FOUR:
(WARNING: Another very long post is to follow... but trust me, this time, it's worth it!!!)
Oh, Lord, what a day. What a day indeed. This really felt like a tale of two completely different days, with the emotions so far apart from each-other, and so extreme, that I could NEVER even have imagined feeling this way.
The big split that happened today, dividing the two moods and the two distinct emotional periods, was the fact that at approximately 11:00 this morning, my estrogen patches finally arrived in the mail. I put the first pair of them on very shortly thereafter, at about noon. My initial mood today was a mood that I'd describe as "slowly-progressing-chem-castration." For the entire morning, and for the first 4-5 hours or so after I put the estrogen patches on, that was the mood that I was in, and it didn't really change that much. But then, all of a sudden, at about 6:30 this evening, it was like a nuclear bomb had exploded inside of my body somewhere, and I skyrocketed into a kind of unfathomable happy mood... the likes of which I had never even come CLOSE to experiencing in my entire life.
So, let's start with the slowly-progressing-chem-castration mood that I was in for most of the day. (God, it's hard to even remember now that I'm in such a different mood. If I hadn't been writing in my journal every single hour today, I never would have been able to remember this mood.)
y day:
Once again, I woke up way earlier than I usually do. I only slept for about 6 hours, about the same as yesterday, waking up at 7:00 a.m. (And again, I LOVE this. In my normal "guy" mode before I started on the chem-castration drugs, it was quite common for me to sleep 10 hours or more, not waking up until the mid-afternoon on most of my days off. And I hated having my whole day almost wasted before it had even started. Where now I actually have free time in the morning to sort my thoughts out before it's time to actually go out and do things. Yay!) As far as the actual mood that I was in, it was once again back to the "quiet contentment" kind of mood. Where it feels like everything's good, and there's no hurry, and I have all the time in the world. It felt more "normal" than some of the other "quiet contentment" moods that I've reported thus far, though. In fact, it didn't really feel that much different from what my normal mood was before I started this trial. And thankfully, unlike yesterday, I wasn't feeling the same kind of masculine feelings or the same sexual-tension antsy-ness that I had felt yesterday when my brain also felt "normal."
Also, unlike yesterday, I was feeling EXTREMELY feminine today. For the first time in like ever, I actually felt like cross-dressing. So I pulled out the lone women's v-neck t-shirt that I own, and one of my pairs of short shorts, and had a little show for myself in front of the mirror. But unlike how it had always been before, where cross-dressing only made me feel depressed because of how uncute I look, this morning it actually made me feel happy, because I was able to focus in on the areas that WERE feminine instead of the areas that weren't. And once again I was really surprised at how much my body shape just naturally looks "right" as a girl, with the exception of a few key areas. For the first time ever, it actually felt amazing to do. For just that brief instant, I got to feel girly and feel feminine inside, and it was such a happy feeling, the kind that fills my soul with clarity and emotional brightness. This is a new feeling. Cross-dressing never did this for me before, it just made me depressed. But now it really felt right. At about that time, I was starting to think "you know, this is a really pleasant mood. It's almost exactly what I was hoping for when I was originally thinking of doing a chem-castration trial. I don't feel uptight, I don't feel stressed, I feel a lot more feminine, and I just feel good about everything." Then I put on my first estrogen patches at noon, but my mood remained the same for quite a while, and I just felt generally happy and content about the whole thing for all of the early-afternoon, and enjoyed the feeling of emotional control.
That was, until the evening came. OH... MY... FREAKING... GOD!!! I swear, I have not LIVED until tonight!!!
It started very subtly, at about 4:30 in the afternoon, when I woke up from a 3-hour nap. For some reason, as soon as I woke up, I just started feeling extremely feminine, and as a result, extremely gender dysphoric, moreso than usual. When I looked in the mirror, it wasn't just my usual "I wish I didn't look so much like a guy" mildly-depressed feeling, it actually felt repulsive, wrong, like I was in disbelief that I was seeing a male body, and that it just couldn't be my real body that I was looking at. And when I spoke, it didn't feel like my voice either. It wasn't just "I liked my unchanged voice better, and this voice isn't right," it was a full-blown dysphoria where somehow I was actually shocked that it was a male voice instead of a female voice coming out of my mouth, and it felt like it wasn't my voice that I was speaking with. I have certainly experienced gender dysphoria before, but never this strongly. And oddly, to go along with that sudden extreme
ore like myself in my head than I ever have in my entire life. For the first time, it really felt like the voice inside my head telling me how to act and how to present myself was actually coming from a me that I liked! So at the same time that my physical gender dysphoria had reached such a high level that it was downright unpleasant, for the first time ever there was no dysphoria whatsoever in my head. (This is the complete opposite of what happened yesterday morning, where physically I felt almost no gender dysphoria whatsoever, but mentally I was downright miserable because my masculine patterns of thought felt really wrong to me, like I wasn't myself in my head.) If these feelings persist, that would mean that I am indeed transgender in addition to transsexual. Because when I started feeling feminine in my mind, it felt so "right" to me. And while I CAN change my physical body to make it match the female mental image of myself that I have stored up there, I can NOT change my mind to make it match the male physical body that I have. So that was quite an interesting train of thought to begin the afternoon with, one that really did solidify and validate my feelings even further. And after realizing this, I started going back into the happy, giddy, excited "Carrie mood," and I felt so happy that I could barely contain myself.
But wait... it gets even better. I could NEVER have fathomed the feelings that came to me next.
Suddenly, at about 6:30 in the evening, something happened. I don't know what triggered it, I don't know where the hell it came from, and I don't know if I'll ever feel something this amazing ever again, but suddenly it was like my entire life changed, and will never be the same again now that I've experienced it. What happened, is that right after I had finished cleaning the bathroom at my roommate's request, I sat down to relax in the recliner, and decided to put some music on. The song was "Forever Young" by Joan Baez. This is the kind of song that always helps me relax, and just puts me in a calm, pleasant mood. But tonight... oh, God, tonight... I don't know what the hell happened. Suddenly, the sheer degree of emotional pleasure that I got from listening to that song was so strong that it was practically orgasmic. Hearing the tone of the singer's voice, and the gentle piano and guitar, it was like a nuclear bomb was going off inside of my head, sending unfathomable amounts of pleasure surging through my entire being. I had NEVER felt that good listening to a song before. I just wanted more, and more. For the next 10 minutes straight, I kept listening to song after song after song by Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell and the Carpenters, and the pleasure that I was feeling just built and built and built with every single song, until it was completely unfathomable. Don't get me wrong, I've always loved these songs. Usually when I listen to them I feel pleasant and relaxed and happy. But tonight... God... it made me feel like I'd been taken to heaven and choirs of baby angels were singing all around me.
And then I made dinner. And while I was cutting up the slices of raw-milk cheese to put in my dinner omelet, I grabbed a piece for myself, and the taste was like an absolute explosion in my mouth! I couldn't believe it! And then when I finally did eat dinner, the whole thing felt like one giant foodgasm. My crappy dollar-store low-sodium bacon, which usually has almost no taste to me whatsoever, felt like there was an orgy in my mouth. The eggs, and the cheese, it all just tasted so unfathomably amazing that I couldn't believe it! It had NEVER tasted like this before. It was almost like I was experiencing taste for the first time! Suddenly it just felt like every single one of my senses was completely on fire! I couldn't stop! Every single time I put a bite in my mouth, it was like my entire body was on fire, and my brain could barely handle feeling that sheer degree of pleasure! I really can't even come close to properly describing how AMAZING these sensations were.
Here's my best attempt... for the record, I did not do ANYTHING extraordinary tonight. All I did was listen to music and cook dinner, things which I do almost every night, and things that are so ordinary that I usually don't give them a second thought. That's all that I did tonight. And yet, this is by far, far and away, unquestionably, the single GREATEST night of my entire life! I have NEVER felt so good since I have been alive on this earth! And I know I've said many times over the last week "I've never felt so good," but THIS... God... THIS, it makes me laugh to think that I actually thought what I was feeling then was pleasure. I had no freaking idea! NOTHING... let me repeat that... NOTHING that I have EVER experienced in my ENTIRE life can even compare to the kind of pleasure that I felt tonight. Not even my first kiss... not even truly falling in love for the first time... not even getting a girl to orgasm for the first time... not even riding the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster back in 8th grade after watching its construction online for EIGHT MONTHS... not even winning 1st place in all of Hillsborough County at Math Bowl back in 11th grade... not even being selected to sing in the all-state honors choir back before my voice changed... not even the most delicious meal that I have ever eaten in my entire life, at Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto's restaurant... not even going to Disney World as a kid... not even freaking CHRISTMAS as a KID even comes CLOSE to comparing to this. That is how amazing this was! It feels like a complete revelation... it feels like half of the pleasure receptors in my brain have been shut down for my entire life, and now suddenly for the first time ever they are all working! EVERYTHING feels better all of a sudden. Food tastes better, music sounds better, our Christmas lights look more beautiful, our cats look cuter, my happiness is unfathomably happier and my pleasure is unfathomably more pleasurable.
WHAT THE HELL HAVE I BEEN MISSING MY ENTIRE LIFE?!!!!! THIS is what life is supposed to be like! OH MY GOD!!! I don't know how I even lived until tonight! It feels like EVERYTHING I have experienced until now was in a state where I was barely even alive. But this is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I NEVER want to go back into ANY state even remotely resembling what my old life was like for the 27 years leading up to this moment. Not only have I never been so happy in my entire life, I didn't even know that it was POSSIBLE to feel this happy. I didn't know that it was possible for ANYONE to EVER feel this happy. I didn't think it was physically possible for a human being to feel this happy. And yet I am. I really can't believe it. I truly did not live until today. And now my life starts anew!
I'm filled with so much excitement now, I can't contain myself, nor do I want to. Is this really what estrogen does? And if so, does this mean that I'm going to be able to experience this kind of hyper-sensitivity and increased happiness from now on? If it really is the estrogen talking, then good God, every male in the entire world, I pity you.
SIDE NOTE: I think I might be starting to get hot-flashes. I've had these random "extremely warm blush" feelings off and on all night, especially on my arms, and I've asked my roommate "is it hot in here or is it just me?" and she said "no, I actually think it's a bit cold." And since the two of us have rarely had differing internal thermostats, I think it's a good bet that that's what I'm feeling.
