Feeling overrun with emotions that I can't control

[DonFL (imported)]

this was supposed to be pm

[Riven (imported)]

Hi Todd,

Many thanks for your kind comments re. my support of my wife through her cancer treatments. It has been a testing time, but she and I agree that the worse part is always when you don't quite know what's happening. ie. when you're waiting for results of tests, etc. Once you know what it is, however bad, you can usually deal with it somehow. But this brings me to address the things that you find that you can't deal with so easily; like things that haunt you from the past. So now I'm going to stop waffling and talk specifics: I had treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder a couple of years ago. I didn't even realise I was still suffering from the 'event', but my new doctor (a fortysomething year old woman) asked me how I had lost my spleen and a kidney, and I started explaining about the motorcycle crash I had in 1985, and how I had almost been killed, and how I was in and out of consciousness during the 6 1/2 hour life saving operation, and how much pain I experienced, and what was going on at the time..... I'm not sure if I would have told her so much about it, but she's a good listener, and I guess I'd been doing a lot of that support thing you were saying nice things to me about, and well, I guess I felt like talking about it..... So I started to explain about how I was in a very bad head state when I had the crash, if fact it would have been described as a nervous breakdown had I ever 'seen someone' about it. To cut a long story short, my doctor urged me to have some therapy sessions to deal with what she recognised as PTSD, ie. she could see how emotional I was when telling her my story. So I took her advice and went to see a very nice colleague of hers, a young Dutch doctor (in the UK) who specialises in something called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). I'd never heard of this kind of therapy, but I went into it with an open mind, and I have to say that it was very interesting indeed. I won't try to explain how it works (there's lots of good info in the net) but I can say that the therapist helped me through a very interesting process, during which we were both surprised by the amount of crying I had to do. What the good doctor later explained was that the motorcycle crash had given me such a gigantic physical and mental shock that it stopped me from completing a process of grief that I had been going through at the time: During the months and weeks prior to the crash, I had been trying to deal with the fact that the woman I adored, and with whom I had been sharing my life for the previous 5 years, was leaving me. This was on top of a lot of other stresses in my life at the time, ie. I had just started my own business, and had big financial worries. So there I was, over 20 years later, being helped through some unfinished emotional business. To say that it did me a lot of good is quite an understatement.

Just thought I should share that with you. Our traumatic 'events' were very different, but your story caused me to wonder if we might have something similar going on in the way of deeper problems being 'fixed' or 'frozen' by the traumatic event.

Best wishes and my love to you and all the good people on this forum for your empathy and understanding and support.

Riven

[Tclosetgirl (imported)]

Yes, Tclosetgirl, I've already been surprised by some angry emotions that I've experienced since starting Androcur. Fortunately, I've been able to keep my mouth shut so far, although once I stopped myself just in the nick of time as I was starting the first word of a response. I've been kind of confused at the origin of this anger. In the case where I'd actually started to open my mouth, and thank God I was able to halt that really fast!, I was losing patience with someone who is very important to me at work, a good friend. I think I'm feeling so good about myself I'm occasionally losing patience with others who may not feel that way much of the time. Believe me, I'm typically a very kind and understanding person so I was stunned I was feeling the anger. Now that I've experienced it, I'm very aware that it may come up again and I definitely do not want to hurt anyone with it. That's not who I am.

Good - glad you kept quiet - Took me a bit of time to realize that's what was happening so by the 3rd go around on Androcur I knew to just keep my mouth shut!

It happened to me exactly as it did to you, losing patience with people, snapping cuz I had something else on my mind...and I'm usually happy-go-lucky so people REALLY saw my moods as they were not normal....

[Danya (imported)]

I won't be posting anything new for a while, probably no more than a week. I've got to work through some heavy emotional pain I'm feeling and it's not something I can discuss here. I will be back ASAP. I'll glady respond to PM's or Emails, although I won't discuss what I need to work through. I will get through it. I really appreciate all of you.

-todd

[Danya (imported)]

I'm doing well. I'll likely go back to doing most of my postings in my blog.

[Tclosetgirl (imported)]

Pretty powerful stuff Testosterone is!

I'm kind of happy WITHI my testosterone right now, rather enjoying it but I'm also happy with my estrogen, I seem to feel balanced for the past couple of months.

What you are working through will too pass - and remember if you get any depression symptoms maybe back off the meds a bit.

Mr T - I too carry an emergency supply! That's awesome!

I keep a lil round, forget what they call it but you unscrew the cap and there's my lil blue pill - without the Estrogen I can get pretty cranky.....

[Danya (imported)]

Tclosetgirl,

I appreciate your kind, and very true, comments on 'what i'm working through will pass' What I will say is that it fed into emotions I started feeling Saturday night that I mention above. Starting to relive vivid memories of being assaulted. The pain deal in a strange way tied into that. I can only guess that it's all related to reduced T.

I'm feeling even better now than I noted earlier. I thought I'd do most future postings in my blog. In a way, that statement reflected some feeling of wanting to retreat away from active discussions. It feels safer, less threatening and less likely that people will get to see the 'real' me in the blog. Thinking people will get glimpses of who I truly am is still a little bit of a scary thing. Yesterday and earlier today, I was even considering stopping posting all together. No posting at all would be an even deeper retreat into myself, which isn't really at all what I need. I want you to know that you caring post has encouraged me to start a new thread on something that I've been having some concern and curiousity about. On February 11, I meet with the University of Minnesota endocrinologist for the first time. I plan to remain on Androcur for now but I want to start a discussion with the doctor on what's next after I'm castrated. I don't think I want to live a hormone-free life. I'm going into too much detail here. Need to start another thread. Again, Tclosetgirl, thanks for your comments.

-Todd

[Danya (imported)]

I thought I'd mostly said all I wanted on this thread but there have been some new developments. Today I saw my psychiatrist for the first time since I started Androcur and started seeing my gender therapist at the University of Minnesota in early November.

I told him I have been concerned about how to deal with all this happiness and I described the frequency, intensity and duration of the episodes. I told him I was concerned that this emotion was sometimes so intense I was having trouble doing my work.

Right now, I'm going through a lot of emotional changes and it may not always be obvious to me how the behavior of 'new' Todd is affecting others. Ideally, I'd like to keep the best of old and new Todd and toss the rest!

I also gave him the info that came with the generic Androcur. I let him know that my personal physician was monitoring me as I take it. I filled him in on my visits with Katie (my gender therapist) and that I am transgendered. We briefly discussed the MMPI and Tennessee Self Concept test results.

He thinks I may be experiencing hypomania, which if untreated has the potential to evolve into true mania. I told him I already tried the mood stabilizer he’d prescribed for my use when I’m on prednisone and that it left me feeling in a stupor. He’s prescribed another mood stabilizer which I’ll start taking tonight. We're also cutting back on the antidepressant that's helped me so much, a monoamine oxidase inhibitor patch. I feel fine with this. Yesterday, exercising left me feeling calm most of the day and I will do more of that tomorrow.

I’m hopeful that some combination of drug therapy and regular exercise will help keep me in the right mental and emotional state. I want to keep the happiness, which is truly wonderful, but I don’t want it to be taking over my life or cause me to behave in an inappropriate manner that may hurt others.

Over the last few days, I’ve considered the possibility of stopping Androcur because of the happiness ‘problem’. The thought of doing that makes me really uncomfortable. When I've gradually backed off to extend the supply while I waited for more to arrive, I felt great for the first 4 - 5 days. After that, I was starting to feel like the pre-Androcur Todd and I was miserable.

Craig (the shrink) thought it might be good to switch to another anti-androgen type drug because the Androcur may in some way be contributing to the hypomania. He did not suggest that I needed to stop all treamtnet with drugs similar to Androcur. I told him I’d discuss changing to a different med with the U endocrinologist when I see her Feb. 11.

I've got to wonder where this hypomania, if that's indeed what it is, originates and why it should appear now. From the little I've read on hypomania, it is not caused by medications. I wonder if being on Androcur has unmasked and made more prominent something that's been there all along.

In the next day or two, I'll post which of the host of hypomania symptoms I've been experiencing. In the meantime, I'm going to take the advice of a friend and soak in the jacuzzi with a nice glass of wine.

[Tclosetgirl (imported)]

I did not know they labelled that Hypomania but perhaps I felt that as well.

I know I had some pretty weird thoughts on it, and definitely relived some memories, but it did wear off, after I stopped taking so much.

I was taking 25mg and it was adequate for me, but the first time I ever took it I was at 100mg and it was causing depression in me - and some other issues that may sound familiar.

My mood stabilizer was Estrogen though, after a week to 10 days of being on it life was just wonderful......and perhaps part of that was pyschological but if it works who cares.

Maybe something to consider if they do not already have you on Estrogen.

Hope your soak goes well!

[Danya (imported)]

Hey Tclosetgirl,

Soaking the the tub did help quite a bit.

The 100 mg/day of Androcur I'm using hasn't caused me any depression whatsoever. Certainly, part of hypomania is not feeling depressed or at most you may have a few slight episodes of depression interspersed among the very happy feelings. Another symptom of hypomania, by the way, can be irritability. Keep in mind, I haven't had time to investigate this in any thorough way and what I'm saying is stuff I've picked up off the net. Some of it may not be very reliable.

The mood stabilizer I started at bedtime seems to be helping. I feeling slightly drugged but I suspect that will disappear once I exercise.

I've decided not to list all the symptoms of hypomania. I want to point out that no one, including me, should attempt a self-diagnosis on any medical condition. Even my psychiatrist hasn't definitively concluded I'm experiencing hypomania. Obviously, though, he thinks it's very possible that is indeed what's going on.

I'll just be happy if the exercise and mood stablizer return me to a more normal mental and emotional state.