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What were some of the first psychological changes after starting hrt?

Started by Andarta, May 01, 2012, 07:19:28 PM

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Andarta

Quote from: Erin on May 09, 2012, 08:09:24 PMAlso, amen to the zero sex drive thank god.

How many days in did it take for it to go to zero for you? it has been significantly reduced for me to maybe about 20% lol


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Erin

Quote from: Andarta on May 09, 2012, 08:57:10 PM
How many days in did it take for it to go to zero for you? it has been significantly reduced for me to maybe about 20% lol

Honestly it took me about 5 days before it just dropped off. It's tough to explain but it's like I just forgot I even had a sex drive I just thought to myself "huh?" lol
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kelly_aus

Some don't lose their sex drive.. I haven't, at least not significantly..
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Joelene9

  My sex drive took 2 1/2 weeks to drop off.  There was and still is a calming after that.  Some of the psychological changes crept up on me and I didn't notice on some of them.  I was told by others on those changes. 
  Joelene
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Achila

sucks that one looses libido. Is it for the entire process? will I ever want to get laid again? As a pre-HRT person I am 90% sex-drive, 10% whatever is left of one's personality as a male. Although I do not want to have the sex drive of a cauliflower (lol)..I need hrt to realy bring me into my transitioning self, the female-looking-and-feeling person I aim to be....thus....
Should I take viagra? (lol) or those GNC supplements for men at the peak of my HRT?
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Joelene9

Quote from: Jackie Witt on May 10, 2012, 12:52:12 AM
sucks that one looses libido. Is it for the entire process? will I ever want to get laid again? As a pre-HRT person I am 90% sex-drive, 10% whatever is left of one's personality as a male. Although I do not want to have the sex drive of a cauliflower (lol)..I need hrt to realy bring me into my transitioning self, the female-looking-and-feeling person I aim to be....thus....
Should I take viagra? (lol) or those GNC supplements for men at the peak of my HRT?
Not on all of those taking HRT.  This is one of the biggies that your therapist will tell you if you are considering HRT.  These were some of the questions that I told myself before taking this stuff.  I'm also middle aged and had a prostate problem that HRT is one of the treatments for this even though it is one of the last resort treatments. 
  Joelene
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luna nyan

After a week on HRT on E only I felt better about myself - the buzzing annoyance of my GID dropped off.
Libido started dropping off over 6 weeks - which is a good thing for me as I found it very very distracting.
Started on Spiro 2 weeks ago, and visual turn ons don't do much anymore - very happy about that.
Interestingly as well, I'm performing better at work - much quicker and efficient - I have no idea why that's the case as I thought I couldn't do my job any faster.
Drifting down the river of life...
My 4+ years non-transitioning HRT experience
Ask me anything!  I promise you I know absolutely everything about nothing! :D
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JadeMtF

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Assoluta

It seems like people have drastic changes even a few days on hormones! Im not sure how much of it is psychosomatic and how much is real, because I have often heard huge, dramatic changes based on gender stereotypes, and it might be in part that it's based on the expectation to become that way.

Personally I felt awful for the first three months, I felt anxious, upset and uneasy for the first three months or so, but after that it stabilised, and even six years later I'm not much different in personality to how I was pre hormones. However, I did change hugely in terms of my psychological perception of myself, and I almost feel like a different person to who i was then, just with more or less the same personality traits. I'm not sure whether that was hormones or the fact that transitioning and being perceived differently changed my outlook. Maybe my body isn't really psychologically affected by hormones, as I never went through a stroppy teenager phase, or felt the need to act masculine during my first puberty. As for sex drive, it reduced by about 50 percent, but I could still hang a towel on 'it' even the day before the surgery. Post surgery, I still have the same sex drive as I did just pre surgery I.e. About half of my original 'male' sex drive, so you may not necessarily lose it all.
It takes balls to go through SRS!

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A

Sex drive is largerly psychological. I think most people who have a partner they want to have sex with and are relatively fine with their genitals retain a sexual activity.

As for the intensity and speed of psychological effects on HRT, I think it all comes down to how much T used to negatively affect the person. I think people who best managed to be themselves prior to hormones, despite male hormone levels, feel the least effects.

Also, I think there are personality traits/behaviours that are brought/intensified by T, such as aggressivity, for example. Perhaps one whose "core personality", regardless of gender, includes some of those traits (someone very assertive and straightforward in this example, I guess), or someone who values such behaviours (very liberal people in this example, maybe), would be less negatively affected by testosterone than someone who isn't really aggressive and hates herself for feeling angry. Thus, the personality changes once on HRT would be less apparent to the former than the latter.

And, hm, there's also the sex drive reduction. I think almost all of us lose some amount of sex drive in a purely physical way. That could be a huge encouragement for someone who hates her genitals or sex a lot, and a huge discouragement for someone who has a very active sex life and little genital dysphoria. Hence, the former would feel more happy and free, whilst the latter wouldn't feel that at all. And more happiness tends to make a person's personality change, or at least appear to.
A's Transition Journal
Last update: June 11th, 2012
No more updates
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Floritine

I lost my sex drive which didn't worry me, my mood went from being the nice person that would help you out to a bitch if the wrong thing was said  to me, speaking my mind and saying what others were scared to say cause it may offence someone, I became emotional and a clean freak that doesn't like dirty greasy skin.
But the funny part of my psychological changes were the girls I use to hang around noticed the changes before I did and someone said now you know what we go thought and you better to be around..

Cheers Tracy
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Rebecca Perez

An emotional spectrum I never knew was possible. For this reason only I would never give up hormones. Being a male felt very empty and I felt cut off from people. Now I feel and can express feelings, and I can be with people who are feeling and connect with them.

It's like a whole part of my brain turned on and rapidly (within two weeks of starting). This wasn't a placebo effect or because I was shirking off male constrictions. Real physiological changes.
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Jamie D

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Kelly J. P.

 Welp, for me.... crying is easier, and I feel somewhat more confident/content with myself. Nothing else has changed, really; reading some of the above posts is almost upsetting, as I feel that I've really missed out. Oh wellz...
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A

That, or your personality resisted testosterone to begin with. ~
A's Transition Journal
Last update: June 11th, 2012
No more updates
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Kadri

QuoteBeing a male felt very empty and I felt cut off from people. Now I feel and can express feelings, and I can be with people who are feeling and connect with them.

Yes, I feel like that too. For me being able to do this also has something to do with not being seen as male and therefore not a potential partner.

I find that I let things go more easily.

I have a lost a lot of intellectual drive, and a lot of ability to concentrate on difficult concepts and learn new things....and I don't really mind!

I will get into a crying mood every now and again, but I feel better after having let it all out than having the constant dull dissatisfaction with life that I used to have.

As far as male sex-drive goes, estrogen started to strangle it after about a fortnight, and went on suppressing it for six months. Cyproterone killed it instantly. This was something I was prepared for, and in some ways this was a relief and a release, but I also felt a bit sad about it. Not only was the drive gone but sexual attraction to people also disappeared too. It is a bit of a downer to realise that you simply cannot feel any more what most people enjoy and take for granted.

After five months of living like that, something else seems to have grown in the place of the male libido which gives me hope that a sex drive of some sort is coming back. It's hard to explain, but it is a bit like a toned-down version of what went before, and is a feeling that I can enjoy even without desire (or ability) to get my rocks off.
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apple pie

Quote from: Kadri on May 26, 2012, 02:45:20 AM
I have a lost a lot of intellectual drive, and a lot of ability to concentrate on difficult concepts and learn new things....and I don't really mind!

Hmmm I would mind a lot if I start being unable to learn difficult things! I wouldn't want to be thought of as a dumb girl...
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Kadri

Haha...Yes, point taken!

I'm actually talking forgetting how to do some very complicated stuff meaningless to the world at large. It's kind of a relief not to constantly have to analyse and compute a constantly shifting array of thoughts around in my mind. Sometimes I think that a lot of it was a tactic to put me of thinking about my own problems in the first place.

What I have lost in ability to process and learn, I have gained in contentment with life, So I think it's a good trade-off in the end.
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Julie Wilson

Immediate sense of peace and of feeling "right".  Awful out-of-control (feeling) sex drive replaced with a sense of owning my body again.  I remained a sexual being but felt less like a cart and more like a horse or less like a horse and more like a carrot on a stick (as time went on).
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kathy bottoms

I get real mad sometimes about smaller issues.  There is an odd calm-anxiety about things I control and make decisions about.  Almost like I don't want to decide, or my decision doesn't matter.  I want to cry more, but can still hold back.  And no sex drive at all, but it's almost like I don't care. 

Oh, almost forgot, there is also an overall sensual change or something like that in the background.  Touch, smell and taste?  And I can't explain it.
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