Boundaries and Changes

[LeaP]

I'm getting a whole new appreciation for things previously dismissed or treated lightly!

For example, the boundaries of my body seem to have changed! I'm finding myself bumping and hitting things in places I never did before. Now that could be that there's just a little more sensitivity here and there :straightface:

… But I don't think so.

Suddenly, doorways are smaller. Grocery bags are bigger. Hug tight and *I* squish! I still have no problem whatsoever doing something like, say, heaving a 40 or 50 pound bag up onto my shoulder. But I best not hit my chest on the way by! :eek:

And with even a small change in chest size comes a difference in how I can use leverage. Jars, for example. How many times in your life – when you got a really difficult one – have you picked it up, put it up close to your chest and clamped down hard to torque the lid off? Well, friend, I can't get it as close as I used to! It hurts when I try! And even though my hand strength hasn't changed much, I'm finding myself using a lid remover more and more.

Why do women bruise more easily? Why do their hands cut more easily? Why do their hands get colder, more quickly?

It ain't because they're wimpy!

With softer, thinner skin, I'm having to learning a new way of handling things. I have a bunch of cuts on my hands right now. I don't even know where they came from. :idontknow:

And moisturizer. Moisturizer! It turns out there really is a need for more than three or four kinds! Who knew? But suddenly samples have become interesting! I've bought things, tried them a couple times and tossed them! It seems this behavior is rational after all! I have gone from using moisturizer three times a year to 30 times a day.

Lip balm too. In fact, I just paused writing to use some. I opened my desk drawer to get it. It's starting to look like my wife's: lip balm and moisturizer, of course, but nail files, hair spray, 4 different pain killers (Advil, etc.), cough and cold remedies, a sewing kit, floss, and pink disposable razors ...

I have gloves everywhere. Gloves in the car. Glove liners in the pockets of my jackets. A pair stashed in my messenger bag. A pair in the garage. And I'm thinking how nice it would be to have a pair in the basement next to the freezer. Dishwashing gloves are my friend. And if I handle pellets for the stove, the gloves now go on first ... pellets are drying and cut!

So far I don't need a pin to hold my shirt closed. But I suspect if I do at some point, it won't seem quaint and fussy anymore.

[Kate Simmons]

Well, I guess you are finding out just how different it is to be more girl my friend. It's a learning curve for sure.:)

[stefan37]

Try working physical labor with softer thinner skin. My hands and fingers are a mess from cuts and bruises. I also have noticed a loss in strength. I can still pick up heavy items through years of experience but I find myself struggling a lot more. At this point my breast are not that tender but if items get too close or I have to lay on my stomach, yeah it hurts.

[elizabethamy]

Wow! Amazing description of the little details...it's always so remarkable that the things we don't understand from the outside become obvious from the inside. True of jobs and religion and relationships and...i guess... of bodily transformation. Fascinating post. I hope the benefits far outweigh the need for all these health remedies and such...surely they do...

[melissaK]

You bragging or complaining LeaP sweetie? :-)
Neither, I know. Just observing. But tell the truth, you giggle in delight with each of those realizations don't you?

I know I do. And you are so right that dry cold winter really brings it out. The need for lotions lip gloss, gloves, eye cream, face cream, heel cream, leg cream, face cream is REAL. And my nails! My poor nails split over nothing now. Biotin supplements, strong as nails coatings, and even top coat. And I'm not even out yet!

[LeaP]

I hope the benefits far outweigh the need for all these health remedies and such...surely they do...

Some of them go hand-in-hand. Estrogen, for example, increases blood flow to mucous membranes. I've developed a more-or-less permanently stuffy nose. Guess what THAT results in? You got it ... tissues everywhere. In the pockets, in the car, on the desk, on the nightstand, etc., etc., etc.

[melissaK]

Lea! I didn't know that. I have a near permanent post nasal drip I didnt use to have. I never made the connection.

I spent the weekend around my daughter and it sounds backwards to say, but I've now got her fingernails (flat topped and split too easy) and perrenially stuffy nose! And I can hear memories of my Dad teasing my Mom for her always runny nose.

[arbon]

I did not make that connection either, learn something new everyday.

[Sandra1746]

I agree with all the observations you made, of course the effects are slightly different for everyone.

It is now the "new normal..."

Hugs,
Sandra1746

[lauren_m]

You bragging or complaining LeaP sweetie? :-)
Neither, I know. Just observing. But tell the truth, you giggle in delight with each of those realizations don't you?


I thought the same thing! :)

[LeaP]

You bragging or complaining LeaP sweetie? :-)
Neither, I know. Just observing. But tell the truth, you giggle in delight with each of those realizations don't you?

Well I don't know about giggling! I do find it terribly ironic that things I have routinely rolled my eyes at for decades actually have a real basis. Like everything else in this journey, though, I continue to rack up university credits for cluelessness remediation.

I got my Masters in Lack of Self-Knowledge a while ago. Now that I'm in the Practicum for the PhD, I expect that I'll have to write abject letters of apology to every woman I've ever known, met, or even heard about. My dissertation topic will be titled "Yin and Yang - The Role of Comeuppance Regarding Male Privilege and Attitudes in the MtF Transsexual as Pertains to the Restoration of Gender Harmony in the Greater Population."

But ... to your question. Yeah, I kinda like it, too. Pain, stuffy nose and all.

[Traci Elizabeth]

Welcome to the real world of HRT!

[Megan Thomas]

Has anyone else suffered with a change of skin resulting in zits appearing virtually overnight, and as quickly as some disappear new ones appear to replace them? I had a 4-6 week period of this when HRT started kicking in at first. I felt like a teenager going through puberty! lol

[Rianna Humble]

I felt like a teenager going through puberty! lol

Guess what? You are going through a sort of puberty as your body changes to adapt to the new hormone balance.

[KellyJameson]

You may find your sense of touch, smell, taste and hearing difficult to please leaving you constantly dissatisfied.

I think testosterone must work like some kind of block to sensory information so when it is gone all this stuff comes flying into your head.

You will be amazed by how much effort you will have to now make to "manage" yourself and life because of everything that is going to "come inside you now"

The beauty of it all is the exquisite sense of connectivity you will also experience, for me it is nothing short of a spiritual experience but without the religion.

No matter what avoid being self critical and self judgemental because you are feeling "emotional", "needy", "helpless" ect....

Just go with it...

[LeaP]

You may find your sense of touch, smell, taste and hearing difficult to please leaving you constantly dissatisfied.

I think testosterone must work like some kind of block to sensory information so when it is gone all this stuff comes flying into your head.

You will be amazed by how much effort you will have to now make to "manage" yourself and life because of everything that is going to "come inside you now"

The beauty of it all is the exquisite sense of connectivity you will also experience, for me it is nothing short of a spiritual experience but without the religion.

No matter what avoid being self critical and self judgemental because you are feeling "emotional", "needy", "helpless" ect....

Just go with it...

None of this is difficult. In fact, it's all familiar. I feel like myself again. I've said over and over that I FEEL what I felt when I was a child. I feel myself - my sense of myself, that is - as I was then, so strongly that I feel it physically. The things you mention, Kelly, are things that have always come at me and into me for decades, but have bombarded me. Now they are almost euphoric. This is the connectivity you mention - pure presence - and it is a spiritual experience.

I have had some emotional surging, but nothing that's gotten out of hand. The one thing you mention that rings true is feeling needy at times. That invokes some guilt, but overall the experience is as exquisite as you say.

[KellyJameson]

"bombarded me. Now they are almost euphoric"

This I think is why testosterone is experienced as poison. It separates you from the euphoric experience of self that you knew in the beginning. It makes the pleasurable "painful" (bombarded) and turns us against ourselves because our minds as "brain" were not designed for the experience of testosterone. In its absence the pleasurable is now experienced as it was intended (euphoric) by the mind we possess where for others they would be tormented by its absence.

Welcome back Lea

P.S Thank you by the way for your very kind P.M and "Happy New Years" back at you.

[melissaK]

. . . My dissertation topic will be titled "Yin and Yang - The Role of Comeuppance Regarding Male Privilege and Attitudes in the MtF Transsexual as Pertains to the Restoration of Gender Harmony in the Greater Population."


OMG, I'll order your academicals for the graduation ceremony now! What are the "TS School of Life"'s colors again? Pink and Blue? And do you look better in a tam or mortarboard? :)

[LeaP]

OMG, I'll order your academicals for the graduation ceremony now! What are the "TS School of Life"'s colors again? Pink and Blue? And do you look better in a tam or mortarboard? :)

NO-ONE looks good in a mortarboard! And those oversize, fuzzy academics tams are a little out there, too. How about this?

195345

BTW, got my latest comeuppance last night. I weighed myself for the first time since the holidays yesterday. I gained 8 POUNDS! :eek: My wife's response? "Welcome to female hormones." :straightface:

[melissaK]

No fair, she'd make ANY hat look good. In fact hats line up to get on HER head.

But, that aside, I went to a 3,000 student graduation in December and that hat is WAAY cuter than any hat I saw any academic wear . . .