For almost 3 months now I’ve been without a supply of estrogen. For almost 3 months, no decent testosterone blocker. For almost 3 months, no progesterone.
I thought I was doing well. In many ways I am. In many ways I’m not.
A few bad/sad things have happened over the last couple weeks, and I’ve not been handling them well at all. I’ve been hurting quite a bit. Crying still comes really easy, but it’s not helping like it did. I’m not able to resolve anything, and I just circle around the feelings. My frustration builds really fast again, and I wound up punching Sunday night.
This is something I’m not supposed to do on blood thinners. I bruised 2 knuckles pretty bad. One of the hardest punches I’ve ever thrown at a lamppost. I couldn’t close my hand for a bit after. I’ve been trying not to beat myself up over doing this. It happened. I’m not proud of it, but I shouldn’t be ashamed of it either.
My emotional landscape is completely foreign to me right now. I’m not how I was before hormones, and definitely not like how I was on hormones. It’s some twisted set of both paradigms clashing together. And I really don’t know how to cope with anything. The thing that’s worked best is a particular friend that’s really come through for me twice with a walk along the water and conversation.
Other friends have been helpful too, very helpful. But this friend has a way of slowly changing the conversation and before I know it I’m smiling and laughing. But not so fast, that I don’t have time to talk out my problems. It works very well. It’s not a fix, but it’s a good stop gap that I will take any time I can get it.
The plus side of all this is that I’m not spiraling. I circle, but I’m not piling shit on myself trying to make myself worse. So, that’s good. I just want to go back to feeling like ‘me’. I want the comfort of emotions that I’m used to, and that were finally working properly.
I have about another 2-3 weeks without my lovely estrogen. This is now entirely my doing though. I could be back on hormones right now. I am getting my tattoo and my extra ear piercings before going back on blood thinners (and thusly, estrogen).
I will also be talking to my endocrinologist about alternate androgen blockers. What I’m taking now is not suppressing testosterone at all. Either I get something different, or I get an orchiectomy before my surgery.
This period of time off of hormones has definitely prepared me for my surgery where I’ll be off them for 3 weeks. That will be a walk in the park compared to what I’ve experienced with my blood clots. I look forward to the pain of healing, the nausea I’ll feel from the extent of the surgery. It will be nothing compared to these last 3 months.
– Jessica