Cheetaking243's Official Hormone Trial!

[foxytaur (imported)]

Oh yeah if you get cramps on higher Spiro eat foods with rich calcium source.

B9 and folic acid suplements needed.

Electrolytes diminish so here is where I agree with you to indulge a tiny bit in salty potato chips.

(Just a tiny bit to level things off)

I love ketchup flavoured old dutch chips nummy. Haven't had these in a while.

If you haven't had ketchup flavour you don't know what your missing. They are heaaaavveeenly good P

[Hildy_ (imported)]

Usually 100mg is the avg or standard. Anything above will render T extremely low.

Your spiro must be stronger than mine then. I'm on 150 mg/day and my testosterone is at average levels.. for a male.

It's to be expected though; spiro blocks at the receiving end (cellular receptors) and barely if at all at the producing end (testes).

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

Sigh... castration is looking like a better and better option with every single day, honestly. After what I've experienced for the last week straight, I am DONE with testosterone. I'm still feeling like total s*** tonight, still feeling masculine, and still feel like there's just this foggy block up there in my head keeping me from feeling "right" and feeling happy like every other normal human being on the face of the earth. It sucks so much to be back in this "dull gray drear" mindset again after being freed from it, and finally feeling like my brain was working right, for almost 2 months straight. F***. F***, f***, f***, and f*** some more, I HATE this. This seriously is going to be the longest week of my entire life. I genuinely have doubts about whether I can make it or not. The Androcur is on standby if I start feeling suicidally depressed again. I'd rather have inaccurate lab results than be dead. And yes, it really does feel that bad right now. Every single day is an absolute battle. I don't know how the hell I put up with this for 14 years of my life. I guess it was just because I didn't know any better, and didn't know that it was possible to feel a different way. I suspected that there was, but I had never experienced such a thing. But now that I have indeed experienced true happiness, and experienced what it's like to have a mind that FINALLY felt like it was working right, like that block was gone and like I was finally free to feel happy, but now that happiness is gone again, it just feels like complete and absolute torture to suffer through every single day. NOTHING makes me happy right now. At least not truly happy. The closest I can get to "happy" right now is more along the lines of "something that took my mind off the pain for a while, and it made me smile, so it made me feel a little bit better." And until the beginning of this hormone trial, that was all I ever knew as happiness, were those things that made me feel better... not really happy, but at least a bit self-fulfilled and a bit better. And again, it SUCKS to feel this way. Again, it's like my brain just is not working right anymore.

I seriously am beginning to think that my brain developed female, and that is why it has always felt wrong to have testosterone in my body, and felt like it is not working right, and why I have always identified as female. Because my mind is. It was designed to run on estrogen. And now with T getting in the way again, it's back to feeling like it's maybe working at half-capacity at best.

Sigh... I have a SERIOUS headache right now. I'm going to have to go to bed, and hope against hope that somehow I'll start feeling better again before this week is up. Again, every single day for the next week is going to be a test of endurance, as I try as absolutely hard as I can to not break out the Androcur again before my doctor's appointment next Thursday.

1 day down, 7 to go.

Argh... this seriously is going to be the worst week of my entire life.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

Well...after you have blood taken, it wouldn't be as bad to take the androcur. Eventually the estrogen should shutdown the baby makers/ I'm not sure how long that takes and everyone is different.

Keep the faith you're on the path..

[transward (imported)]

I suspect you are overthinking this. You seem to be assuming that change will be a steady, uniform progress in one direction towards your goal. That is not how biological processes, including the effects of hormones, work. If you want to see a graphic similar to how your transition under hormones will go, fire up a financial site that shows the last six month of the daily Dow Jones Average. Over that time the Dow has risen considerable, but from day to day the progress has more resembled a Drunkard's Walk, (that is how mathematicians describe such movement) Within that overall gain, there were losing and winning streaks If you continue and grow breasts, that growth will be in spurts, followed by plateaus, where you will think they are done growing. Some days they will shrink. Then they will become painful and then another growth spurt, followed by another plateau. Most processes work that way. Read the lives of the Saints. In their work towards their goals, see how many doubts they had, how often they backslid, how many demons they had to wrestle. Look at the way the tide comes in, a wave comes in, retreats, then comes in a little further. If you are plotting your weight loss, it will have the same pattern.

The way you seem to be taking your emotional temperature daily makes it far too easy to miss the forest while looking at the trees. Your body has at least a dozen other hormones. Science has identified a number of different biological rhythms. Your weight may fluctuate 3-4 pounds as your body retains and eliminates water. Trying to evaluate the effects of E and blockers daily in the midst of all these changes is like trying to see the long term effects of climate change by looking at day to day temperatures. It is only by looking at the the effects over a greater period of time that you can get an accurate picture. This is why most weight loss programs advise against weighing yourself every day.

Plus it leads to a sort of emotional or spiritual hypochondria. If you look too hard for symptoms, you will find them whether you have them or not. Remember before you started hormones. You had up days and down days. Days you felt you could conquer the world, and days you felt you were lost before you got out of bed. Almost everybody does. But now that you are experimenting with hormones, those day to day changes have to be a rise in T levels. (though I agree your dose of Spiro is low, particularily on a dose per kg. basis. According to info on this site

http://www.eunuch.org/forums/showthread.php?

12114-Due-to-requests-chemical-castration-protocal-with-optional-levels-of-feminizing "To Lower Testosterone: 100mg 2x Day Spirotone (Spironolactone)" and I have seen some doctors prescribe more) I would suggest doing the kind of self evaluation you are doing no more often than every 10 day or so.

You talked of not trying to be someone else and being yourself. There is an unstated premise here that you know who you are. But for most of us trans folk that is what we are exploring to discover. If everybody knew who they were, Socrates would not have had to tell his students that "the unexamined life is not worth living," and "know thyself," advice that was already ancient when he spoke. You learned how to walk and talk and act through a stimulus response cycle with the world. A girl child flounces, and giggles and tosses her hair; adults smile and radiate approval A boy child doing the same is met with frowns and disapproval. At puberty a girl sticks out her chest and swing he hips and gets lots of positive attention and rewards. A boy behaving thus gets beat up. Without a word passing the children are being trained in their gender roles. If you try to break that conditioning, it is going to feel unnatural at first. You will feel like you are trying to be someone else. But that is not the real "who you are" Learning who you are is like peeling an onion. You keep finding new layers of being. And for us it is not only a process of discovery, it is also an act of creation. We are creative artists and our art form is ourselves.

So between your periodic self examinations, I would suggest what contemplatives call self observation. Watch yourself, not from the inside, what you think you are, but like studying a stranger, like Jane Goodall observing chimps in Africa. Just watch. Objectively see how you behave, not how you think you behave. Close observation will probably show you you do not behave the way you think you do. People who think they are self controlled go berserk when cut off in traffic. We all lie far more to ourselves than we do to others.

Good luck. Have fun. Don't take yourself too seriously.

Transward

[Jorge2008 (imported)]

It's rather one of those ''your mileage will vary'' things. If I remember correctly, I ended up taking 250 mg of Spiro with zero effect.

Your spiro must be stronger than mine then. I'm on 150 mg/day and my testosterone is at average levels.. for a male.

It's to be expected though; spiro blocks at the receiving end (cellular receptors) and barely if at all at the producing end (testes).

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

Transward, I really do appreciate the support, and the attempt to make me feel better.

But by this point, I believe that there is little doubt left that this mood swing is indeed a T recovery. You're 100% right, I didn't know what it was for several days. I thought it was just my moods going up and down. It was only by looking at the long-term pattern, and started looking at the continuous symptoms, that I started to realize what was going on.

If this was just a few days, I would understand how it could be seen as overreacting. But I believe that the pattern is completely unmistakable. It has now been EIGHT days since I've felt feminine, and felt that same sense of mental calm that I had for what was close to a month straight while I was still on Androcur. And you're 100% right, this change did happen like a stock-market fluctuation. On the way up, it was a slow steady climb, with a lot of setbacks along the way. My moods were seriously up and down for the first month and a half, before they finally evened out. And even then, I absolutely did still backtrack on a couple of random days for no good reason, but the overall trend was indeed still up. Well, now the overall trend has NOT been up anymore, it has been down. I started out this prescription dosage not feeling masculine every day, and still having streaks of some good days. But the overall trend has been down. Every time I have these depressive bouts now, and these masculine feelings, the duration keeps getting longer and longer, and the feeling keeps getting worse and worse, with every single downswing.

And right now, there really are some obvious external signs that I'm fighting with T... not just the moods. First of all, my metabolism has clearly gone way back up. Again, I had THREE junk days last week. And yet I still lost 3 lbs. It used to take a good 3 or 4 days of being strict on the diet before I'd lose the weight back from ONE junk day. And I'm feeling warmer again. I've been back to sweating in my work uniform on a daily basis instead of shivering. The muscle fatigue that I was experiencing for so long after work because of muscle atrophy has gone away. Physically, even after staying overtime twice in a row, physically I felt absolutely fine. Breast soreness has significantly diminished. Last week, I couldn't even run because they were getting so sore that any sort of bouncing hurt, and applying any sort of pressure hurt a LOT. Yesterday, I actually hit myself right in the boob to test the level of soreness, and it barely hurt at all. My skin has become more oily and grimy again, (and that is actually why I reported that for some reason my face looked different. It wasn't the shape that was different, it was the skin texture, and the oiliness coming back. That's why it suddenly looked masculine again.) My hair has also regained its oiliness. I'm having to wash it more often because it gets clumpy and rigid due to natural oiliness, where a month ago I was consistently going 3 full days without washing it and it STILL looked great! Also, For the past 2 weeks, I had been feeling this strange pain in my hips, like the tendons and ligaments were trying to change configuration or something. That is completely gone now.

So again, I appreciate the support, but this isn't just some minor hormonal flux that will go away, and isn't just a small little blip in the radar before it will start going back up again. This really is a case of the trend having reversed, and it's been going down and down and down ever since I switched to this current prescription.

(Side note: I am feeling better today so far. And despite all of this negativity that I am reporting, I do not think that my T levels have recovered fully, nor are they going to. Because I am still able to feel this sense of mental calmness from time to time. It's just

getting less and less frequent. A

nd there are tha

nkfully some symptoms that have

NOT come back. I am still not getting spontaneous erections, I haven't regrown any body hair, and the shape of my body has not changed whatsoever, it is still very much feminine. (Nor will it have time to. That would take MUCH longer.) So really what I believe is going on here is just a moderate temporary T-level recovery, enough to remind me how s***ty it feels, but not quite enough to reverse any of the significant changes that have occurred already. And as long as I get it fixed soon, I don't have anything to worry about in that regard. I just have to get over the mental challenge.)

In a way, I guess that I'm glad that this is happening, because it is once again giving me a little taste of what my old life was like, reminding me of exactly what I was so desperate

to escape from in the first place. And

it is DEFINITELY making my convictions to transition much stronger. An

d despite how much it sucks in t

he time being,

this is going to be a VERY important feel

ing to remember. Because it's probably the last time that I'm EVER going to feel this masculine "dull gray drear" mindset again. So remembering what it's like, and remembering this little taste of the life that I came from in the first place, will be very important once I start getting used to the feeling of mental clarity again, reminding me of why I can't ever go back there, despite any doubts that I might be having.

[foxytaur (imported)]

Your spiro must be stronger than mine then. I'm on 150 mg/day and my testosterone is at average levels.. for a male.

It's to be expected though; spiro blocks at the receiving end (cellular receptors) and barely if at all at the producing end (testes).

Gee im not even on hormones yet. I usully talk with other trans friends. they just tell me stuff varies from person to person. I think height plays a factor too in how much should be deemed effective per person along with androgen sensitivity.

I don' want to go on an excessively high spiro dosage. But neither want my E to lower o the point of ineffectiveness.It isn't a full blown hatred for T.



NB = What you want me to loose sex drive completely?

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

Oh, YAY!!! I just felt feminine again! For the first time in days! When I was stretching out on my bed just now, suddenly I had this "flash" again, where I could feel myself completely feminized for just a split second, and LOVED what I was feeling.

And after that, I looked in the mirror, and for the first time in days it didn't depress me.

Man... so much of this is mental. SO... Freaking... much. Perhaps what's driving me so nuts isn't the actual re-masculinization, which has been VERY minor at best, and quite possibly a complete mental fabrication at worst, but rather just that mental mindset that I'm not making progress anymore. Because it really does seem like on all of my best days, those were the days that I felt the most confident, the days where I was the most sure that I really was going to get exactly the body that I had always wanted, and the days where I felt like I had made progress in the appearance department, and could clearly see a happy future ahead of me. Where my depressive days were the days where I was having doubts, the days where I didn't feel confident that it really was going to work, caught up on being afraid of not looking good, and caught up on doubts about whether my dysphoria would EVER go away and whether I ever would be truly female or not.

So yeah... a lot of this depression is admittedly my own doing, just because I'm hung up on that feeling of not making any progress, and hung up on that lack of a feminine feeling, and the more I think about it the more it bothers me. That admittedly is how my mind works now. I really get hung up on certain thoughts, and I take them WAY too far. And this happens both ways. There's some days where I really don't start out happy, but suddenly I start getting hung up on the fantasy, and realize that it's becoming real, and I start imagining everything PERFECT, and it sends me into this crazy uber-happiness that then fades away quickly when the reality comes back. And there's also some days where I really don't start out feeling bad, but then I get caught up on the doubts, and on the uncertainty, and on certain hateful words that others have said, and suddenly I'm spiraling into depression because I'm freaking out about the possibility of never being happy with myself.

Yeah... what can I say? I've been a total drama queen through this entire thing. And I really need to chill out. These endless highs and lows are not healthy. Maybe Transward is right. Maybe I really do need to quit writing and quit self-assessing EVERY single day. Because it really does make these peaks and valleys MUCH worse than they have any right to be.

God... it feels so good to finally feel like I have my rational mind back, and finally have my self-identity back, after so many days of being caught in this endless depressive spiral.

(And hell, this in itself is just another stupid mood swing. I'm just so back-and-forth, so all over the place, so scatter-brained, so completely dominated by stupid little emotional fluxes, it's absolutely ridiculous. And I do feel like the hormones are playing a part in this. My mind, and the way that I think, has DEFINITELY changed. Just the fact that I am able to feel this low, and feel this high, is a sign of my changing reality. I NEVER felt highs or lows this strongly before HRT. And I NEVER cried real, actual weeping tears before, only ones that never came out. And those tears are still coming despite how "masculine" I have been feeling this week. So this in itself should be a sign that I really have feminized to a significant degree. I really am acting like a teenage girl right now, one who hasn't quite learned to control her own hormonally-confused mind yet. And when I get depressed, I REALLY over-exaggerate it. I've noticed this is a common thing among pre-hormone FtM transsexuals on Susan's, is that their first response to hardship is a particular kind of bitter, weepy, "I give up" depression, feeling like it's hopeless, rather than the more male mindset of tackling it rationally and trying to work through it. So again, this in itself should be an indication that things really have changed. I NEVER would have been this way just a few short months ago.)

Sigh... again, this is just such a confusing time. I need some certainty back in my life, and even if my hormones aren't actually the cause of these extreme ups and downs, I really do need

to go on a higher dose of Spiro

just in order to restore some certainty into my life. That is what I am missing. It's that certainty about what my T levels are doing. I knew for sure what my T levels were doing while I was on full doses of Androcur, where right now I have no idea what the hell is going on, and it

is driving me absolutely insane,

to the point of borderline-suicidal depressive bouts. Yeah. I need that certainty. I need to have that feeling deep down that tells me I'm making progress.

Anyway, those are my daily thoughts. I am still VERY conflicted today, and my moods just don't seem to know what to do. They still feel muted and like they're not working quite right, but at the same time I did just finally feel feminine again, and feel like things are calming down a bit. And just writing this entry, and realizing how "feminine" these depressive bouts have been, makes me feel better about it, because it does feel like it is coming from my true self. But who the hell knows if this feeling will last or not, given the increasingly-chaotic state of my brain recently. Again, it feels like my brain is a soupy mess of E and T right now, and can't seem to decide which hormone it wants to listen to.

Sigh... whatever. I'll make it through this. Sorry for being such a drama queen. :p And sorry for that SEVERELY over-exaggerated depressive post last night. I had a headache, and felt like crap at the time, so I admittedly took it a bit too far just in order to get some of the hurt out.

Sorry.

-Carrie

[Hildy_ (imported)]

I think there's also something else going on. You've only figured out that this is right for you a couple of months ago, remember? To give you a bit of an idea, here's my recent history:

In my country all gender dysphoria treatment is done through two gender teams, each treating people from their own region. After literally years of depression, worry and doubts I finally applied to "my" gender team at the end of last year (29 november, a thursday, chilly but sunny). What happened next was that I barely slept for an entire month, lost 16 lbs in two months because of the nausea of stress alone (turns out I'm whatever the opposite of a stress-eater is) and it's taken me up to this week to finally be able to focus my mind on other things again, like my housekeeping, or the server in my storage room that was dead for 2 months.

According to the therapist I've been seeing for a couple of years because of this, that's quite normal. According to him, extreme mood swings, euphoria, increased dysphoria, it's all part of the package of finally admitting to yourself that you're really going to do this. He's seen it all before, and he reassured me that it does become easier to function again after a while.

And you know what, he's right. For me, this was necessary to blow the doors clean off my mental closet, where I pushed everything away. Slowly but surely I'm becoming ready to deal with this; able to talk and reason about all this as an adult. And slowly starting to accept that I'm not going to be a cis girl, I'll be a trans girl, with my current bodily configuration, uncomfortable as I am with it, as starting point and forever dependent on exogenous hormones. I cannot get what I always wanted: a nanotechnology-assisted transition leaving me with an as-good-as-cis body, in a society where that's not merely normal but even somewhat hip (where do you think my signature comes from?). What I can get is hopefully something I can live with, instead of what I have now.

Carrie, your posts have helped me a lot. The revelation you made a while ago, about transitioning being about being yourself; I made that conclusion tentatively a while ago (I even wrote it on the whiteboard I have in my hallway: "you're a tomboy"), and seeing you basically figuring out that and other stuff has helped me grow quite a bit. So let me help you here; take it from me, though your current anti-androgen dose is obviously next-to-nothing, and it's obviously doing something to your mind, I don't think that's the only thing causing your mood swings.

Please, take your time in coming to terms with being trans, since I don't think it's all sunken in yet. This is not easy; trust me, I've taken the long route (I first started seeking help in 2006) and it's still difficult for me. The sheer fear of being rejected when telling people close to me that basically the person they've always seen is a lie, the worries of plainly not being accepted or being thrown to the wayside by society, wanting to run away from all this yet knowing I cannot live on like this, it's all weighing on me heavily. And it's a real fear too, going to the core of my being. Because this is it.

Anyway, hope this helps. Have strength, sister

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

Hildy, I must say, your posts are excellent. Thank you!

I had not considered that either. Yes, you're right, now that I'm thinking about it, an awful lot of this very well could be that I am still trying to accept myself, and as such I am constantly looking for feelings which validate my feelings of transsexualism... when I feel feminine I want it to make me feel happy, and when I feel masculine I actually kind of want it to make me feel depressed. So that would be a good reason why this "masculine" bout has felt so terrible, is because I just came off of a huge period of doubt. My mind was REALLY fighting strongly against that doubt, knowing that I was still transsexual, but trying to find something, anything, to re-validate these feelings. (There was just this voice in the back of my head screaming, yelling at me, saying "NO!!! You are NOT going to quit!!! That is NOT who you are!" despite having lost the emotional motivation.) And as painful as this week has been, the sheer and utter depression really has mentally re-validated my desires for femininity, making me feel like it's okay to embrace my desires again because of how terrible feeling masculine made me. And likewise, during my periods of feeling feminine, I artificially inflated my own happiness in order to validate these same feelings.

So yeah... the conclusion is the same. I am transsexual. On a very deep level. And I can tell this not because of feelings, not because of external motivators, not even because of moods, but because on a very fundamental, deep down level, I have always felt female, and known that that was who I was. The rest is all just me looking for ways to validate these feelings, even to the point of severe depression.

So with that said, I suppose the next step is to accept myself. Accept that I am female, that this is the plain and honest truth that I have always known deep down, and just always see myself that way, not because of how I feel, but because it's just who I am. Quit looking for things to constantly prove it. And that includes hormones. I don't need low T levels, or high E levels, or the feelings that come with them, in order to be a girl. And I need to quit viewing these masculine feelings as a threat to my femininity, or the estrogenic euphoria as a validation. Because I realize now that this is not what gender is about.

(Kind of funny, I'm doing the same thing that cis-guys do. They're constantly doing things in order to prove their manliness, because they believe that certain feelings are a threat to the identity that they have deep down. I never did that. But now I am indeed doing things in order to prove my femaleness, because I have been believing that certain things are indeed a threat to the female identity that I have deep down. HA!!! Never thought I'd catch myself doing something like that. And yet I have been, for the duration of this ENTIRE blog. Hell, that's the reason why I write in it so much. Because I am indeed still looking for validation.)

Anyway, yeah... I feel REALLY good now. I do know who I am. I am Carrie. A girl. And I am going to embrace that identity, stick with it, and quit worrying so damned much.

Again, thank you, Hildy, both of these most recent posts have been VERY helpful. And I think my therapist has been picking up on the same thing, sensing that I really do know deep down who I am, but it's just a matter of dropping the pretense, and accepting that self fully that I needed to work on.

-Carrie

(Side note: I have a feeling that tonight at work is going to be great! I feel ready to face the world again, instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself.)

[Hildy_ (imported)]

I am constantly looking for feelings which validate my feelings of transsexualism...

Note that the "constantly looking" bit is a feeling of transsexualism in itself.

Kind of funny, I'm doing the same thing that cis-guys do. They're constantly doing things in order to prove their manliness, because they believe that certain feelings are a threat to the identity that they have deep down. (...) I have been believing that certain things are indeed a threat to the female identity that I have deep down.

Quite a lot of the more insecure cis girls do too, trying to "prove" their femininity with knowing the difference between fuchsia and hot pink, or proclaiming that a certain way of speaking or reasoning, which they obviously have, is really female. Heck, look at any cis girl just entering puberty: putting on garish amounts of make-up, wearing excessively feminine clothes; you'd almost think they have something to prove, eh? I even know a couple of adult cis women (late 30s, early 40s) who are like that!

But your identity is not how you manage to validate yourself, it's the fact that you even find that important!

Like how I always felt really depressed when somebody "out-femininitied" me (is that even a word? anyway, it is now!), especially when guys do so (somehow I know a lot of feminine guys; wonder why that is), as if that proved anything! No it doesn't. The fact that I find that by doing that they somehow steal away my identity does!

And honestly, you have nothing on me: I spent years doing this! (fuck)

Also, you cannot prove to other people who you are, you can only show them. Same as with cis people, really, it's only the scale that's different.

I do know who I am. I am Carrie. A girl. And I am going to embrace that identity, stick with it, and quit worrying so damned much.

What I found was what really helped with that was stopping trying to pass as a guy in my head. I'm me, I don't have a guy mode, I have an incognito mode; there is never a guy in the space I occupy, just a girl who happens to look like one.

Again, thank you, Hildy, both of these most recent posts have been VERY helpful.

Always glad to help

[janekane (imported)]

Transward, I really do appreciate the support, and the attempt to make me feel better.

.

.

.

In a way, I guess that I'm glad that this is happening, because it is once again giving me a little taste of what my old life was like, reminding me of exactly what I was so desperate

[quote="cheetaking243 (imported)" time

=1360377960]
to escape from in the first place. And

it is DEF
[/quote]
INITELY making my convictions to transition much stronger. And despite how much it sucks

in the time being, this is going to be a VERY important feeling to remember. Be[quote="cheetak

ing243 (imported)" time=13655805

60]
cause it's probably the last time that I'm

EVER going to feel this masculine "dull gray drear" mindset again. So remembering what it's like, and remembering this little taste of the life that I came from in the first pla
[/quote]
ce, will be very important once I start getting used to the feeling of mental clarity again, reminding me of why I can't ever go back there, despite any doubts that I might be having.

When testosterone attempted to commandeer my life, circa age 13, I observed an impairment in what I deemed clarity of thinking. When, at age 47, testicular testosterone, along with testicular whatever else, parted company with me, mainly because of my evaluation of cancer risk based on family history, The impairment of clarity of thinking very quickly fled from my life. I have previously referred to the mental effect of testosterone on my as a form of mental fog. No way would I entertain choosing to go back into that sort of foggy thinking.

Perhaps it will be of some help to you to know that what you described as 'this masculine "dull gray drear" ' very closely resembles the way I might also describe that "mental fog".

Because of a bunch of circumstances, I was quite sex-hormone free for some time after my orchiectomy, then an endocrinologist of international repute at an internationally renowned major-major research university determined that putting me on a combination pattern of conjugated estrogen and progesterone, in the manner of a typical female hormone cycle. When I got sufficiently into the usual female menopause age range, that endocrinologist stopped the hormones and put me on a form of alendronate for bone strength maintenance.

For me, when testosterone mostly went away, I only noticed what I experienced as improvement. No hot, or cold, flashes, no distress of any sort because of dramatically reduced testosterone.

I guess one way to be sure that one is somewhere in the transgender realm may be, as I find it to have been for me, life becoming better.

Yeah, I got more "curvy" and some aspect of my mind asks, "what took so long?" What do I reply to that aspect of my mind about its question? Something like, "Important choices are wisely not made in haste nor in procrastination."

The expectations of other people may be problematic. At a Chicago Gender Society meeting many years ago, another member asked me, "Why don't you cross-dress." To which I replied, not intending to be funny, "What makes you think I am not cross-dressed now?" (For lack of funds for a fancy wardrobe, I suppose it is fair to regard me as a form of MtFtE who cross-dresses as though an M.

I choose to life true to my actual life, and choose to not be enslaved by other people's misunderstanding of my life or of who I really am.

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

OFFICIAL HORMONE REPLACEMENT LOG...

MONTH FOUR, DAY FOUR:

Well, I have excellent news. Yesterday, for what was the first time in what felt like EVER, I actually had a completely mentally pain-free day at work. For the first time in over a week, I actually felt feminine all day, and felt relatively back in that state of mental calmness, and actually had a desire once again to embrace my femininity and walk toward the future with my head held up high. No, I still am not feeling quite as good as I have in the past, nor quite as mentally calm and clear, but it was definitely a GREAT night, and one that I desperately needed after so many days in a row of feeling like complete and total crap.

What fueled this feeling was really an epiphany that I had yesterday afternoon, one that I believe has firmly cemented my identity as transsexual for, well, pretty much ever. And that epiphany is, it is actually not the feelings of "dysphoria," and the feelings of disliking my body and my feelings of wishing that I were female, that make me a transsexual. And the reason why I was able to let myself have so many doubts, is because these feelings are NOT consistent. They did not start in the first place until I was in about 7th grade, I was indeed successfully able to temporarily ignore them for a very long time

between like 2008 and 2010, and

I'll admit, there are indeed some days where I really don't feel that bad about who I am. But there is something deeper. I've known for a long time that there is something deeper than that. Because during that period of doubt early last week, I still had this passionate urge deep down inside of me that said "NO!!! You are NOT going to quit!"... something that, deep down, kept pushing me on, and just knew deep down in the very core of my being that I was indeed transsexual, and that I could NOT let doubts stop me.

And, well, here is what that thing is. It is not the "dysphoria," and not the desire to change, which are variable and which do fluctuate. It is something that has NEVER changed, and actually goes back even further than that. It is this feeling that I have, and which I have ALWAYS had, of, for some reason, identifying myself with the female gender. THAT is what makes me transsexual. For some reason, I have always seen myself in this way. Let's see, how can I describe this feeling? I guess it's like a feeling of sameness, a feeling of kinship and closeness that I have always felt with the female gender that I never felt with the male gender. Even as a kid, I felt this. My female friends were always the friends that I felt the closest to, felt like I could tell my secrets to, felt like I could do ANYTHING with, and the ones that I really latched on to, while I didn't feel the same kind of feeling with my male friends. They just felt "different" in some way. Starting in about 5th grade, whenever I looked at a girl, there just started to be this kind of a feeling of identification... a feeling that I really felt like them, deep down, and identified myself with them, while again, I did not feel this same feeling with guys. They were just friends. Where with the girls, there was just some sort of core reaction deep down that made me feel closer to them. And this feeling has NEVER gone away. Even during my period of religious fundamentalism, where I was NOT letting myself embrace any transsexual feelings that I had, I STILL had this feeling of identifying myself with the women. When I saw the women, there was just this exact same feeling of closeness and kinship, this feeling that I really can't explain that told me "that is me," while I have NEVER felt this same feeling around men. Even when I am going through my biggest periods of doubt, this feeling of identifying with the female gender is still there. Deep down, even when at the top of my mind I am having doubts and questioning whether I really want to transition, I still constantly feel that feeling of identification, and whenever I see a woman something deep down tells me "that's me."

And the cool thing is, unlike my actual feelings of gender dysphoria, this feeling started WAY earlier. As early as 2nd grade, if not sooner, I was feeling it. I remember specifically that we were doing a school play about careers, and the teachers went to great lengths to include a lot of messages of "girls can do that too" when discussing things like firefighting and police work and other stereotypically-male careers. And I don't know why, but there was just something about that mindset that I identified with... something about it that made me want to say "Go get em, girl!!!"... something that made it feel more personal, while at the same time all the other guys were groaning and rolling their eyes. And during that exact same play, they also had a segment about male ballet dancers, a guy defying masculine stereotypes, but I just didn't have that same kind of reaction or identification. And this "identification" really got serious by about 5th grade or so, while again my actual "dysphoria" didn't start until like 7th. I specifically remember in 5th grade just how many girls in our class I felt comfortable talking to, felt close to, felt like I understood them, while I increasingly felt less and less connection with my male friends as they started getting all uber-masculine and "too cool for this" thanks to puberty. And I believe that it is THIS feeling, this deep down, unchanging feeling, that constantly tells me that on a very core level that I am female, and that my very self-identity is female, that makes me transsexual. And it was this feeling that pushed me to keep going.

And here's the REALLY cool part. This exactly matches the definition of gender that I have increasingly heard about. Gender identity is not based on feeling "wrong" or "right" about the gender that you are in. Because there are many women who hate being women, and yet are very clearly not transsexual. And there are a lot of people who feel body dysphoria just like I did, and yet are not transsexual. And there are a lot of people who cross-dress, and who have the same desires to act feminine and wear more feminine clothing like I did, and yet still are not transsexual. And there are indeed a lot of people who think that they are transsexual and yet end up not being, because they feel like they're becoming someone that they're not. And this is exactly why I have been having so many doubts. But NONE of these things are what makes someone have a gender identity. No. Gender identity is something much deeper, and much less conscious than that. It is not something that you can rationalize your way into, something that you can change depending on your moods, it is just something that you know. And this is EXACTLY what I have always felt in relation to the female gender. There has always just been something about it that I have identified myself with. And unlike the external symptoms, which have indeed come and gone over the years, this female self-identity has NEVER changed. It is just how I have always viewed myself, on a very core fundamental level. THAT is what makes me transsexual. And it is what makes me just as much of a girl as any other. Because it is not something that I had to realize, something that I stumbled upon when I was 13, something about me being a guy and yet "feeling wrong." It is this very same unchanging self-identity, the same feeling that any girl who was actually born with a female body has from a very young age, which tells me who I am. And guess what? That also means that I have NOTHING to prove. I am a girl. Albeit, one who was born with a male body, but a girl nonetheless, just as much a girl as anyone else. And likewise, just like any other girl, I don't have to do anything to prove that I am a girl. I can do whatever the hell I want, act however the hell I want, dress however the hell I want, and none of those things make me any more or less of a girl. Because that identity cannot be changed, and never will be.

And the more and more I am realizing this, the more and more I am realizing that my feelings of dysphoria, and all of the hardship and turmoil that I went through, was merely a symptom of this... a way for me to validate my identification with the female gender. And I've been trying to do this for my entire life. As a kid, I didn't have to, because, well, gender for kids is pretty much incidental, and I had enough female friends that I never felt out of place. In middle school, my whole issues with body dysphoria were not the REASON why I am transsexual, but merely a symptom of it. (And up until now, I wasn't looking at it this way. I thought it was a cause. But it's not. I'm not transsexual because I had body dysphoria, I had body dysphoria because I am transsexual. It was merely a symptom, and the "wrongness" was just one way of my mind trying to validate its female self-identity in the midst of a physical reality that was moving increasingly quickly away from that self-identity.) The mental "fog" that I have, really is just because, on a very core level, I feel wrong. And likewise, this is why ALL of the physical changes, every single little thing that has become more feminine about me, has felt SO right. And there's no reason to self-validate this by making myself uber-happy, because it goes much deeper than mere conscious emotions. It really is because my body is starting to

feel "right" for the f

irst time,

and actually mat

ch this s

elf[quote="cheetaking243 (imported)" t

ime=1365063000]
[quote="cheetaking243 (imported)" tim
[/quote]
e=1361413140]
-identity. And this is why I am still
[/quote]
smiling like a little sch

ool girl every single time I look

in the mirror. Because, for the first time in my entire life, my body really is actually going to match my gender identity.

Now I have a hold on this. And unlike the old things which I used to validate my transsexualism, which I have already listed, this is not something that can be doubted, or something that can be taken away from me. It is a solid rock, something that has NEVER gone away as long as I have been alive, and something that never will go away either. It is something that has always told me who I am on a very core level, even as early as when I was a very young kid, possibly as early as age 4 or 5, since pretty much all of my preschool friends that I was close to were girls too. But I digress.

Like I have said many times before, my name is Carrie, I am a girl, and nothing is ever going to be able to change that, and I no longer need anything to validate that. (And this is probably the very last time that I am ever going to have to say this. Because although I have always known this is the case, I was still looking for things to validate it. But now I know. And it is not a reason that can change, a reason that can be taken away from me depending on moods, anymore.) Honestly, that's it. I finally do know exactly who I am, and why that is who I am. The rest is just a technicality... a change t

o finally make my body match that

self-identity that I have always felt.

That is all.

-Carrie

d=(´▽｀)=b

(Side note: 2 days down, 6 days to go... not that it matters as much anymore. As long as I can stay in this mood, everything will be fine.)

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

OFFICIAL HORMONE REPLACEMENT LOG...

MONTH FOUR, DAY FIVE:

I hope everyone is happy to know, today was another great day. That state of mental calmness has returned, and I really felt like I was at least relatively close to being back to my true self. There were a couple of moments where I almost had bouts of anger, and the stresses of the day almost consumed me and made me want to scream, but the feelings mercifully didn't last long. And you know, admittedly, there still isn't that same sense of euphoria that I had for so long, but it's not bothering me as much as it was when I first lost it. My mind feels like it's somewhere between my pre-hormone mind and my zero-testosterone mind. I'm still feeling a bit masculine, a bit "meh," but there is still a good sense of calmness and definitely still ZERO sex drive. But unlike in previous days I'm not letting those masculine feelings get to me anymore, and I'm focusing on what I know now is my true gender identity instead. And man, I am LOVING that mindset of embracing my female identity. I just felt absolutely great for most of the day, enjoying the feeling of androgyny, enjoying acting feminine, enjoying the weird looks that some people were giving me. (And I did get a LOT of weird looks today. My appearance looked VERY feminine today for some reason, and I just constantly caught people giving me double-takes, and even outright staring, as I was walking by and as I was talking in my soft-toned higher-pitched voice which is sounding increasingly feminine with every single day.)

Another weird thing that happens on these days where I'm feeling feminine, is that people actually kind of start treating me more like a girl. They seem to feel more comfortable around me, and less respectful of my personal space for some reason. I've noticed that on these days, physical contact increases. More people are like randomly touching my shoulder while laughing, and tapping me on the arm, and touching my hands while I'm pushing them their winning pots. Hell, there was even one guy who actually just outright grabbed me by the arm as I was walking by, and talked to me, and every single time I pulled my arm away, he'd grab it again, and this kept going on until he was completely done talking to me, and I had politely excused myself so that I could go on to my next table. So yeah... this is actually kind of interesting. NOBODY used to do ANY of this stuff to me, for the entire first 3 months that I was working at the casino before starting HRT. But suddenly within the last month or so, out of nowhere, it just started. The more I'm feminizing, it seems, the less and less people perceive me as a big tough guy who probably just wants to be left alone, and the more and more comfortable random people have become with talking to me, and joking with me, and asking "how are you doing?" out of nowhere, and even touching me. And yeah... it's a little weird. Sometimes creepy even. With that one guy, it really was like "Um... I don't know you. Why exactly are you grabbing me on the arm?" (And yet, oddly, this really does make me happy. It really is something that I always wished for. I HATED being perceived as this big tough guy who just wanted to be left alone, and I LOVE that people are finally feeling more comfortable around me, because my appearance has become non-threatening now. It looks more childish, more young, more "nice," more approachable. And as much as people would like to think that appearance does not matter, it does. Because I have seen a HUGE difference in how people treat me because of these feminizing changes. And hell, I've even been making better tips recently for some reason. I have NEVER gotten as many multi-dollar tips in one day as I did today. There was one table where every single hand I was making 2 or 3 dollars in tips. And at one of the high-stakes tables, I even broke my all-time personal tip record, and received a whopping $25 tip from just one hand. So yeah... this is awesome! Occasionally a bit creepy, but awesome!

One thing that I have suddenly found that I LOVE doing, is diffusing tension. Recently, with the changes in my appearance, and the softer tone of my voice, I have become EXCELLENT at calming people down. And I've been doing this a lot recently. Like one night in the cafeteria line, there were like three people all making very rushed and demanding requests of the fry cook all at the same time, and she clearly looked very stressed out. So when it was my turn to place my order, I smiled at her and said in my calm, quiet voice tone "Here, I've got a nice easy one for you," and smiled at her. And almost instantly, I just saw her stress melt away. She smiled, and her body gestures calmed down, and she thanked me, and had a little vent about everyone making demands of her, and I empathized, and again, I could just see that she felt better. That was one such incident. And then there was another one tonight. At one of my poker tables, the last dealer got into a bit of a verbal "guy argument" with one of the players (you know, that male behavior where one feels insulted, so he makes a snappy remark back, and then that results in another snappy remark, and they just keep going and going because they can't let their precious masculine pride be insulted, and have to get the last word in? Yeah, that kind of argument.) In any case, there was a LOT of tension at the table when I sat down. And again, I just smiled at everyone, said my hellos in my calm, soft voice, let the guys vent as they saw fit, empathized when necessary, and the tension calmed down, and every single one of the players were thanking me, and praising me, by the time I left the table. And man... I LOVE this. And I find it ironic that I'm doing it now, because it is pretty much EXACTLY what the anime character in my avatar, Nausicaa, does. And I picked her as my avatar LONG before I gained this skill of diffusing tension and anger. So I think it's really funny that I've actually started becoming like her. And these something about this "diplomat" role, of being the calm and rational one that diffuses arguments rather than starting or perpetuating them, that just feels SO right to me.

I suppose that's all that I have in the mood department to report for today. But there is still definitely something else that I was thinking about that I want to talk about before I call it a night. I am seriously beginning to consider getting an orchiectomy. People did bring this possibility up before, but I always said "I'm not ready yet," and "I need more time to make sure that I'm sure about this first." Well, I'm starting to feel like I am indeed ready, and that I really have reached a conclusion about who I am that is solid enough to base such a permanent, life-altering decision on.

Basically, I am tired of putting up with this constant guess-work in regards to anti-androgens. And I'm tired of feeling like my body is fighting against the realization of my own self-identity. After this most recent bout of feeling "masculine," which left me feeling that same sense of "brain fog" and that same sens

e of bitterness, short-tempered

ness, and perpetual melancholy, I am DONE with testosterone. Completely done with it. I am 100% serious when I say that it has never done ANYTHING good for me. Before I started this hormone trial, the last time that I ever felt "right" in my own head, and ever felt a true sense of self-identity and a sense of "rightness" with my emotions, was back when I was 13 years old. Right before puberty started. And as SOON as it did, suddenly my mind really did feel like it wasn't working right anymore. I just felt like I had lost that perpetual sense of happiness that I always used to have as a kid. And it was replaced by a new feeling that was always feeling incomplete, foggy in the mind, and just not ever truly happy no matter what I did. A[quot

[q[quote="cheetaking243 (imported)" time=1365

063000]
uote="cheetaking243 (imported)"
[/quote]
time=1362986880]
[q[quote="cheetaking243 (imported)" time=13
[/quote]
61413140]
[quote="cheetaking243 (imported)" time=136019
[/quote]
4840]
uote="cheetaking243 (imported)" time=13601134
[/quote]
80]
e="cheetaking243 (imported)" time=135986418
[/quote]
0]
nd th

at happiness did not EVER return until just
[/quote]
3 months ago. And for the first time in my entire adult life, I felt that happiness return, and that same sense of self and that same sense of "rightness." And now twice... during BOTH times that I had to cut my anti-androgen doses in half due to various circumstances, I was almost immediately right back to feeling like crap. So yeah... I'm done with it. DONE. I am fully convinced that I never want testosterone in my body ever again, and that the sooner that it is gone permanently, the better. Right now, all that my testes are doing is getting in the way of my feminization, and making the process that much slower, and that much more of a battle as the pills I am taking fight for dominance with the unfortunate reality of my physiology. And now that I really have reached a conclusion on my gender identity, and I don't see any conceivable way that it's ever going to change now, that last barrier, the one of uncertainty, has now been broken down as well.

So yeah. I am SERIOUSLY considering orchiectomy. In fact, in all likelihood, I am going to bring up the possibility during my next therapy session, to see what she thinks, and maybe to inquire some more about exactly what would be required. If I do decide to go for it, it would probably still be at least a couple of months away, because I do want to make sure that the feeling of mental clarity and calmness returns fully once I go on a higher dose of Spiro, and that it really is due to lower testosterone levels with actual blood work first, but yeah, I really am starting to think that this is a legitimate possibility, something that I'll be looking into doing in the very near future if given the opportunity.

I have a lot of things to think about. And I really have reached the point of no return. Right now, I really do not see any conceivable way that I ever go back to just living as a guy. I simply couldn't do it anymore. Because more and more, I'm realizing that that is not who I am. And again, even if it ends up that I don't transition fully, I could never go back to just being a guy. Because this gender-nonconforming, between-genders state where I finally feel like I'm not male anymore,

is the first time that I have

felt a true sense of self-identity in my entire life. I LOVE it! And as such, I also no longer see any conceivable use for the male plumbing. And the time might genuinely be very soon where I really do make this completely, irreversibly permanent through surgical removal. And for the first time ever, that it not a scary prospect, but one that makes me feel a true sense of self-identification and happiness.

That's all for today. Things are still looking VERY up!

-Carrie

ヽ(･ω･ゞ)

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

Damn it, damn it, damn it, mother... f***ing... damn it!!!

Well, for two days in a row I felt VERY happy. I felt feminine again f

or the first time in over a week, I

felt calm, and I felt like all of the doubt and uncertainty was finally over and that I was going to be able to make it through the next week just fine.

Well, you can throw that out the window. The doubt and the uncertainty are indeed still completely over, and I am completely 100% secure with my gender identity now. So that's not the problem. But unfortunately, the feminine feeling, and the feeling of calmness, have once again disappeared. Tonight, I am just having a MAJOR depressive bout. A serious, miserable, nothing-in-life-feels-pleasurable depressive bout. I don't why it started, but for some reason today every single thing that I do just makes me feel like complete and total crap, and even thinking about things that should make me happy, aren't. And my dysphoria feelings are WAY off the charts. Every single time I see a woman today, I feel depressed. And there really is no reason at all for this. NOTHING bad has happened over the last two days, nor happened today. I'm not overstressed from work. I'm not feeling doubts or uncertainty. And yet, for some reason, just completely out of nowhere and for no reason whatsoever, I feel like complete s***.

I'm still going to try absolutely EVERYTHING that I can to not break the Androcur back out before my Thursday doctor's appointment, but it's once again feeling very tempting. I'm only one hour into my shift and already I just want to go back home, curl up in bed, and spend the day crying.

And this is a very "masculine" kind of depression. It's a depression where I'm angry at everything, and feel isolated and disconnected, and I have no patience for people and their crap. It's not the same kind of "feminine" depression that I felt while on Androcur a lot, where I felt weepy because I was getting down on myself, and was questioning myself, while with this kind of depression I just feel annoyed and irritable

for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

God... PLEASE just go away, damn it!!! I'm so sick of this! I just want my mind to feel like it's working right again. That's all I ask! I'm so tired of this feeling, so tired of every single day at work being an endurance test of patience, and so sick of feeling this G**-damned mental block where it feels like I can't truly feel pleasure anymore, and I just constantly feel angry and irritated for absolutely no reason.

I want my feminine happiness back!!! I

[quote="cheetaking243 (imported)"

time=1360027800]
want that mental calmness back!!!
[/quote]
This SUCKS!!

!!!!!!!!! SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh... rant over. Did I mention that this sucks?

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

OFFICIAL HORMONE REPLACEMENT LOG...

MONTH FOUR, DAY SIX:

Well, tonight I survived what was, by far, the WORST depressive bout of my ENTIRE life. Never have I had to fight against more suicidal thoughts. (And I should mention, I am NEVER going to let myself do that. I refuse to become a statistic, and refuse to become some stupid example of why "this is why you don't mess with hormones" or some stupid shit like that. I have a life to live, damn it, and so freaking much that I still want to do. So don't worry, these are NOT serious thoughts. They are just stupid, obnoxious "what ifs" that I immediately yell at myself for having in the first place, and put them out of my head as soon as they get there. Again, I would NEVER let myself get to that point. I'd sooner check myself into a mental hospital than let myself do something that stupid.)

Anyway, basically at one point today I finally reached the end of my rope, and decided that I was going to have to, for my own sanity, break out the Androcur once I got home. But before making the decision final, I posted on Susan's asking what other people thought that I should do. And although the topic was deleted, because there's a rule there about discussing self-medication, someone did see the message just long enough to PM me about the depression possibly being due to something that I never knew existed before... cyproterone withdrawal. Yes, it does exist. In fact, there are SERIOUS warnings about not stopping Androcur abruptly, for this exact reason. It recommends reducing dosage extremely gradually, over the course of a number of weeks, because the symptoms can be so severe if it is quit cold-turkey, which is pretty much exactly what I did about a month ago. So it's quite possible that my problem isn't testosterone at all, it is my adrenal glands going wacky, screwing with my cortisol levels and my stress response. (Which would make sense, especially considering that completely-irrational thing earlier this week where suddenly, right after a depressive bout, I randomly felt feminine and calm again for absolutely no reason, which simply could NOT have been caused by changes in T considering how fast it happened, but very well could have been caused by cortisol, which varies GREATLY from minute to minute depending on stressors.)

And with this possibility, another possible solution to it has emerged. Apparently, DHT inhibitors like Finasteride and Dutasteride can help to offset the withdrawal symptoms, restoring the adrenal glands to a more normal range of function. So after a whole night of being convinced that this was the night the Androcur was coming back out, it turns out, once again, it's not. And in fact, it's quite possible that Androcur is what caused this whole problem in the first place. So before I mess with my levels of anti-androgens, I am first going to try adding Dutasteride back into my pill regiment for a couple of days, and see if it can help normalize my stress and depressive bouts again. And unlike Androcur, Dutasteride will not mess with my lab results whatsoever since it only stops the conversion of T into DHT, so if it really does solve the problem, I can safely take it until I've had a meeting with my doctor to do the labs and adjust my official prescription doses.

There is no guarantee that this will work, but it's a new possibility that I had not considered before, and therefore it's worth a try before I go screwing with my anti-androgen doses.

PLEASE get better!!! I am so sick of fighting this battle... so tired of feeling like my mind is constantly at war. I can't put up with this much longer. I already feel like I'm losing my mind, a

nd again, this was the worst d

ay of all of them, so it's only been getting worse and worse with every single week.

Please, God, just fix this and make everything right again. I miss that time where my mind was so completely at ease every day. I miss it so much. My very survival has become a battle for the last 2 weeks. And again, this is happening despite the fact that I have NEVER felt so sure of my own gender identity. So this isn't a matter of doubts or regrets at all, it is just completely a chemical battle where something is not working right in my head.

Pray for me. I really am at that point where I need any and all support that I can get. This has gotten way out of hand, and I am SERIOUSLY starting to regret going with DIY at the start.

-Carrie

(>_<。)

[~Tiamat~ (imported)]

Well, DIY is the only option for some of us which is why the law is graciously on our side at least in my country. It's better than killing yourself directly which was plan A for me. I'm pretty sure that abusing high dose cyto in the past has caused me some long term issues (along with one or two others here) and combined with two hours sleep a night at the time due to work commitments, crash dieting, and all the other crazy stuff I do, my adrenals are completely shot. Adrenal supression and growth of the zona reticularis take a long time, though, and you were only taking moderate doses for a very short period. I really hope you don't have problems. It's hell, and the adrenal glands take months or years to recover. Fin/dut might stop the worst of the symtoms but the virilising effects of t on muscle and the impedence of e will still occur. If you're really worried get a cortisol test done by your doctor. Adding dut for a couple of days will do next to nothing - it has a huge half life and is very much a "build up" drug, unless you take a huge loading dose.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

Actually, now that you mention it, that part about weaning off of higher doses of Androcur is familiar from reading about it on this very site. I don't recall what dose you were on when you made the switch.

I regret not mentioning the Informed consent clinic to you earlier...however the DIY got you onto the proper path for the long haul and as a starting point wasn't that bad. Now with the proper medical professionals you can continue to feminize under the eyes of your doctors.

I do worry that you are virtually micromanaging every instant of your life to such a degree you are losing touch with how long this journey is going to be. Female puberty takes years, for breast growth, body shape...etc.There is no real way to jump start that process, you will have to go through it like any other girl and have good days, bad days, great days, and shitty days. Its all part of growing up and becoming female.

Your best friend will be your therapist to help you work through all the stages from boyhood to womanhood. Jut remember we are talking years and then a lifetime maintenance dose of E to maintain the Carrie you become.

Patience is your best virtue at the moment. Deep breaths and remember, that if you follow the protocols good things will happen over time. Just let it takes the time to work on you as it should....

{{Hugs}}

Frank

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

^See, though, the problem is, you're right, most of my depressive bouts were indeed these "female" kinds of depressive bouts, where I was just being whiny and impatient, and freaking out over various things. But this is not that kind of depressive bout. This depressive bout is, on a very deep and core level, I just feel like complete crap, and genuinely feel like I've lost the ability to feel happiness. And again, I do not necessarily think that it is related to T anymore. And yet even after realizing this, I still felt like crap. So something is wrong. I still don't know what, but something has gone VERY wrong on the most basic of levels. One of these drugs has screwed with my head. I have NEVER felt depression like this before. Even when I was a teenager, and I said that I was feeling depressed, it was never because I felt like I had lost the ability to feel happiness. Now I do.

And unfortunately, this morning I am STILL

feeling like complete and total crap.

God, I just don't know what to do. How the hell can I fix this? Is it even possible that testosterone alone could make me feel this bad? I mean, another side-effect of cyproterone withdrawl is hyper-androgen effects. And I have been feeling that "masculine" feeling for a while, but if that's the case, then why do I still have ZERO sex drive? I'm just so confused. I don't know what to do here. And I just want to feel better. That's all I want. I don't care what I have to do. But so far, NOTHING that I have tried has worked. Not stress-relieving foods like magnesium-rich Nori from the sushi buffet, or even freaking chocolate for crying out loud. Realizing what my gender identity was on the most core of levels that you could imagine didn't fix it, my traditional coping methods for feeling bad such as socializing and watching cute animal videos didn't fix it... NOTHING. I just don't know what to do here. Something has gone wrong on a chemical level up there.

[Uncle Flo (imported)]

I don't mean to sound like your Uncle Flo (well, maybe I do) but I am uneasy about your depression; it has gone on too long and shows signs of worsening. I feel that you should seek professional assistance as soon as possible. If your physician will not help ask your therapist for advice or referrals. I see a dangerous situation developing and I am starting to worry about you. --FLO--

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

^It's okay. You have every right to be worried. Because so am I. And I have also noticed that it is

getting worse and worse with every single week.

And I do have an appointment with my therapist tomorrow, and an appointment with my HRT-administering doctor on Thursday, so professional help is indeed coming very shortly, and I definitely do need it, and will be ACTIVELY seeking it, because this simply can NOT continue. My very well-being is being compromised right now.

And again,

300]
it has been getting worse and worse ever
[

/quote]
since I switched to the official prescription dosage, after what was almost a month straight of feeling absolutely amazing. Here, once again, is the complete chronicle of my moods, although

this time I'm only going to post the pa

rt that started after I switc

hed to the official prescription. And again, every single depressive bout has gotten worse and worse since then, while every single period of happiness has gotten shorter and shorter.

DAY 72: Mildly bad. Dysphoric, impatient, not feeling very happy.

DAY 73: BAD. Felt like "complete and total crap." Having some doubts, namely worrying about potential regret. (Yet, again, though, extremely happy about how I look physically.)

DAY 74: Still bad. Tired and depressed, and I was having a hard time making sense of why I didn't really feel gender dysphoria as a kid, and then suddenly as I realized just how much of my very personality was based on what others led me to do, I really started feeling empty, and wondering who I even was, and feeling like I didn't even know.

DAY 75: Really good. Happy, socially-connected, confident, "feeling great!"

DAY 76: FANTASTIC! Peaceful, "complete mental calm," extremely self-assured.

DAY 77: GREAT! Calm, happy, peaceful, at ease, completely "free from the desires of this world."

DAY 78: GREAT! This was my official 2nd time going out in girl-mode, and it REALLY felt good!

DAY 79: Middle of the road. Completely physically exhausted after bed-frame incident, but not too bad mentally. Still happy, peaceful, patient, and kind.

DAY 80: BAD. Mopey, melancholy, and self-critical in the morning, and then outright bout of depression by night, feeling VERY dysphoric and impatient.

DAY 81: Not very good. One of those days where I had to keep reminding myself why I SHOULD be feeling good, but just couldn't seem to focus on anything but the negatives. And then by nighttime, COMPLETELY depressed, once again feeling really dysphoric and impatient.

DAY 82: TERRIBLE in the morning! I had a complete and total anger meltdown where I ended up screaming and swearing at the top of my lungs. I had to call off from work because I felt so crappy. I felt better after that, though, so over-stress from work was a big part of this.

DAY 83: Mostly great. Felt really happy all day, starting to genuinely feel like I wasn't a guy anymore, but did have one severe bout of doubt after someone posted a topic about de-transitioning on Susan's.

DAY 84: AWESOME!!! Deep-seeded feeling of happiness and pleasure, alive, awake, so happy! So sure of myself!

DAY 85: AMAZING!!! First therapist appointment, and on this day I just had no doubts whatsoever, just so happy, and feeling like I'd finally found myself. "This is seriously the best thing ever!" I wrote.

DAY 86: BAD. Really rough day where I was once again questioning if I even knew myself because of how easily-influenced I seem to be. LOTS of doubts, and LOTS of depression. HUGE existential crisis, and this was when I posted the huge post about doubt on the EA.

DAY 87: BAD. Lots of doubts, feeling really conflicted, and really scatter-brained and unable to focus for some reason.

DAY 88: REALLY conflicted. Doubting, and feeling VERY impatient. Bitter, angry, yelled at traffic.

DAY 89: AWFUL!!! Had a c

omplete emotional breakdown where I completely cracked from the stres

s of work. Feeling awful. Feeling tense, angry, snappy, and extreme

ly unfeminine.

DAY 90: BAD. My "androgyny" day where I suddenly felt like my female presentation was too feminine. Still feeling very unfeminine, and still feeling like total crap. Ended the day with yet another complete

emotional breakdown.

DAY 91: Feeling calmer, but still just not happy on a core level. Back to feeling very "meh," unexcited about everything, decidedly unfeminine, but at least not depressed, tense, and angry anymore.

DAY 92: Still masculine, all day. Felt good in morning, GREAT after therapy session, then HORRIBLE by night. Still angry, short-tempered, and that "threat to masculinity" feeling is back. Another depressive crying bout followed.

DAY 93: Still in "dull gray drear" mode. Can't get excited about anything, just feel tired and unmotivated, and really miss feminine happiness. Severe depression by end of day, again.

DAY 94: BETTER!!! YAY!!! After a week straight of depression, I finally felt feminine again. Not very happy, but finally back t[quote="chee

taking243 (imported)" time=1365445

500]
o feeling at peace. And had a HUG
[/quote]
E revelation about who I am and about why I've been havi

ng such severe depressive bouts, which REALLY

made me feel better.

DAY 95: GREAT!!! Feminine, back to feeling calm and happy, only feeling mildly mentally hindered.

DAY 96: WORST DAY EVER!!!!!!!!! Oh my God, just completely TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!! I don't even have words for it... the worst depressive bout of my ENTIRE life, broke down crying at work, had a severe fight against suicidal thoughts.

DAY 97 (today): Still feeling like complete and total crap, completely depressed. Not as bad as last night, but still just downright terrible, feeling like I've lost the ability to feel happiness on a very core level.

[cheetaking243 (imported)]

UPDATE:

The depression just broke. I don't know what caused it, whether it was the Dutasteride or not, but at about 3:00 this afternoon, all of a sudden I could feel it going away, and could feel that sense of the mental "block" and the "brain fog" easing, and I started feeling a bit feminine again, at least enough to feel back in my more androgynous state of mind. No, I am not back to feminine-happiness mode yet. I am still very much in a "meh" state. But at least I am now back to feeling like I can function on a normal level, and like it actually is possible for me to feel happiness again.

And thi

s is the first time that I have

EVER stopped a depressive bout before it spread out into consuming multiple days in a row, so I am once again suspecting that this is all just an androgenic effect, due to hyper-androgen effects following the ceasing of Androcur, which is also probably why I haven't really seen any feminizing progress whatsoever over the last 2 weeks or so. If this really is the case, then in all likelihood a higher dose of Spiro really will fix this whole damned thing. I'll find out soon enough whether this continues, and whether the depressive bout really is over or not, but I just wanted to report that for now, it finally has eased at least enough to let me function on a relatively normal level again. So, thank God, I should be able to make it through the next few days.

[~Tiamat~ (imported)]

The depression just broke. I don't know what caused it, whether it was the Dutasteride or not,

Adding dut for a couple of days will do next to nothing - it has a huge half life and is very much a "build up" drug, unless you take a huge loading dose.

http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/ar ... iveid=7950

The terminal elimination half-life of dutasteride is approximately 5 weeks at steady state. The average steady-state serum dutasteride concentration was 40 ng/mL following 0.5 mg/day for 1 year. Following daily dosing, dutasteride serum concentrations achieve 65% of steady-state concentration after 1 month and approximately 90% after 3 months. Due to the long half-life of dutasteride, serum concentrations remain detectable (greater than 0.1 ng/mL) for up to 4 to 6 months after discontinuation of treatment.

It's not the dutasteride.

[foxytaur (imported)]

never doubt the power of a placebo effect. Thee mind is a powerful machine.