5 posts tagged “hormones”

I've been meaning to make a note somewhere of the fact that I've been out to my family for a year now.  I came out to my parents on the Friday before Mother's Day, and to my brothers on Mother's Day proper.  So wow, yeah...honestly, I couldn't be happier since coming out to everyone.  Having to put a huge effort into hiding such a huge facet of my life broke me down to the point where I couldn't take it anymore.  Since coming out, everyone has been really supportive and I feel really comfortable in terms of where I belong with my family.

On that note, I came out to the Human Resources Director at my job today.  And, like I suspected/hoped, she was completely supportive about it.  I made mention that she has my blessing to tell the rest of the HR department - I imagine that I will be having some conversations regarding my being transgendered, but I welcome that!  The honest truth is that as long as my job isn't at risk (and right now I have every reason to believe it isn't), I'm pretty much ready for the world to know.

Up next - I start slowly letting people know, I guess.  I had planned to wait until I was ready to go full-time because I didn't want to confuse people, but in retrospect I think it makes more sense to ease people in so as not to shock them.  I guess I'm just going to find a few people that I trust, let them know, hope that they're with me, and then move on to a few more people.  I plan to make this blog public so that I don't have to explain everything to every person.  My hope is that.  This blog will hopefully be a really useful tool in that regard.  While I'm on the topic:

Click here to start at the beginning, and then "next" on each page to go in chronological order.

Finally, though - progress.  I had a really rough Monday, where I found myself in a really bad mood early on in the day and I absolutely couldn't snap myself out of it.  It was a day where I felt really bothered, and couldn't explain why.  I ended up taking yesterday off so that I could gather my thoughts and pick myself up, and I came to a few conclusions.  The first conclusion is that I was stressed out - I've been oversocializing and letting some important stuff get out of control - I did my best to accomplish basic stuff that I've been putting off, which I think is exactly what I needed.  The second is that - yes, the hormones are starting to take a noticable effect.  I used to have the blessing/curse of being incredibly good at hiding bad moods (blessing because it made me a genuinely positive person, curse because I couldn't control it), and I'm finding it harder and harder.  I've cried three times at work in the last week (all involving direct conversations with people regarding conflicts).  I keep having to leave for "personal appointments" that are in fact therapy/laser/endo sessions.  And I'm afraid to mention it because I don't really need people looking, but I will say that I'm finding it harder and harder to wear just t-shirts anymore without being super-conscious of how I sit.

Once I feel like I've gotten a feel on the work situation, the hurdle to tackle is actually trying to spend a weekend or soemthing full-time presenting female.  I'm not sure if I want to do it in the atmosphere of a vacation so that I can sort of "start fresh" for a bit, or to just pick a weekend here and do it.  Much like everything else, I'll probably wing it until I find some reason that the time is right, and make my decision then :)

I told myself that my reward for coming out to work will be to get my ears pierced.  Yeah I am!  I'll probably get my eyebrows waxed as well, since I had that done once a long time ago and really liked the way it looked.

Ugh.

I went back to work on Monday, sporting a blackened eye that was apparently not as bad as the rumors made it sound.  I made due - people naturally asked what happened, and I kept myself entertained making up different stories throughout the day (always telling the truth eventually).  Interestingly, while my eye looks bad, it feels fine; however, my nose apparently looks fine yet still hurts a lot if I touch it.  I have an appointment with my ENT on Wednesday, and I don't know if I should be expecting surgery, or for him to just set it back - either way, I really hope that they put me under because I am totally fearing pretty much anything touching my nose right now.

It's really tough to feel feminine with a shiner!  I know that I should just go to CVS and purchase some concealer (which I will likely do tomorrow, as I have a BATs meeting), but I've instead reverted to my usual sitting around, kind of moping, and waiting for the situation with my face to pass.  Black eye aside, I've been getting progressively happier with my appearance lately, which is pretty ok.  One thing that I'm going to start working on is my weight - I've put on some pounds around the tummy area, and while I would love all my fat tissue to convert to breasts, I would also like to be able to wear appropriately fitted clothes without having a gut sticking out.  I played DDR today after work for some exercise - I'm going to alternate between that and jogging (and eating less, and only drinking coffee/water) to hopefully keep in better shape.

In other news, my parents sold their house.  This is really great news and I'm totally happy for them.  A small (well, medium-sized) part of me is sad that I'm never going back to the house that I spent the first 23 years of my life.  Heck, there are very few people that I can think of that are even living in North Haven anymore.  To be honest, I don't think I've really let it sink in yet.  I'm sure there will be a period of sadness, followed by my moving on.  I think the important thing is that my parents are no longer suffering the year-plus-long headache of trying to sell an old house in this market, and that they can now relax in a house that I think suits them a lot more.

What else?  I had bloodwork taken last week, and I have an appointment with my endo tomorrow to check and make sure that everything with the hormones is going as planned.  I'm hoping he'll up the dosage - I believe that's the standard way it's done, assuming that I'm healthy.  I also have a hair removal appointment on Wednesday, but I think I'm going to cancel it for fear of putting unnecesary strain on my face.

I'm still broke.  I'm also starting to feel the loneliness bug living alone (although the 'being broke' part is a huge contributor).  However, a solution to both problems may be in the works.  My friend Anthony is moving back to Boston from San Diego tomorrow, and I've been discussing moving in with him come September.  I believe he's been somewhat receptive.  I think he'd make an ideal roommate - he's said wholeheartedly that he has no trouble rooming with a mid-transition MtF, we have common interests and outlooks, and we have reasonably common sets of friends.  Also, my friend Bryan called today and it seems like he wants to seriously start looking into living in Boston.  So that's good stuff, at least!

I guess I'll end this post on that positive note.  I never know how to end these.

...and still no breasts!

Seriously, though.  The changes from 3 weeks of hormones have been pretty subtle so far.  I don't know if it's smoother skin or shifting body fat or what, but nowadays I look at myself in the mirror and like what I see.  I think I definitely have a somewhat androgynous look to me, which is a fine start.  And while the 'no breasts' thing is the truth, there is definitely swelling in that general area.  From a non-physical standpoint, the only differences I've seen are really slight emotional swings and significantly less thoughts of a sexual nature.

I haven't really been going out presenting female much lately.  If it's something that I feel I should specifically make the effort to do so for (BATs, therapy, shopping, socializing with certain friends), I will, but otherwise I'm just being me and letting the cards fall where they will.  I had been so concerned with how I would get other people to switch my name/pronoun/(how they see me), but I have realized that it will all sort itself out in the end.  According to people at BATs, for roughly six months it should be easy to pose as male, but then it will start to require effort.  At some point I will go full-time, and that's when I'll bother letting the name/pronoun thing stress me out.  I have always kept a philosophy of not worrying about things needlessly, and this should be no exception.

I still wake up some mornings and just have it totally hit me:  I'm actually changing my gender.  It's so damned daunting!  I still probably have some crazy amount of laser hair removal, which, while painful, is probably nowhere near as bad as sexual reassignment surgery.  For the first time in my life, I have a driver's license, birth certificate, and social security card - and I'm going to work on getting the names/genders changed on all of them.  If I try and attempt a relationship, I'm going to have to figure out if I tell the other person that I'm transgendered (or risk them dumping me/beating me up in a homophobic rage).  There's no doubt in my head that I want this, but there are days I just get really stressed about it.

In other news, my life has been pretty dull lately.  I'm trying my best to be good and not spend money, so I'm pretty much just sitting around the apartment/hanging out at friends' houses.  I'm getting over being sick, which has been pretty terrible.  I've started looking around at new jobs - there seems to be a ton of demand for Desktop Support people right now, so I figure there's no harm in applying and trying to get some more money.  My plan is, should I score an interview, to fully disclose that I'm transgendered to any HR people that I interview with so that I can at least be assured of corporate nondiscrimination.  I started playing Dance Dance Revolution again in an attempt to get in better shape.  I've been putting off the Facebook updating for months now, but I swear that's this weekend's project!

I've been on my hormone regiment (that I will be on for the rest of my life) for 10 days now.  For four months I sat around impatient waiting to start it; now that I have, I am sitting around impatiently waiting for notiable effects.  My sex drive is noticably lowered, which I suppose makes sense given that the Spironolactone is there strictly to kill of my testasterone production.  There was a major mood swing at work (happy Tuesday, depressed beyond belief on Wednesday, happy again on Thursday), but I can't really tell how much that was affected by hormones as opposed to my job.

In other news, I came to the realization somewhat recently that perhaps I've been handling the transitioning process wrong.  There was a BATs meeting perhaps a month ago where I explained that I more or less ended an old blog to restart this one from a female perspective.  I was asked why I ended the old one as opposed to just modifying how I write there - was this because I felt the need to end my life as [male] in order to be accepted as Michelle?  I think the problem is that I had never really considered the ramifactions of this.

On one hand, I've been who I am my entire life, and there are facets of my personality that I like that are decidedly masculine.  On the other,  I use the term "presenting female" all the time in this LJ - I do this because there obviously has been some sort of need to differentiate the two.  In the past, I couldn't even go into the woman's section of a clothing store because I had this huge irrational fear of being seen as a male that didn't belong there.  In other words, the idea of being seen as a "guy playing a game of pretend" was a huge fear, and I think I might have let that rule me without considering that it's not a big deal in the first place.  I am fully of the belief that the need to separate my male self and my female self in the past has caused me problems.

One issue is that I had never really considered how slow the hormonal changes would be.  Yes, I knew about them, but I didn't really process how this would affect my transition.  I have always had the plan of "eventually, I will look more female than male, and everything will fit into place".  That, in and of itself, isn't going to work.  My goal, starting yesterday when I finally sat down and thought about this, is to slowly "merge" [male] and Michelle into...well, into me.  I haven't been making nearly the effort in that regard as I should have, and I'm going to do so more.

I have already started trying to apply some makeup/do my hair right even when not going out of the way to "present female".  Changing my voice is tough, but it's an ongoing process to make my female one (a) better and (b) my default voice.  When the weather changes and I no longer wear a coat with 12 pockets I plan to switch over to purses for good.  All in all, I guess the goal isn't to stop presenting female, but rather to make it so that I'm not totally reliant on doing so to be seen in that way.

Other than that, not much to report.  I have been mostly staying at home and keeping myself busy with forms of mindless entertainment, but I blame that on the New England weather more than anything else.  After a failed flirtation with the bass guitar sometime around this time last year, I borrowed a keyboard from Joel and have been enjoying re-teaching myself piano.  There has been a sometimes-losing battle with keeping the apartment clean.  Work is like my own little Big Brother house - ups, downs, and a lot of crazy people.  I haven't really been as social with people as I'd like, so that's something to work on.

And that, in a nutshell, is how a bill becomes a law.

Well, I'm doing a bit better.

This post was just going to be a continuation of the last one.  Essentially, it was going to be a list of things that I have been feeling anxious about lately.  This is a result of my hyperfocusing on the negative - basically, I kept coming up with situations, trying to prepare for the worst, and then tricking myself into assuming it would happen.  There is still a lot of stuff on my mind that I'm nervous about, but I think (as usual) I just had to get it out of my system by writing it out.  I'll get to that later.

I saw my endocrinologist today!  He did some routine tests, asked me some questions, gave me details about what to expect from hormones, and I left with a prescription for estrogen (Premarin) and androgen-blockers (Spironolactone).  I will be taking these pills for three months before my first follow-up appointment where my doctor will check hormone levels and make sure that everything is allright from a health point of view.  Because the spiro is a diuretic and the pills are one-per-day, I will be starting tomorrow morning.  As it stands right now, I'm excited.

What biological changes am I expecting?  Over the next few months/years, I will be:  developing breasts, experiencing a redistribution of body fat and loss of muscle, developing a more female hair pattern, experiencing emotional/mood changes, losing my sex drive for awhile, and getting softer facial features.  Hormones don't help stop hair in places where it already grows, so I will be continuing with laser hair removal (or possibly switch to electrolysis, since I'm starting to feel concern that laser isn't working) for a long time.  Hormones aren't going to help my voice at all, so it's something I'm just slowly going to work on.  The hormones/anti-androgens themselves are going to make me pee more, possibly give me headaches, and will up my risk for blood clots and other health risks.  And yes, if anyone asks, I am aware of where Primarin comes from.  I still think it's worth it.

As I feel the hormones kicking in, I am hoping I will start to find myself able to naturally switch into/stay in 'female mode' until I am able to be perfectly comfortable.  It will probably take awhile.  Eventually at some point, I'll either stop being able to hide it or stop wanting to hide it, and I will come out at work, and I will likely stay full-time as Michelle at that point.  I would say "I can't wait!", but the fact is that I have to wait.  The end goal will make me complete as a person, but the way there can be potentially scary if I let it.

Anyone reading this: if/as you start to notice changes in the way I look or act, please feel free to let me know, because I will be curious about how I am seen and might not notice on my own.  Don't be afraid of offending me in that regard - even if you tell me "you're acting like a total bitch", at least that lets me know that the hormones are getting noticable.  And if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

Tomorrow I'm getting my face zapped, which hurts and sucks, but is necesary.  Friday after work I will be going to a gathering with work friends (which is desperately needed, since my job is once again getting depressing with low morale).  I am thinking of going to a transgender conference (please ignore the terrible webiste) on Saturday afternoon to check out some of the workshops.  Sunday I will be working in the morning, and then I assume I will be watching the Patriots beat up the Chargers.  Monday I'm out to Framingham for therapy.  This is a lot more plans than usual, for me! 

As for tonight, though - that's all I got.  Goodnight!