Actually, that brings to mind a question I’ve been wanting to ask someone I don’t know IRL: if you have begun taking
hormones, how much have you found them to affect your thinking?
I started estrogen and androgen blockers just about five years ago, and have varied my dose and delivery method several times. Prepare for anecdata!
-Starting estrogen and spiro together was intense. I got very moody for a little while—I’ve been diagnosed with mood disorders years prior to transitioning, so it wasn’t anything new, but the frequency and severity of outbursts spiked for a little bit. My emotions didn’t actually feel stronger per se—once the initial spell wore off, I wound up describing it as a matter of nuance. It’s like learning to see new colors, new shades of distinction, between what were formerly a lot more discrete reference cases. The result was an easing of some forms of tension—it took the edge off my temper and left me a lot more calm and able to exercise rationality than I’d ever been.
Speaking of nuances: colors felt a little brighter, the world was just a touch more vivid (I’m autistic and schizotypal so it’s always been pretty vivid, but this added something), my sense of smell began to rival that of my mother (who’s one of the most olfactorily-sensitive humans I’d ever met up to that point) whereas before it’d merely been “okay”, my hearing picked up and my synaesthesia changed a bit. Emotion just became generally easier to process, and easier to experience—unless I was dealing with peak stress loads (unfortunately not uncommon with my life history), I might be more prone to exuberance or sadness but I also had a lot more reflective coherence about what they were, and could ride them out more easily.
The first time I had to go off (poor/uninsured), I got filled with endless, spikey, manic energy. It lasted a couple weeks before I was able to buy some more pills and resolve the shortage. My dreams the night after going back on were horrific nightmares.
-Upping the dose later made me even calmer, and more clearheaded. At my peak oral dose I noticed that the coolheadedness had a tendency to slide into depression, but a) I’ve always been somewhat prone to depression and b) my life became a surreal mess around that time, so it’s hard to know what to make of it all. I actually got an emotional “period”; at the far end of it I was even more levelheaded and indeed, somewhat flat of affect until directly engaged. At the near end of it, I was moody, shy and prone to volatile affectional feelings (my boyfriend at the time said I turned into a raging flirt around that time of the month).
-Going on progesterone a couple years ago removed the period and changed the texture of things yet again. For about a year, I was either calm and flat or sensuous and moody—I’d cry tears of joy at the drop of a hat, or spontaneously when having a tense moment, but it wasn’t sobbing or crying fits. It was basically the more-nuanced, this-will-pass-even-though-it’s-really-big-right-now thing I had early on taken to the 9th degree, with the emotions ratcheted up. It made reading books and watching movies really fun, and it shifted my interests somewhat toward sensory/experiential stuff. Eventually I replaced that with medproxyprogesterone due to cost—this made me so depressed I couldn’t stand to take it. Now I take neither of them, and the effects have passed.
-Injectable estrogen, the main distinguishing factor was dosage. At 5mg/week, I became seriously depressed, anhedonic, unmotivated and low-energy. This was reduced to 3mg per week a couple months later, which restored my mood stability, hedonic and adrenaline responses. Since then I’ve been more recognizably myself—occasionally moody or loopy, vulnerable to stress, but often calm and buzzy and pleasant so long as things are going even vaguely well.
I started estrogen and androgen blockers just about five years ago, and have varied my dose and delivery method several times. Prepare for anecdata!
-Starting estrogen and spiro together was intense. I got very moody for a little while—I’ve been diagnosed with mood disorders years prior to transitioning, so it wasn’t anything new, but the frequency and severity of outbursts spiked for a little bit. My emotions didn’t actually feel stronger per se—once the initial spell wore off, I wound up describing it as a matter of nuance. It’s like learning to see new colors, new shades of distinction, between what were formerly a lot more discrete reference cases. The result was an easing of some forms of tension—it took the edge off my temper and left me a lot more calm and able to exercise rationality than I’d ever been.
Speaking of nuances: colors felt a little brighter, the world was just a touch more vivid (I’m autistic and schizotypal so it’s always been pretty vivid, but this added something), my sense of smell began to rival that of my mother (who’s one of the most olfactorily-sensitive humans I’d ever met up to that point) whereas before it’d merely been “okay”, my hearing picked up and my synaesthesia changed a bit. Emotion just became generally easier to process, and easier to experience—unless I was dealing with peak stress loads (unfortunately not uncommon with my life history), I might be more prone to exuberance or sadness but I also had a lot more reflective coherence about what they were, and could ride them out more easily.
The first time I had to go off (poor/uninsured), I got filled with endless, spikey, manic energy. It lasted a couple weeks before I was able to buy some more pills and resolve the shortage. My dreams the night after going back on were horrific nightmares.
-Upping the dose later made me even calmer, and more clearheaded. At my peak oral dose I noticed that the coolheadedness had a tendency to slide into depression, but a) I’ve always been somewhat prone to depression and b) my life became a surreal mess around that time, so it’s hard to know what to make of it all. I actually got an emotional “period”; at the far end of it I was even more levelheaded and indeed, somewhat flat of affect until directly engaged. At the near end of it, I was moody, shy and prone to volatile affectional feelings (my boyfriend at the time said I turned into a raging flirt around that time of the month).
-Going on progesterone a couple years ago removed the period and changed the texture of things yet again. For about a year, I was either calm and flat or sensuous and moody—I’d cry tears of joy at the drop of a hat, or spontaneously when having a tense moment, but it wasn’t sobbing or crying fits. It was basically the more-nuanced, this-will-pass-even-though-it’s-really-big-right-now thing I had early on taken to the 9th degree, with the emotions ratcheted up. It made reading books and watching movies really fun, and it shifted my interests somewhat toward sensory/experiential stuff. Eventually I replaced that with medproxyprogesterone due to cost—this made me so depressed I couldn’t stand to take it. Now I take neither of them, and the effects have passed.
-Injectable estrogen, the main distinguishing factor was dosage. At 5mg/week, I became seriously depressed, anhedonic, unmotivated and low-energy. This was reduced to 3mg per week a couple months later, which restored my mood stability, hedonic and adrenaline responses. Since then I’ve been more recognizably myself—occasionally moody or loopy, vulnerable to stress, but often calm and buzzy and pleasant so long as things are going even vaguely well.