us, why T isn't effective.

I'm going the wrong way to answer you. I did read it and think someone would answer. I've heard that taking T if you are MTF, makes the dysphoria worse.

I'm also headed the other way, and know that extra E certainly harmed me far more than helped me.
I know that's completely different, though.
Hopefully somebody will notice this and answer. If not, maybe make a new thread with a more specific title.
And much luck with your Sweety.

Quote from: LordKAT on May 31, 2014, 01:37:47 PM
I'm going the wrong way to answer you. I did read it and think someone would answer. I've heard that taking T if you are MTF, makes the dysphoria worse.

That is my belief and what I'm risking to settle the question once and for all, one way or the other, assuming my future endo doesn't nix the experiment.

I had low T and developed dysphonia to the point of needing to transition or stop the pain another way. I never used  T.

I can share that 3 days in on E, spiro and finasteride and I started to respond very favorably mentally. I have heard the dysphonia would have gotten worse on more T. I do not think I could have taken that, so be very careful.

My wife said the same as yours about the T  and looking feminine.

from what I have been through, the treating the low T did nothing for me...to be honest...my own inner feelings, alcohol, and depression I am certain brought about my low T...I do not deny I turned to drinking to cope with my feelings.  I am happier now then I have been in 50 yrs!!!

A little over two years ago, I saw my GP about being moody, no energy, etc.. Blood work showed low T..   I was already battling (what I discovered was bad dysphoria) feeling just plain wrong in many ways..  After seeing many AndroGel 1.62 commercials, I asked him abt it.. Hoping it would fix... something.. Help me fit in, keep playing the part..  I didn't know what.. well 7mos on it and I was a raging lunatic!  I was Shrek on Acid!  I cudda played the lead in that new Godzilla movie..   I was feeling horrible, so stopped it.  I was not on any female HRT then.. I think.. The AGel finally was a wake up call that something was just not right with me..

The week or so after stopping the AGel, I started slowly getting better, well, at least no raging bull anymore.  It was another 7mos time before I began my herbal HRT and really began getting right with my mind, and body.  AndroGel... Reeeeeally bad stuff... And now you can't find a channel that doesn't have the lawyer commercials for T Gel damages..

I'm doing that experiment right now.. My mother is half aware of my gender stuff and while at first she was loving and accepting she turned cold fast once I told her I was thinking about stopping my testosterone HRT. I never went thought puberty so they want me to take T to get that going. When I told her that she turned far more cold hearted and paranoid. So, in an effort to help show that taking T won't help, I took one of the every 2-3 week injections, and have been recording my progress. I'm almost done with it, as it's been 3 weeks. After the first most of a week, I felt an increase in wanting to be girly, and an increase in feeling like a girl. I felt it, more clearly than ever, that inside I was a girl, not a boy. Along with it increased need to be girly, and after a bit, some depression. I was super happy and bubbly for the first week, perhaps because if anything my gender because clearer to me. After that I've had more daily depression and a few worse episodes at night. i'd not taken T in more than 2 months, and I'd gone well over a month before injection without more than minor depression. If anything to me this shows that T doesn't help at all. That said, if I told my mom the results, she would invalidate my entire effort, convincing herself that unless I did it for months so that the T dosage was normal for months at a time, the test didn't prove anything as it could be an initial reaction.

But at least the test has helped me figure myself out. ^~^