As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been expending a great deal of mental energy lately trying drive off an overwhelming depression that seems to be swallowing me whole. It's a depression that stems from the whole trans issue (obviously), and since I don't feel like playing a rousing game of "Jonah!", I need to find a way out of its belly.
As I've also mentioned, there are many things I'm trying in order to get this to happen. So... here's another thing that I'm doing:
Whenever anyone gets in a situation that they don't like... be it a bad living situation, a bad job, a bad relationship, financial straits, or whatever... most people will generally take steps to make things better. And when we try to make things better, a lot of times it seems that the process goes oh...................so.......................slowly. Like imperceptibly slow. To the point where it feels like you're not moving at all. Which is precisely how it feels for me at this point in time (hence, you know, the hungry depression that's been making a hearty meal of me).
There's this illusion of permanency that hangs over bad situations. This is especially so when it's a situation that will only get better through years of effort. It seems like nothing ever changes... and it gets annoying... and it gets frustrating... and it can make you very, very sad.
SO... I needed to keep reminding myself that the permanency (read: nauseating stagnation) I feel actually IS an illusion, and that things ARE happening to me all the time that will get me closer to my goals. I mean, I quite often feel like I haven't made a lick of progress since I started taking hormones about 6 years ago. It feels like this was the last big change that happened in my life. And I'm sure that this may seem a bit insane considering all I've been through, but it still feels like things aren't moving at all, and I've been doing the same thing on repeat for the last 6 years.
Now when I look at the events that occurred during this span of time in my life, I know that a LOT has happened. There's not a year that's gone by where I haven't had some big, life-altering event shake up my world in major ways. Sometimes the events were good, and sometimes not so much. BUT they did change me. They did move my life forward. They did cause me to grow as a person in some way. In short, things DO change.
However, I've been dealing with this trans thing for so long, and I still have SO far to go with it, that it seems like I'm just running in mud. The molasses-in-winter speed of this process is enough to make you want to start beating your head off a wall for the better part of a year. It seems like nothing happens with it. Ever.
Now this is inherently false. Much and more has happened in regards to this issue over the past 6 years: coming out to more and more people, getting more and more support, getting better and better with myself, accepting myself more, LOVING myself more...
All of this should be a constant reminder that, even if it doesn't seem it, things ARE progressing. Some of these things seem quite nebulous, though, so it's hard to feel like there's concrete evidence of change, and I start to feel like I'm making a lot of it up. I know now, however, that it's just a matter of having faith in what you're doing and having faith in the process. Acknowledging these things has made it a LOT better for me over the past few weeks.
And if that's not enough to help me feel better, there's that big thing that happened 6 years ago, and the effects of that event, to show me IN REAL PHYSICAL TERMS just how far I've come. I mean, physically I'm not even the same person I was 6 years ago. I'm pretty f'n different... and, more importantly, closer to my goal... as I keep having to remind myself for some reason.
So, after that long introduction, I'm now actually going to remind myself of some of the effects that hormones have had on me since I began taking them in the summer of 2005. I also thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to cover this since a lot of people seem to ask me what hormones do and what they don't do, so hopefully this will be helpful for that reason as well. Additionally, I find it an interesting insight as to the differences between men and women, especially those that are induced by hormones. Keep in mind here that I take 2 small pills in the morning and 2 small pills at night—a pill of estrogen and a testosterone blocker, twice a day—and doing this is enough to bring the following changes.
I found a list on Wikipedia of hormone effects and I shall now kind of breeze through that list and talk about my experience in regards to said list item (where pertinent). Ready? K, here we go...
Firstly I would like to talk about a few very important things that hormones do NOT do.
Hormones do NOT change your voice... at least going from male to female it doesn't, because your vocal chords have already thickened during puberty. Voice DOES change, however, when people go from female to male, though I'm not really here to talk about that side of it at the moment. A lot of people have said that my voice sounds very different, but that's mostly due to practice, practice, practice. It's gotten a lot better, but I still have a good way to go with it. Consistency is my biggest issue, but let's move on lest I get bogged down in this topic.
Hormones also do NOT remove any facial hair. That all has to be burned off through various annoying and expensive treatments. Electrolysis is the only proven method of permanent hair removal and they say it takes 100 to 400 hours to clear a face of its hair (at a cost of $65 to $100 an hour). Being about 200 hours in, and still having a great deal of hair on my chin and neck, I can attest to the fact that this is very much true.
Hormones will also not cause my hips to widen, though had I started at an earlier age when my bones were still growing, they would have. Generally speaking, the more removed from puberty you are, the less effect the hormones will have. I started when I was 32. Changes would have been much more pronounced if I began at 22... though they would have been less pronounced if I started at 42.
Hormones will obviously NOT change my height. Essentially the skeleton I have is the skeleton I have. It's just the way it is. Cosmetic things can be done to the skull to give someone's face a more feminine look, but height, arm and leg length, and all that other good stuff is pretty much fixed.
Now, here (according to the Wikipedia) is what hormones do, though I did edit this list down to practical things that I can discuss:
- Body hair thins greatly. I noticed this on my arms and legs. I didn't have much hair on my torso to begin with, and now I have none save a few stray hairs that stick around even though they are most unwelcome. They don't seem to care that they're not wanted, though. Little annoying bastards.
- Thicker head hair. More than a few people have said this is the case with me, including my hairdresser who has no idea that I'm taking hormones. Part of this is that the texture of my hair has changed. It's just thicker, shinier, and less coarse. Additionally, from what I've read, it seems that the hair I lost while younger may have started to come back because there were some follicles that weren't completely dead, and they were revitalized by the estrogen. Some follicles have died, however, and I pour some of my 40 out whenever I think of these fallen homies. I'm pretty certain, however, that at the rate my hair was going, if I hadn't started hormones when I did, I would be bald by now. And while I do have some issues with my hair, and it's certainly not the thickest head of hair on the planet, I do think it's manageable and that it can look good at times. So, you know, hooray for hormones... and all that.
- Decreased libido. Yeah, totally true. When I first started hormones it was like someone came in and cleared out my head, because getting bombarded with testosterone all the time made the majority of things in the world center around sex (or so it seemed to me, anyway). When you remove that, and you can finally see the world outside of that vantage point, WOW does it look different. It was like getting a whole new take on the world... and it's one that isn't dominated by sex. It was refreshing when it happened, and I'm still very happy that this is the case. This is not to say that I don't have ANY thoughts of sex, I just don't have thoughts about it all. the. time. Which is nice. For me anyway.
- The skin becomes softer. YESSSSSS. It did. It's great. Sometimes just having a hand on my arm and feeling my skin is the biggest reminder of how much I've changed. It seems as soft as melting ice cream compared to how it felt before. It's tremendous. I love it.
- The uppermost layer of skin becomes thinner "and therefore more translucent and pinkish (spider veins may appear or be more noticeable), less collagen, more susceptible to tearing and irritation from scratching or shaving, increased tactile sensation, and slightly lighter in color due to a slight decrease in melanin (pigment)."
This is actually one of the more noticeable changes from the hormones, believe it or not. Now I don't know about the lighter in color, because when I started I was already a nice, paper-like shade of blinding white. But there's definitely a different look to my skin. It's more shiny, to be succinct about it.
I also get clear indicators reminding me to be more careful with my movements, because when I'm not, scratches and bruises magically appear ALL over me. Maybe this is why women generally move a bit more gracefully than guys? Before hormones I would RARELY notice a bruise or scratch on my body, let alone have any; now it's like I'm never without one. Odd.
Finally there's the increased tactile sensation. What does that mean exactly? Well for starters, it means that I get cold. Like really, REALLY cold. PAINFULLY cold, in fact. And I used to love the cold weather. I mean severely LOVE it. Like wanted to make out with it because I loved it so much. Now it just HURTS. I tell guy friends of mine, "Yeah, you don't even KNOW what it's like to be cold. You may think that you do, but you just don't." And I didn't either. Then there were hormones.
The flip side of this, however, is that I realized the sheer amazingness of a good, hot shower cutting into the back of my neck and shoulders. It is SO. F'N. GREAT. Additionally, with the aforementioned softer skin, this heightened tactile thing is where it's at! The stuff that felt nice already, feels even nicer now. 'Tis fantastic.
I should also mention here that in addition to skin becoming thinner, my nails have as well. I used to do home remodeling when I was younger, and I remember using my fingernail to turn smaller screws (like on a receptacle plate) with no real problem. I tried to do that once recently, and it literally tore my nail. I never had a nail tear in my life before hormones, and now I'm thinking that I should be hitting them up with some clear polish or something just to strengthen them because they rip and tear a LOT.
- Due to reduced gland activity, dry skin becomes a problem and lotions and oils may be necessary. Totally. I never, ever, ever, ever, never had dry skin before in my life. And now I hate winter because not only am I painfully cold (as I mentioned above), but the skin on my hands basically cracks and peels right off. It's brutal. I can't tell you how much moisturizer I go through, and still I get cracked, bleeding, f'ed up hands. If you can't tell, I'm not too jazzed about this change.
- Body odor (skin, sweat, and urine) will become less "metallic," "sharp," or "acrid" and more "sweet" and "musky." I haven't noticed this because I don't often smell of the b.o. (nor do I often make it a point to sniff at my urine), though I feel like I have noticed some differences with this. Just nothing I can really confirm mostly because...
- Many types of sweat glands become inactive and body odor decreases. Which I'll take... though I'm betting that the whole "less sweating" thing leads to the whole "stupid dry skin" thing. I guess that there's just a good and bad side to everything.
- More fat tissue accumulates. Yeah, I have a lot more fat than I used to. Part of that may just be getting older, but just the way I'm shaped is now completely different. It's also a HELL of a lot harder to lose weight because of this (you know, because muscle burns off fat, while fat, surprisingly, does NOT), and it's also a LOT easier for me to get drunk (according to this article from the NY Times, "Because women's bodies have a higher ratio of fat to water, they reach a higher blood alcohol concentration after a single drink than men, even when matched for weight and size.").
- Sensitivity to male body odor(s) (including male pheromones) may be positively correlated with elevated estrogen levels. Overall, olfactory senses may increase. The latter point first... I definitely smell things better and more intricately than I did before. I remember the first time I noticed this. I was walking through the woods a few months after starting hormones and I was overwhelmed by how much I smelled. Scents were coming at me from every angle. It was crazy. And delicious.
I also had a moment about a year or so after starting hormones where I was walking down the street with a friend of mine and I said, "I smell boy." And right then and there two guys came walking around the corner. I've also told guy friends of mine who were fresh from the shower that they "smell like wet boy." And they did. That's exactly what they smelled like—wet boy. I'm not entirely sure I even knew what that smell was before. I should try to make a Wet Boy scented candle to capture the scent.
- Breasts develop. Yeah, they did. They're not as big as I would've hoped, but they're certainly there and they're fine. I'm turbo-happy about that fact, but I've discussed this in other posts, so I'm not really going to get into it here. Just wanted to say that this does happen from hormones, as opposed to the things I listed earlier that don't.
- Fat distribution takes on a more female pattern. To this I'll just say that I had zero ass when I started this process... I mean like negative ass... and now it's a whole heck of a lot fuller. It's now to the point where I notice it. Like, I was lying on my floor the other night and was amazed that the small of my back doesn't lie as flat to the floor as it did before, which kinda feels weird. I can also feel more "junk in my trunk" when I walk. My thighs have also gotten bigger since I started hormones, and I should mention that none of this is because I've gotten heavier. Since starting hormones I've lost at least 30 pounds, and yet there's still this odd kind of fat collection going on.
- The face appears "puffier" and more rounded out. My face looks completely different and more than a few people have told me that. People who didn't know me before I started hormones are sometimes shocked to see older pictures of me. I wish I had two to post to this page by way of comparison. I'll have to look into that and try to do it another time.
- The metabolism slows down and one tends to gain weight, lose energy, need more sleep, and become cold more easily. This compounds the thin skin factor for coldness. Brrrrrr. I don't really need much more sleep, but I've never been much of a sleeper anyway. Sometimes I feel a bit more run down, though, and if I eat anything even remotely bad for me these days, I can rest assured that I will gain weight. Part of all this metabolism slowing thing may just be me getting older as well. It seems that most of the changes I notice in myself are addressed with the question, "So, is it age or hormones?" I will say, however, that the food thing is maddening, and I work my ASS off trying to lose weight, and it's rare to see a change. I'm sure if I was doing everything I'm doing now before I started hormones, I'd be absolutely, 100% at my goal weight.
- Due to androgen deprivation a loss of muscle tone, a slower metabolism, and physical weakness becomes more evident. I addressed the metabolism thing above... so to move on... my arms, as an example, don't look like "guy arms" anymore, to the point where my forearms are actually curved differently now and look pretty much like a woman's arm. My upper arms aren't big or bulky in any way, and they're much smaller than they were before. I also noticed that I have less physical strength than before, and things that I would move around with ease before (like this big-ass arm chair I have in my living room) now takes a good bit more effort. Additionally, before hormones I felt like I had this reserve strength or something, but that has since disappeared. Like if I was struggling with something, I could strain and get a nice boost of strength (I should say here that I was pretty f'n strong before). Now when I strain it kinda seems like nothing happens, you know, other than me making that straining noise that one makes when they're straining.
And finally, to wrap up this uber-long post, here's two weirdly interesting things:
- The hips will rotate slightly forward due to changes in the tendons. As crazy as it sounds, this totally happened to me. About two years into hormones (right when I upped my dosage), I started to get hip pain. It got better over time, but I've noticed since that I can't really stand the way I used to, nor can I really walk the way I used to. This also kind of makes my butt stick out more, and it's just kind of crazy in general. I never thought anything like this could happen, yet it did. I find that fascinating for some reason. Like taking these pills every day can cause your HIPS to ROTATE. Nuts.
- The lens of the eyes changes in curvature. Now I never actually had it measured and compared, but I did notice about a year or so in that things just started looking "off", and I was getting headaches, having trouble judging depth, and weird things like that. This eventually got better, probably because I got used to it, but I do think that things look differently now. I wish I could explain it more than that, but I think that I've been seeing things for so long through these new lenses that I can't really say what's different anymore, though I know that it most certainly is.
Like I said, those are most of the physical effects that I've noticed. There are also some major mental ones that hormones have brought on (but that's a post for another day). With all of this going on, and with all of the amazing differences I've experienced, it's probably pretty delusional to think that "nothing ever changes" and that I'm "stuck". As I said, I've been acknowledging these things more and more, and that has certainly helped in my battle against The Big Sad.
And now I better go. Thanks for bearing with me through this longish post. I promise I won't make it a habit.
Be well.
As I've also mentioned, there are many things I'm trying in order to get this to happen. So... here's another thing that I'm doing:
Whenever anyone gets in a situation that they don't like... be it a bad living situation, a bad job, a bad relationship, financial straits, or whatever... most people will generally take steps to make things better. And when we try to make things better, a lot of times it seems that the process goes oh...................so.......................slowly. Like imperceptibly slow. To the point where it feels like you're not moving at all. Which is precisely how it feels for me at this point in time (hence, you know, the hungry depression that's been making a hearty meal of me).
There's this illusion of permanency that hangs over bad situations. This is especially so when it's a situation that will only get better through years of effort. It seems like nothing ever changes... and it gets annoying... and it gets frustrating... and it can make you very, very sad.
SO... I needed to keep reminding myself that the permanency (read: nauseating stagnation) I feel actually IS an illusion, and that things ARE happening to me all the time that will get me closer to my goals. I mean, I quite often feel like I haven't made a lick of progress since I started taking hormones about 6 years ago. It feels like this was the last big change that happened in my life. And I'm sure that this may seem a bit insane considering all I've been through, but it still feels like things aren't moving at all, and I've been doing the same thing on repeat for the last 6 years.
Now when I look at the events that occurred during this span of time in my life, I know that a LOT has happened. There's not a year that's gone by where I haven't had some big, life-altering event shake up my world in major ways. Sometimes the events were good, and sometimes not so much. BUT they did change me. They did move my life forward. They did cause me to grow as a person in some way. In short, things DO change.
However, I've been dealing with this trans thing for so long, and I still have SO far to go with it, that it seems like I'm just running in mud. The molasses-in-winter speed of this process is enough to make you want to start beating your head off a wall for the better part of a year. It seems like nothing happens with it. Ever.
Now this is inherently false. Much and more has happened in regards to this issue over the past 6 years: coming out to more and more people, getting more and more support, getting better and better with myself, accepting myself more, LOVING myself more...
All of this should be a constant reminder that, even if it doesn't seem it, things ARE progressing. Some of these things seem quite nebulous, though, so it's hard to feel like there's concrete evidence of change, and I start to feel like I'm making a lot of it up. I know now, however, that it's just a matter of having faith in what you're doing and having faith in the process. Acknowledging these things has made it a LOT better for me over the past few weeks.
And if that's not enough to help me feel better, there's that big thing that happened 6 years ago, and the effects of that event, to show me IN REAL PHYSICAL TERMS just how far I've come. I mean, physically I'm not even the same person I was 6 years ago. I'm pretty f'n different... and, more importantly, closer to my goal... as I keep having to remind myself for some reason.
So, after that long introduction, I'm now actually going to remind myself of some of the effects that hormones have had on me since I began taking them in the summer of 2005. I also thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to cover this since a lot of people seem to ask me what hormones do and what they don't do, so hopefully this will be helpful for that reason as well. Additionally, I find it an interesting insight as to the differences between men and women, especially those that are induced by hormones. Keep in mind here that I take 2 small pills in the morning and 2 small pills at night—a pill of estrogen and a testosterone blocker, twice a day—and doing this is enough to bring the following changes.
I found a list on Wikipedia of hormone effects and I shall now kind of breeze through that list and talk about my experience in regards to said list item (where pertinent). Ready? K, here we go...
Firstly I would like to talk about a few very important things that hormones do NOT do.
Hormones do NOT change your voice... at least going from male to female it doesn't, because your vocal chords have already thickened during puberty. Voice DOES change, however, when people go from female to male, though I'm not really here to talk about that side of it at the moment. A lot of people have said that my voice sounds very different, but that's mostly due to practice, practice, practice. It's gotten a lot better, but I still have a good way to go with it. Consistency is my biggest issue, but let's move on lest I get bogged down in this topic.
Hormones also do NOT remove any facial hair. That all has to be burned off through various annoying and expensive treatments. Electrolysis is the only proven method of permanent hair removal and they say it takes 100 to 400 hours to clear a face of its hair (at a cost of $65 to $100 an hour). Being about 200 hours in, and still having a great deal of hair on my chin and neck, I can attest to the fact that this is very much true.
Hormones will also not cause my hips to widen, though had I started at an earlier age when my bones were still growing, they would have. Generally speaking, the more removed from puberty you are, the less effect the hormones will have. I started when I was 32. Changes would have been much more pronounced if I began at 22... though they would have been less pronounced if I started at 42.
Hormones will obviously NOT change my height. Essentially the skeleton I have is the skeleton I have. It's just the way it is. Cosmetic things can be done to the skull to give someone's face a more feminine look, but height, arm and leg length, and all that other good stuff is pretty much fixed.
Now, here (according to the Wikipedia) is what hormones do, though I did edit this list down to practical things that I can discuss:
- Body hair thins greatly. I noticed this on my arms and legs. I didn't have much hair on my torso to begin with, and now I have none save a few stray hairs that stick around even though they are most unwelcome. They don't seem to care that they're not wanted, though. Little annoying bastards.
- Thicker head hair. More than a few people have said this is the case with me, including my hairdresser who has no idea that I'm taking hormones. Part of this is that the texture of my hair has changed. It's just thicker, shinier, and less coarse. Additionally, from what I've read, it seems that the hair I lost while younger may have started to come back because there were some follicles that weren't completely dead, and they were revitalized by the estrogen. Some follicles have died, however, and I pour some of my 40 out whenever I think of these fallen homies. I'm pretty certain, however, that at the rate my hair was going, if I hadn't started hormones when I did, I would be bald by now. And while I do have some issues with my hair, and it's certainly not the thickest head of hair on the planet, I do think it's manageable and that it can look good at times. So, you know, hooray for hormones... and all that.
- Decreased libido. Yeah, totally true. When I first started hormones it was like someone came in and cleared out my head, because getting bombarded with testosterone all the time made the majority of things in the world center around sex (or so it seemed to me, anyway). When you remove that, and you can finally see the world outside of that vantage point, WOW does it look different. It was like getting a whole new take on the world... and it's one that isn't dominated by sex. It was refreshing when it happened, and I'm still very happy that this is the case. This is not to say that I don't have ANY thoughts of sex, I just don't have thoughts about it all. the. time. Which is nice. For me anyway.
- The skin becomes softer. YESSSSSS. It did. It's great. Sometimes just having a hand on my arm and feeling my skin is the biggest reminder of how much I've changed. It seems as soft as melting ice cream compared to how it felt before. It's tremendous. I love it.
- The uppermost layer of skin becomes thinner "and therefore more translucent and pinkish (spider veins may appear or be more noticeable), less collagen, more susceptible to tearing and irritation from scratching or shaving, increased tactile sensation, and slightly lighter in color due to a slight decrease in melanin (pigment)."
This is actually one of the more noticeable changes from the hormones, believe it or not. Now I don't know about the lighter in color, because when I started I was already a nice, paper-like shade of blinding white. But there's definitely a different look to my skin. It's more shiny, to be succinct about it.
I also get clear indicators reminding me to be more careful with my movements, because when I'm not, scratches and bruises magically appear ALL over me. Maybe this is why women generally move a bit more gracefully than guys? Before hormones I would RARELY notice a bruise or scratch on my body, let alone have any; now it's like I'm never without one. Odd.
Finally there's the increased tactile sensation. What does that mean exactly? Well for starters, it means that I get cold. Like really, REALLY cold. PAINFULLY cold, in fact. And I used to love the cold weather. I mean severely LOVE it. Like wanted to make out with it because I loved it so much. Now it just HURTS. I tell guy friends of mine, "Yeah, you don't even KNOW what it's like to be cold. You may think that you do, but you just don't." And I didn't either. Then there were hormones.
The flip side of this, however, is that I realized the sheer amazingness of a good, hot shower cutting into the back of my neck and shoulders. It is SO. F'N. GREAT. Additionally, with the aforementioned softer skin, this heightened tactile thing is where it's at! The stuff that felt nice already, feels even nicer now. 'Tis fantastic.
I should also mention here that in addition to skin becoming thinner, my nails have as well. I used to do home remodeling when I was younger, and I remember using my fingernail to turn smaller screws (like on a receptacle plate) with no real problem. I tried to do that once recently, and it literally tore my nail. I never had a nail tear in my life before hormones, and now I'm thinking that I should be hitting them up with some clear polish or something just to strengthen them because they rip and tear a LOT.
- Due to reduced gland activity, dry skin becomes a problem and lotions and oils may be necessary. Totally. I never, ever, ever, ever, never had dry skin before in my life. And now I hate winter because not only am I painfully cold (as I mentioned above), but the skin on my hands basically cracks and peels right off. It's brutal. I can't tell you how much moisturizer I go through, and still I get cracked, bleeding, f'ed up hands. If you can't tell, I'm not too jazzed about this change.
- Body odor (skin, sweat, and urine) will become less "metallic," "sharp," or "acrid" and more "sweet" and "musky." I haven't noticed this because I don't often smell of the b.o. (nor do I often make it a point to sniff at my urine), though I feel like I have noticed some differences with this. Just nothing I can really confirm mostly because...
- Many types of sweat glands become inactive and body odor decreases. Which I'll take... though I'm betting that the whole "less sweating" thing leads to the whole "stupid dry skin" thing. I guess that there's just a good and bad side to everything.
- More fat tissue accumulates. Yeah, I have a lot more fat than I used to. Part of that may just be getting older, but just the way I'm shaped is now completely different. It's also a HELL of a lot harder to lose weight because of this (you know, because muscle burns off fat, while fat, surprisingly, does NOT), and it's also a LOT easier for me to get drunk (according to this article from the NY Times, "Because women's bodies have a higher ratio of fat to water, they reach a higher blood alcohol concentration after a single drink than men, even when matched for weight and size.").
- Sensitivity to male body odor(s) (including male pheromones) may be positively correlated with elevated estrogen levels. Overall, olfactory senses may increase. The latter point first... I definitely smell things better and more intricately than I did before. I remember the first time I noticed this. I was walking through the woods a few months after starting hormones and I was overwhelmed by how much I smelled. Scents were coming at me from every angle. It was crazy. And delicious.
I also had a moment about a year or so after starting hormones where I was walking down the street with a friend of mine and I said, "I smell boy." And right then and there two guys came walking around the corner. I've also told guy friends of mine who were fresh from the shower that they "smell like wet boy." And they did. That's exactly what they smelled like—wet boy. I'm not entirely sure I even knew what that smell was before. I should try to make a Wet Boy scented candle to capture the scent.
- Breasts develop. Yeah, they did. They're not as big as I would've hoped, but they're certainly there and they're fine. I'm turbo-happy about that fact, but I've discussed this in other posts, so I'm not really going to get into it here. Just wanted to say that this does happen from hormones, as opposed to the things I listed earlier that don't.
- Fat distribution takes on a more female pattern. To this I'll just say that I had zero ass when I started this process... I mean like negative ass... and now it's a whole heck of a lot fuller. It's now to the point where I notice it. Like, I was lying on my floor the other night and was amazed that the small of my back doesn't lie as flat to the floor as it did before, which kinda feels weird. I can also feel more "junk in my trunk" when I walk. My thighs have also gotten bigger since I started hormones, and I should mention that none of this is because I've gotten heavier. Since starting hormones I've lost at least 30 pounds, and yet there's still this odd kind of fat collection going on.
- The face appears "puffier" and more rounded out. My face looks completely different and more than a few people have told me that. People who didn't know me before I started hormones are sometimes shocked to see older pictures of me. I wish I had two to post to this page by way of comparison. I'll have to look into that and try to do it another time.
- The metabolism slows down and one tends to gain weight, lose energy, need more sleep, and become cold more easily. This compounds the thin skin factor for coldness. Brrrrrr. I don't really need much more sleep, but I've never been much of a sleeper anyway. Sometimes I feel a bit more run down, though, and if I eat anything even remotely bad for me these days, I can rest assured that I will gain weight. Part of all this metabolism slowing thing may just be me getting older as well. It seems that most of the changes I notice in myself are addressed with the question, "So, is it age or hormones?" I will say, however, that the food thing is maddening, and I work my ASS off trying to lose weight, and it's rare to see a change. I'm sure if I was doing everything I'm doing now before I started hormones, I'd be absolutely, 100% at my goal weight.
- Due to androgen deprivation a loss of muscle tone, a slower metabolism, and physical weakness becomes more evident. I addressed the metabolism thing above... so to move on... my arms, as an example, don't look like "guy arms" anymore, to the point where my forearms are actually curved differently now and look pretty much like a woman's arm. My upper arms aren't big or bulky in any way, and they're much smaller than they were before. I also noticed that I have less physical strength than before, and things that I would move around with ease before (like this big-ass arm chair I have in my living room) now takes a good bit more effort. Additionally, before hormones I felt like I had this reserve strength or something, but that has since disappeared. Like if I was struggling with something, I could strain and get a nice boost of strength (I should say here that I was pretty f'n strong before). Now when I strain it kinda seems like nothing happens, you know, other than me making that straining noise that one makes when they're straining.
And finally, to wrap up this uber-long post, here's two weirdly interesting things:
- The hips will rotate slightly forward due to changes in the tendons. As crazy as it sounds, this totally happened to me. About two years into hormones (right when I upped my dosage), I started to get hip pain. It got better over time, but I've noticed since that I can't really stand the way I used to, nor can I really walk the way I used to. This also kind of makes my butt stick out more, and it's just kind of crazy in general. I never thought anything like this could happen, yet it did. I find that fascinating for some reason. Like taking these pills every day can cause your HIPS to ROTATE. Nuts.
- The lens of the eyes changes in curvature. Now I never actually had it measured and compared, but I did notice about a year or so in that things just started looking "off", and I was getting headaches, having trouble judging depth, and weird things like that. This eventually got better, probably because I got used to it, but I do think that things look differently now. I wish I could explain it more than that, but I think that I've been seeing things for so long through these new lenses that I can't really say what's different anymore, though I know that it most certainly is.
Like I said, those are most of the physical effects that I've noticed. There are also some major mental ones that hormones have brought on (but that's a post for another day). With all of this going on, and with all of the amazing differences I've experienced, it's probably pretty delusional to think that "nothing ever changes" and that I'm "stuck". As I said, I've been acknowledging these things more and more, and that has certainly helped in my battle against The Big Sad.
And now I better go. Thanks for bearing with me through this longish post. I promise I won't make it a habit.
Be well.
No comments:
Post a Comment