Hellooooo.
It’s been a while so before I delve into today’s topic I just wanted to bring you up to speed on what’s been going on in my life. At the moment my friend has moved into the condo temporarily and it looks like we will probably get an apartment together out in town. My wife/ex wants’ me out of her life so the sooner the better. Over the course of this weekend I need figure out how to go about renting out the room I’m currently staying in and I also need to do some preliminary apartment hunting.
My dysphoria has been bad lately. I know that there’s only so much I can do regarding my physical appearance, but in my eyes I don’t look nearly feminine enough to ever blend in. Sometimes I really just feel like a tall awkward guy in drag and it sucks. I kind of bounce back and forth from being really happy with the changes that have occurred to my body, to feeling like I’ll never be accepted as female no matter what I do. I have a male mind also and while in guy mode I’m perfectly happy with the feminization of my body (as I realize it’s the only way I’ll be happy) I also balk at the idea of going all uber fem. I’m just a very non-conforming person and it’s complicating my transition, which is already a complicated process as it is. Yay transbigenderqueer.
What I really wanted to write about today are the changes in my emotions that I’m going through on HRT. It’s been five months since I got my first shot and while I’ve undergone some major physical changes I’ve also been experiencing various changes mentally as well. One of the most profound changes is how I experience and express my emotions.
I’ve been a sensitive and emotional person all my life. However, on testosterone I never really wanted to express those emotions to anyone in a significant way. Men are typically taught that non-aggressive emotional expressions are a sign of weakness, probably because said non-aggressive emotions are often times associated with femininity. By that logic, society teaches that women are inherently weaker than men, which goes to show you how deeply ingrained misogyny is in our culture. But I digress.
In addition to being taught not to express my emotions as a male, there’s also a hormonal factor that plays into it which most people aren’t aware of. Since I’ve been on estrogen I’ve noticed a huge increase on how powerful my emotions are. It’s like as a male my emotions were present, but they were dull and fuzzy like the image on an old CRT television set and now as a female I’ve switched to a big screen plasma HD television and all my emotions are bright, shard and vivid.
Now I find myself wanting to talk about my emotions with other people and wanting them to empathize with me. Also I want other people share their emotions with me as well and now I user stand why many women have such a hard time communicating with men, and why they sometimes complain that their boyfriend/husband is emotionally distant. Men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus; they just have different hormones plus cultural conditioning. It’s actually pretty cool to have experienced it from both sides and now I have a much better understanding of how those gender differences play out in interpersonal relationships because of it.
All my emotions have been turned up to 11 now. Before estrogen when I’d see a kitten I’d think, “Awww, that’s cute.” Now it’s more like, “OMG IT’S SOOOO CUTE!!! SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!” As a man I would cry sometimes, but typically not for more than 10 minutes at the very most. Now I can literally cry for hours sometimes and I can’t stop the tears until I’m “done”. I’m also experiencing a strange desire to hug people. I don’t know if that’s an emotional thing or what. It’s weird but it all feels natural.
If I could travel into the past and tell myself about how my emotions were going to change I bet it would have freaked me the hell out. Now however I wouldn’t trade this for the world. I feel so much more alive now, like this is how I was always supposed to have experienced the world. I always used to feel so detached from reality where now I feel as though I’m a part of everything.
Hormones – they’re neat!
Paige
