issuesauce

So, new endo suggested using non-pill estradiol delivery. First tried spray, then patches. Prescribed patches appear to come out to about a quarter of the dose I had the last four months. Tried this for a day or so. Issues sleeping, headache and so on could have just been weather, but general feeling of unease and that everything is difficult and draining and requiring vigilance, the feeling of not being able to relax and be present… that probably is real. First time I go down from semi-steady E2. This tells me I must make sure levels are high enough. Keeping track of my HRT stocks, and hoping, though having faith, that things will be OK with the doctor going forward. Learned he has the unexpected profile of having both a medical and a law doctorate. No idea why.

During the down state, ended up being more prone to worry and questioning, slightly more irritable. Beginning to notice a difference between sadness/tears in high-estrogen mode, and sadness/no-tears dysphoria in low-estrogen mode. The latter feels like active threat awareness and carrying heavy weights. The former feels like channeling something.

We are complex, I am complex. I need not know all about the origins or implications of my state, though I will explore it. But I know now I need control over my sex hormone levels, need for them to be where I want, and that I would go quite far to maintain that control. Whether because it is I need E2, or because having neither E nor T messes anyone up, or both, I must be able to steer this. I will ensure I can.

status variabilis

On the second day, feeling much better. Pet hypothesis: pill form meant most of my E was E1, not E2. Spray means entirely E2. Higher dose E2 thus from spray, and I was moody from the dosage change. However, then my breasts should hurt more presumably, and they don’t? Or may not be so simple.

In any case, feeling much better today.

I did my best in the grant application interview. Some question my answers may not have made sense, or more correctly, revealed how little immunology I know. Still, there’s a chance, I will learn eventually. And if I did not get this grant, I will get the next, or the one thereafter, or thereafter. A witch never gives up until she chooses to, and I choose not to.

Now on train to France, will write up an agenda and make slides.

rifts

My chaos comes to a culmen. I am on a train towards Bruxelles, tomorrow I will defend my research project. Knowing I may be the first openly trans person to interview, and likely the first to transition while the application was evaluated, makes it even more important I succeed. I am extremely stressed right now from a million sources.

The gel estradiol delivery is a hassle. It bothers me that I can’t tell if my emotions now are because it does not work well, or because it works well and my responses to the stress therefore are more volatile. I just know I feel very close to crying.

But I’ll do my best. Sitting on a train with a cute lesbian couple next to me being all adorable. I’ll do my best because that is what I choose.

meds

Started day with a new laser provider who was actually good – a fourth of what I paid in the past, and spent a lot of time actually hitting the spots where needed.

Then endo meeting. Things chaotic – unsure if I actually had an appointment (chaos and languages in Babylon) but the doctor saw me anyway. Will end up trying estradiol in gel form, and probably lowering blocker dosages; he seemed willing to prescribe progesterone in the future.

These things all good but leaving me still somehow shaken afterwards, as though things which relate to medical administration (and which are important) leave me feeling as though I survived something.

Question then is – do I change my HRT delivery regime before or after the big scary important grant interview on Wednesday? The wise answer would be “after“. The me answer probably is not.

xp

Just to verify, I really am closer to tears these days, from stress. I sense the stress feels differently, less possible to ignore, no less possible to navigate and cope. Had to make a very significant effort to hold back tears in front of my administrator today.

And it feels great. I possess strength throughout this. I have agency. I have excellence. This will go well.

remaindeer

Due to logistics, ended up ~3h late with my evening estrogen pill. Could feel my skin crawling and the sort of sense that everything was irritating and concerning. Nocebo or effect. Interesting.

In other news, read heartwrenching fiction piece about a good dog and could not stop myself from repeatedly tearing up on the S-bahn. One step of a day of many complex frustrations, but in itself good.

Noting I seem vaguely to dress like one of my idols now. It seemed weird to me she would take her femmeness so high. Now I get why.

ladders

Feeling the long day. Mother used the right name once, then the wrong name a few times, but she did use it, and really this was the first time I heard her speak those syllables to me. This is undoubtedly a step forward. Many left to go, but still there.

Felt the headache from the weather, I remain a weather witch whose head hurts when rain must fall. Noted very strongly now anxieties mounting as I approached the 12-hour mark from my estrogen pill. Had to get home to get the next one (mixed it up with caffeine and ibuprofen too) and all these things helped.

Tried to clean and furnish but it got too much in candlelight and darkness. More tomorrow is coming. Now finding myself listening to another youtube lecture by an very accomplished (trans) woman in a field adjacent to mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSOWxndRdas ; I had the fortune to meet her earlier and I think I may even have tumbld about it; like seeing who I might be ten years from now, the sort of thing we use big sisters for. I guess we all need role models.

vestment

After a day of feeling quite good, went clothes shoppping. The situation being as follows – there will still be some time before I can again do laundry, and I am rapidly running out of things I want to wear. So for simplicity, went to large cheap clothing chain store and tried on 16 different dresses. None fit as I would want, and what I see now is that in my current stage, very very few designs work. They must flare (otherwise there are unsightly bulges from belly and bottom parts both), but flaring things that fit on lower body do not fit on top, they will be too small and bra will show on sides. Resolving to not buy even cheap stuff unless it fits perfectly, because otherwise in fitting room mirrors I look like a crossdressing clown. Even so, not all angles are flattering, my jaw and cheeks and throat look weird, and the signs of facial hair are there. Unless hair is just right, I look like some crossdressing slob.

That said, not only do I know this is dysphoria talking, I also see things that would look so great and fit so great and look so me if only they were cut a little differently, so it’s worth continuing to look. And I know I share that experience with 75+% of cis women too.

Speaking of my cisters, today had for first time in a while some number of cis women looking oddly at me, one snorting at me. Usually I get negative reactions only from men. Part of me worried big city people spot trans women easier, so that this would recur, but perhaps they just did not like my sunglasses. One stores clerk sold me nail polish, then gave me a free sample of men’s perfume. That messed me up a little. Perhaps it was just random. Or she signalled her lack of acceptance, or she simply instinctively parsed me as male. Those options in increasing order of sad severity. All in all, these various experiences escalated with me feeling like I come across masculine, which yields increasing dysphoria as my expectations change. I know what to do – persevere, let pass, all this shall pass.

There are things I can do with regards to that term – I don’t like the term of (even just cis-)passing, so I’ll say blending – I know from mirrors that I slouch, proper posture has real and true impact. As does smiling, and as does also remembering to maintain voice. I should tie these things too to the Triune Goddess, but not sure fully on how to work into the scheme, ideas welcome – which of the aspects of the Goddess are most kin to what habitualization of posture, voice and smile?

All in all, once clothes shopping – failed, at that – was done, I was an hour after when to take the next estradiol dose. I could feel that, and I could feel relaxation after taking it, washing the blue pill down with hugo, but really that is much too fast for anything but placebo to act. It could well be both placebo and true mood impact though. Need to instigate a double blinded study with that one trans collaborator who is also crazy, driven and brave enough to go for it, I will tell her of this aspect to the intervention possibilities too. I do thing my mood is impacted, anxieties return when estradiol drops. Should try patches again to see if it doesn’t, though of course then also any placebo or nocebo would go away. I did note about 5 min after the dose now that my worries actually deepened, I felt closer to sadness and also closer to responding to cuteness (saw little doggo), this being something I noticed post hoc so less likely perhaps to be placebo. Will see where the evening takes me.

It seems it takes me to hair washing, emergency nail polish, makeup and trying to see if (unlikely) I get into a hip club. And some slides editing. Check.

swing

I think this morning must be considered the first undeniable instance of mood effects of my hormone treatment. It’s probably happened before but I could not conclude it until now. It’s gray-ish outside, I am underslept, I am stressed and have some headache. But the response is disproportional to my past experiences. I find myself growling and being extremely angry at every little practical detail that does not exactly match my wishes, and most importantly, I cannot shut this off even though doing so would be practical. Interesting I suppose.

And fucking irritating as all hell.

And worth it if it really is part of aligning me with the womanhood I crave, even indirectly.

calms and their counterparts

I’ve been describing to people a lot how HRT changed my stress response from fight-or-flight to acceptance, but thinking now perhaps that, while partly true, is not the most accurate description. What I’ve come to feel is largely calm and anchored, but there is a change felt also in non-stressed circumstances (so maybe not just something reactive), and now that stress levels are really high during these weeks when I move and switch jobs, I recognize some of how that stress feels from before, there is still a physical urgency in the body after some point.

So perhaps what is there is instead: there is a change in the form of stress response I have, but there is also a base reduction of some form of ambient stress that used to be there (dysphoria?) along some mechanism and path. And then there may be that I thus am generally less stressed, and reacting somewhat differently to it, but I also cannot ignore specific and situational (non-ambient) stress on an emotional level as I once could. That is, I can still choose not to act on stress but I cannot really choose not to feel fear or worry. This is something I need to explore further.