Has anyone experienced dysphoria in both directions on HRT?
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I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something like “bidirectional dysphoria” or conflicting grief around gender during transition/HRT. Before starting HRT, I never consciously experienced dysphoria as a man, but I did have strong euphoria imagining myself as a woman. The pull toward femininity felt real and consistent, even if I didn’t frame my masculinity as painful at the time. Once HRT really started kicking in, though, I got scared and slowed down. I started noticing something new: I’d see other men in public and feel this strange grief, like I was losing my masculinity or something important about being male. That part really confused me. Then I took a short break from HRT, my testosterone started rising again, and I got hit with intense dysphoria, aggression, irritability, and mental distress. It felt awful. When I restarted my regular estradiol dose, the aggression and irritability went away, but the weird grief around masculinity came back. So now I’m in this place where: Testosterone = mental chaos, irritability, dysphoria Estradiol = emotional calm + feminization + grief over masculinity It feels like I’m dysphoric in both directions in different ways, and I don’t know how to make sense of it. Is this internalized attachment to masculinity? Identity grief? Fear of irreversible change? Trauma stuff? Hormonal neurochemistry? Some mix of everything? Has anyone else experienced this kind of push–pull between euphoria, dysphoria, grief, and fear during transition or HRT? How did you understand it over time?
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- Medication
- estradiol, testosterone