Hello and Thank You
Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 8:36 pm
I want to say hello and express my sincerest thanks to the EA community and this website for the information presented here, and from all I have read so far, for the generous and supportive respect participants contribute.
I'd also like to add my account of how I came to be here. Eleven years ago I was diagnosed with lymphoma and treated with chemotherapy and radiation, which had some profound side effects: I was left with little or no sex drive, an inability to achieve full erection and thus and inability to orgasm; I've been on TRT since then. Afterward, even on T, my sexual response was not the same. I didn't desire sex; tactile stimulation didn't work as well as it once had; and i pretty much had to watch porn for along time to build up any momentum at all. However, even on T, that much has diminished.
Mostly, I've come to terms with all of this. I feel blessed to be alive. I now work as a counselor with homeless people living with mental illness and/or addiction. And i wouldn't have gone back to school to get the training to do this kind of work if i didn't feel that I wanted/needed to give back something for all that I've been given.
Then again, I won't deny that I have times when I get sad, angry, depressed or anxious about my sexual dysfunction. I also feel disconnected from a sexually charged world, an outsider looking in not really feeling that I have a place in the world around me. Mostly, I try to ignore it and just do my work, which is so amazingly rewarding--both emotionally and spiritually. But I also feel empty and isolated.
That is until I found this website. Castration to me had always seemed a fearful but fascinating kind of primordial fantasy, not one I had put a lot of energy into. As I explored the site, I justified my interest as an effort to gather knowledge to broaden my understanding and empathy to make me a better counselor should I ever meet someone on this path.
The more I read, however, the more I realized the descriptions of chemical castration are not that different from what I have been living for the past ten years. No, it wasn't done through the use of Depo Provera, Androcur or any of the other drugs suggested here to achieve this end, but the result seems to me to have been pretty much the same.
Last Sunday I was able to say to myself for the first time that I am a chemically castrated man; that's not easy to say or think. At the same time, I feel lightened, liberated. I can say i know who I am. It's like coming out for the second time. Now I can begin to worry less about not fitting in with a population--gay or straight--I can't identify with.
At the same time, I hope with all sincerity, that I can find acceptance here, because I certainly feel kinship with the thoughts and feelings of the individuals who contribute to this forum.
So again, thank you all for being here, and I hope you will feel comfortable enough with me to say hello and perhaps offer friendship because I'm tired of feeling alone. How's that for honesty?
I'd also like to add my account of how I came to be here. Eleven years ago I was diagnosed with lymphoma and treated with chemotherapy and radiation, which had some profound side effects: I was left with little or no sex drive, an inability to achieve full erection and thus and inability to orgasm; I've been on TRT since then. Afterward, even on T, my sexual response was not the same. I didn't desire sex; tactile stimulation didn't work as well as it once had; and i pretty much had to watch porn for along time to build up any momentum at all. However, even on T, that much has diminished.
Mostly, I've come to terms with all of this. I feel blessed to be alive. I now work as a counselor with homeless people living with mental illness and/or addiction. And i wouldn't have gone back to school to get the training to do this kind of work if i didn't feel that I wanted/needed to give back something for all that I've been given.
Then again, I won't deny that I have times when I get sad, angry, depressed or anxious about my sexual dysfunction. I also feel disconnected from a sexually charged world, an outsider looking in not really feeling that I have a place in the world around me. Mostly, I try to ignore it and just do my work, which is so amazingly rewarding--both emotionally and spiritually. But I also feel empty and isolated.
That is until I found this website. Castration to me had always seemed a fearful but fascinating kind of primordial fantasy, not one I had put a lot of energy into. As I explored the site, I justified my interest as an effort to gather knowledge to broaden my understanding and empathy to make me a better counselor should I ever meet someone on this path.
The more I read, however, the more I realized the descriptions of chemical castration are not that different from what I have been living for the past ten years. No, it wasn't done through the use of Depo Provera, Androcur or any of the other drugs suggested here to achieve this end, but the result seems to me to have been pretty much the same.
Last Sunday I was able to say to myself for the first time that I am a chemically castrated man; that's not easy to say or think. At the same time, I feel lightened, liberated. I can say i know who I am. It's like coming out for the second time. Now I can begin to worry less about not fitting in with a population--gay or straight--I can't identify with.
At the same time, I hope with all sincerity, that I can find acceptance here, because I certainly feel kinship with the thoughts and feelings of the individuals who contribute to this forum.
So again, thank you all for being here, and I hope you will feel comfortable enough with me to say hello and perhaps offer friendship because I'm tired of feeling alone. How's that for honesty?
