Communication.

[brylram]

Ok so I've been considering posting about this for a while now, and since it came up in another thread of mine I thought I'd actually get to it finally. I'm putting it in this section because I think it might be useful to guys who don't have access to the private ftm sections, and maybe interesting somehow to other types of members. EDIT: I actually feel silly now that I've posted this. :\ I don't feel like I've explained very well, and it seems like I made it sound simpler/more minor than I mean. *shrug*

My entire life I've had problems with communication. When I was a kid I often had no idea how to express myself, even around seemingly simple situations. I know that's pretty standard when we're very young, but it continued well past the point where other children were getting a good handle on it. I would often feel trapped in myself, not knowing why nothing I said ever seemed to come out right. I felt disconnected from everyone around me, and was unable to build any friendships. I would reverse math questions in an attempt to make it challenging (subtract rather than add, divide rather than multiply, or vice versa); would spell words perfectly after hearing them, and then have to sit frustratedly through them being used in a sentence or two; but I struggled with writing. I had trouble keeping up with verbal instruction/teaching, and would get lost then stop paying attention. I could understand written words much better though, and used it to my advantage with things like spelling, understanding what words individually meant, and later with countering my difficulties.

I took it upon myself to analyze as many situations as I could through written words (staying up all night reading), and then try to apply them to what I saw in real life interactions; I also used the understanding I developed of individual words, and the range of words I understood to figure out what people were saying to me, and how to respond. I developed a deliberate system of contextual analysis. I guess that's what we all do subconsciously when communicating, but for me it was VERY deliberate and wholly conscious. I ended up struggling still because I couldn't get around my difficulty with picking the right meaning when multiple options were possible. I also spent a considerable amount of time simply analyzing myself and applying what I learned to understanding other people; the benefit of which has been that I have often been told that I understand things that many middle-aged people haven't yet grasped (yay, a benefit! :P).

When I went through female puberty my communication skills gradually increased. Eventually I became much better at expressing myself, and reached the point where English and Social Studies teachers would be suspicious of me because they felt that my writing was at a university level (and of course I must not have written it). I dropped out of high school after grade 10. When I later upgraded my English I was met with appreciation rather than suspicion because by then I was an adult, but I had been on T for a while and my communication skills were deteriorating. Around the same time, I received a perfect score on reading in my GED exams, but scored surprisingly low on writing.

When I started testosterone I didn't initially notice any changes in my communication skills, and I didn't expect any. Over time though I started to notice an increase of the problems that I had as a child. My grammar when writing has gone to pot. I struggle to find the right words, or even to figure out what it is I want to say in the first place. I sometimes stutter, or say a different word than what I mean to when speaking. I get frustrated easily in face-to-face conflicts with people I love, because I have difficulty even putting my finger on why I'm upset and what I need to say, and then I don't have a clue how to say it (writing or typing is easier because I have time to think and organize things). I repeat myself, changing how I say it every time, because I can't get what I think in my head to come out right in words. I often mean to say something positive, and come off as hostile or negative instead. I cause problems for myself all the time by going into way too much detail, because I am trying to make sure I get enough info in to be properly understood; I ask a million questions because I need to know everything to trust that I understand even part of something; and I overthink everything because it takes a lot of comparison for me to weed out what I think is right. Fortunately at this point I have learned enough, and have enough experience with these struggles that I do fairly well regardless, and I have a very easy time with casual social interactions, particularly with strangers. I am back to the feeling of translating though, and I often feel 'locked in' again when upset.

Some other interesting and somewhat related things to note are:
- I have had intelligence testing, and was found to have excellent comprehension skills (98th percentile if I remember correctly) but abnormally low processing skills, which means it takes me a long time to think and answer (due to translating maybe?).
- I loved all books as a child, only novels when estrogen was dominant, and only non-fiction now.
- I hated writing and loved math as a child, and I'm the same now, but I was the opposite with estrogen.
- I used to be able to judge when it was my turn to talk flawlessly, but I am always unsure now and interrupt people often.
- It took me over 2 hours of constant focus to write this, after several months of mentally deciding what to say.

So there you go, an interesting look maybe at some of my experiences, and how different hormones have affected them. Keep in mind that I find this the most fascinating because I 100% believed that my communication skills would remain unchanged, and only noticed what was happening when I went "hey, this is exactly how I felt as a kid!" I kind of like that it's a strong indication that I am more my real self on T than estrogen though.

PS. I know I may make it sound dire, but really I do ok because of all the effort I've put in. It's just interesting and a bit frustrating, but I don't mind because it's just part of me. This is my personal experience and not anything I've really heard of happening before, so don't worry very much that this could happen for you too. It is not something I consider a downside of T.

[DanielMacBride]

*chuckles* wow. DUDE. All I have to say to that is "how long have you been sitting on my shoulder?"

Your experiences are almost identical to mine - the one notable exception being that I still love all books (although I DO tend to read a lot more non-fiction than anything else now), and that for me, writing was my way of actually being able to articulate my thoughts and remains so, although I have noticed since I have been on T that I do have a little more difficulty in actually getting what I want to say written coherently. I also tend to stutter a little at times when I am under pressure to provide an answer (never used to as a kid AFAIK, but I don't remember a whole lot so I may have done - although I have memories of either going completely silent when upset, or screaming at the top of my lungs in frustration, which usually degenerated into a string of curses that would make a sailor blush LOL because I couldn't articulate what I was trying to say and my parents refused to LISTEN to it and would stand there ridiculing me for trying to speak), and I have noticed when I am writing and I am struggling to articulate something, I end up with "finger stutters" and a whole LOT of typos (like just now, I have had to backspace and correct practically every second word in this sentence).

I can SO relate to the difficulty in getting thoughts across to others - I have had this my whole life, although I am told I am quite an articulate speaker as well as writer (but I don't FEEL like an articulate speaker because I always end up a bundle of nerves and struggling to say what I want to and have it actually interpreted correctly). I have had to pretty much do the same as you and teach myself how to interpret everything and understand it - and like you, I have been told that I have an amazing ability to understand others (I don't see it that way, but others apparently think I excel at it).

I also dropped out of high school because I just literally burned out (at age 5, I tested as having a reading age of 13 and a writing age of about 12.6, along with a 150 IQ - but found that when I felt like I was under pressure, I was unable to articulate what I was thinking in a way that others would understand). And since I had two school teachers for parents who constantly applied pressure....yeah. I struggled with math all the way through primary school because I had crap teachers and couldn't follow the verbal instructions - but in my second year of high school I got lucky and had an amazing teacher who actually wrote and drew things on the board so I could understand the math we were learning, and in one year I went from basically being a student in the "Applicable Math" class (lowest level) to missing out on the Math 2/3 class (the highest level) by about 4% in my test. I used to do algebra for fun, because the equations fascinated me - and like you, I enjoyed the reversing thing (although in algebra, it came in the form of calculating the variables and rewriting the equations, but same idea).

I also have the issues of taking a while to answer things (like you, I think that is an interpretation delay), of struggling to articulate my thoughts when I am upset or get passionate about something and I can't get the words out or find the right ones, and I also repeat myself and go into too much detail in an effort to be understood (because most people DON'T understand what I am trying to say unless they have known me for a while and kind of learned how to speak Daniel, LOL). But once people DO learn to speak Daniel, I am always told that I have a very rare and deep level of understanding of how other people work, and I don't know, that kinda freaks me a bit because I don't think I have any unusual ability, to me it's just normal and I don't understand why nobody else works on that level!

As to how T has affected me with the communication stuff, I think it has simplified my communication somewhat (almost "dumbed it down" if you like, I find that I struggle to communicate on the same level that I used to be able to before T and some things are much harder for me to articulate now). It frustrates the hell out of me because I used to write a lot of poetry and stories that were pretty good (had a few published, too), but seem to have pretty much lost that ability to make a story flow coherently - anything like that that I write now is kind of jerky and awkward and doesn't really have that smooth flow I find that now I have to stop and proof-read everything I type because I almost always have to correct grammar or spelling, or fix some run-on sentences and stuff like that.

On the plus side though, I have noticed that the "chatter" in my head is a lot quieter since I have been on T - previously, I would find it damn near impossible to sift through the zillion thoughts all happening at once and catch one long enough to articulate it, because they all moved so fast and the mental "noise" was deafening (if you know what I mean). Now, I have very little mental "chatter" because when I stop to catch a thought, I still have to chase it a bit because they move fast, but there are way less of them in there at any one time so they are a little easier to identify and chase down, if that makes sense.

[NiCo]

[If I don't make sense, forgive me, I’ve started on new medication]

My entire life I've had problems with communication. When I
was a kid I often had no idea how to express myself

Lol, I’ve had his problem too...I think that's why when at 16 I said “I feel like I’m living the life of someone else” rather than “I’m male btw, not female” I got diagnosed as a Schizophrenic [and struggled for a whole year to have that label erased from my medical notes as one of THEIR mistakes]. All because I didn’t know how to express myself properly. BTW for the record, I only have depression, I’m not psychotic!

Even if I sit for a while and think through what I am going to say, it always seems a waste of my time cause when I get what I think is right in my head and go to say it…people always get it wrong. Or do I say it wrong? I don’t know to be honest….but I always get branded angry and aggressive and it’s actually got to the stage where I have BECOME angry and aggressive [well I might as well seeing how if I’m going to be accused of such I might as well actually do it?]. This happens even when I’m NOT angry, I could be in the best mood ever and STILL I would be accused of being angry. It’s not fair.

When it comes to English…believe it or not I am actually dyslexic and had quite a hard time trying to learn the English language. Something that helped me was writing novels…I’d write and write for hours and then go back and attempt to correct my mistakes. It helped me a lot…and people always say “but everything you write is always ‘perfect’” <<< I write everything out on a Microsoft word document first, d*ckhead so don’t try and make me out to be a liar lol.

I noticed though when I was on E, I could express myself a lot better than now. When I went on T, it all changed, I find myself struggling to grasp things…I don’t know why that is, but a lot of people say THEY “doubt it has anything to do with hormones” okay doctor, thanks for that. No.

I replied on a thread about the difference E and T had on communication skills [I think it was that, either that it was about memory and then a few MtFs came in saying shit like hormones had nothing to do with it, cause they know everything, obviously.] strange how you’ve just mentioned exactly what I’ve been thinking for ages…I think there definitely IS a connection with hormones and communication.

Thanks.

[I was actually going to make a point about something here but I can’t remember what it was so I’ll leave it at that and if I remember I’ll repost lol]

[Andy66]

That's really interesting, Brylram. And it's interesting that some of the other guys have exactly the same issues. I never would have thought that hormones would change what school subject you're best at, once you're past a certain age.

One thing I wonder is, do all guys experience what you wrote about, or just transguys? And don't T-girls experience the same thing in reverse?

I've always had problems with misunderstanding, being misunderstood and feeling weird to some degree. I always figured it was a learned behavior because my parents grew up in a different country, so they don't always do things the way Americans do... so they would be considered kind of weird. I was always better at lanuage-based subjects than math (and better at writing than speaking - I like to email, hate to talk on the phone).

When it comes to English?believe it or not I am actually dyslexic and had quite a hard time trying to learn the English language.

I was wondering, Brylram, if you have been tested for dyslexia? There are a lot of different types of dyslexia, one of which has to do with interpreting what you hear, rather than what you read. I'm not trying to be a doctor, but just thought I might throw that idea out there.

[DanielMacBride]

Even if I sit for a while and think through what I am going to say, it always seems a waste of my time cause when I get what I think is right in my head and go to say it…people always get it wrong. Or do I say it wrong? I don’t know to be honest….but I always get branded angry and aggressive and it’s actually got to the stage where I have BECOME angry and aggressive [well I might as well seeing how if I’m going to be accused of such I might as well actually do it?]. This happens even when I’m NOT angry, I could be in the best mood ever and STILL I would be accused of being angry. It’s not fair.

THIS. SO much this. Reading that made me kind of chuckle (not at you though) because I have said to a few people that you remind me very much of myself when I was younger I have been labelled "angry" and "aggressive" all my life because I constantly have to stop people from finishing my sentences and filling in the blanks with their assumptions when I am trying to get something across and they get it wrong. And if I get remotely passionate about anything, people accuse me of getting angry or "excitable" or whatever when I'm nothing of the sort, I'm just talking about something that is important to me in some way, and for some reason people interpret that as anger or aggression

As for whether hormones affect communication ability - I'd say ABSOLUTELY, because if hormones can affect brain wiring to be male or female, it follows that they can and do also affect the wiring for communication so that the brain in question will communicate in a more "male" or "female" manner. And there have been studies done about the male and female ways of communication and thinking - I'm too lazy to go find them now lol, but I do remember that they showed that women are much better at communication generally (may be why women also tend to talk more than men and express themselves?) and that male brains are better at math and analytical subjects, while female brains are better at language and more abstract subjects like art that require more of a subjective and emotional input. So yeah, hormones DO affect communication.

I get sad/afraid about my 'normal' perception being different from most of the world around me too, because I worry about not having a partner who understands... and I sometimes get paranoid about what people around me might be able to hide because I think so different.

I'm also VERY literal, which can lead to no end of problems socially.

I have also felt this for most of my life - I know that I see things on a totally different level to most people and I used to always worry that I'd never find a partner who would understand me (and I have now come to the conclusion that I don't really want a relationship anyway). I never used to be paranoid about what people around me were hiding because I think so differently - I was very trusting, but having been stung by that dishonesty a few times when people hide things, I kind of became very driven to learn to recognise dishonesty when people use it (and yes, I can literally almost smell it - if someone is being dishonest, I can pick up a kind of "vibe" about them that isn't right, that most people would miss - I have learned to read a lot more than just visual or verbal cues in my interpretations now).

And yes, I am often very literal, and people just kind of look at me and shake their heads and give me the patronising "oh you poor dear" face like I'm a freaking retard *eyeroll*...one thing I know I haven't lost on T is my uncanny ability to use words to hit people very close to the bone in an argument - I think it's a combination of my perception and observation skills that are apparently sharper than most, and my ability to see beneath the surface of what people present, to the things they hide that most people don't see. I know that anyone who knows me is always scared to get in a verbal argument with me, because "words are my weapon of choice, and I keep mine sharp and deadly accurate". I think that's a skill (if you can call it that) I learned growing up in a household full of sarcasm and putdowns where verbal weapons were the most powerful ones in the arsenal. I have been known to reduce people to tears in seconds with a single remark, because I will pick something that they are sensitive about or (more commonly) in denial about, and will quietly and casually point it out to them, sometimes with a hint of "o RLY?" about the denial aspect (as in, along the lines of, so much for you denying the thing I point out). I don't like to get into verbal disputes any more and tend to avoid arguments for this exact reason, because I do get branded a complete and utter a**hole because someone starts a fight and I finish it in no time flat with one comment and just casually walk away. Now, I tend to walk away at the first sign of an argument, because I can't trust myself to be polite and not target the person who starts it - it's like I have this scary thing going of "ok, you want to start something, nope, I don't THINK so!" and I will put that person off ever wanting to argue with me (or most of the time, even SPEAK to me) ever again because I will be so cutting and sarcastic (it has been called "nasty" or "dirty" because I tend to argue with no holds barred when provoked - but in relationships I am the complete opposite, I have a strict rule of "on topic argument ONLY, NO personal attacks and NO blaming/accusations").

This description reminds me of Asperger's Syndrome ( I'm not suggesting any of you have it ), I saw a movie involving the subject called "Adam" in which the character has trouble with everyday cues that non-Asperger's people use. As an example, the woman says to him,"I could use a hug" & he looks blankly at her, and knowing his condition she notices & says,"I want you to give me a hug." ( the story seems to be a love story, but actually mainly is about his growing & learning to deal with everyday life. )

I'm not quite that bad (lol), but there has been ongoing debate as to whether I do have Aspergers or not - several therapists have agreed that I do have what seems to be Aspie behavioural traits and thought processes, but none of them will test me to confirm or refute a diagnosis because I am an adult and apparently it's "too hard" to diagnose in an adult, and their other excuse is that even if I do have it, it's pretty much ingrained in my functionality so there is nothing they can do about it, so they tell me there is no point in testing me for it. I disagree strongly on that because I think it's important to identify whether I DO have it or whether it's just something like my personality or maybe another issue (for example, I have also had OCD and PTSD for years so this may contribute to the behaviour and thought patterns that also appear Aspie but aren't, or they could be Aspergers and just kind of "amplified" by the OCD and PTSD, if that makes sense? but they won't indulge my wanting to know either way).

[brylram]

This description reminds me of Asperger's Syndrome ( I'm not suggesting any of you have it ),

My mother and I have discussed whether I might have a relatively minor sort of thing like that. Even if I do though, at this point it doesn't really seem to matter, because even though it all sounds like some huge big deal written down, it really does have a pretty small affect on my life right now. Since I'm older now I basically have just taken notice, and now I know how to just be aware of this stuff and act accordingly. Like because I KNOW I'm literal I can often spot that someone's meaning is not. I have the most trouble with it around people I date for a while though because I just relax completely when they're around. Thankfully the paranoia is minor too and has never inhibited anything, just makes me feel a bit bad at times.

[brylram]

Wow... I hadn't actually expected a response of someone knowing what I mean! lol At least not immediately.

Your post reminded me of the time I actually figured out a method that my teacher had never seen before of solving something in math. I can't remember what it was, but she actually made the whole class stop and learn it in case it worked for them better. I'm in a math class for the first time in about 5 or 6 years now (well I took some in high school but failed every time because I never went), and still trying to relearn everything, but I love just sitting down and figuring out what part of the new concept I'm not getting, and how to make it work. It's a self-directed class, and I SHOULD be asking for help to move along quicker, but it's too damn fun to do it myself.

I get sad/afraid about my 'normal' perception being different from most of the world around me too, because I worry about not having a partner who understands... and I sometimes get paranoid about what people around me might be able to hide because I think so different.

I'm also VERY literal, which can lead to no end of problems socially.

EDIT because NiCo posted while I was typing: I think hormones have so much more to do with a lot of things than anyone who hasn't experienced both could realize... seeing both sides has actually changed my position on a lot of things drastically. I also think estrogen is a bit unfair to the people that it belongs in, and my mom agrees now that she's post-menopause.

[Fab Karen]

Interesting discussion. Having grown up male, and not having the same kind of extremes of so-called "masculine" & "feminine" abilities that you've described, I suspect that the hormonal effect that has been described either amplifies or dampens that which is innate, that it isn't the cause. Maybe to a lesser degree this efect is seen in "CIS" people both in the highly charged (early)teen years, as well as when people get older ( beyond their 40's ).

... and I sometimes get paranoid about what people around me might be able to hide because I think so different.

I'm also VERY literal, which can lead to no end of problems socially.

This description reminds me of Asperger's Syndrome ( I'm not suggesting any of you have it ), I saw a movie involving the subject called "Adam" in which the character has trouble with everyday cues that non-Asperger's people use. As an example, the woman says to him,"I could use a hug" & he looks blankly at her, and knowing his condition she notices & says,"I want you to give me a hug." ( the story seems to be a love story, but actually mainly is about his growing & learning to deal with everyday life. )

[Andy66]

Here's a question just because I'm curious: how's your sense of direction? Does T affect it?

I ask because I get lost easily. It's a "brain fart" sort of thing that happens every once in a while. I can know where I'm going, and suddenly become disoriented. After a little while it comes back to me and I'm fine. WTF? I'm not taking any kind of hormones, but it didn't start happening until I was an adult. Coincidentally (?) it happened a bit more when I was pregnant or on birth control meds. But I also had a lot of stress.