A New Dawn (Or, What a Difference Hormones Make)

A message from the other side of the prison walls:
Fellow bloggers... TVFA and others, I feel for you. I know the constant pounding sexual need... the wasted energy resisting it... the sense of failure and shame when you give in to it for hours or even days on end, to the exclusion of everything else... and how the feelings twist in on themselves so that even the failure and shame become sexualized.
And now I know what's kept this engine running -
Testosterone.
It's hard to see it when you're in it, or rather when it's in you. But when you take away the testosterone, it's amazing how much clarity you get.
How much time you have on your hands.
How you can finally exhale and relax.
Blessed relief.
My body is still pumping it out. And I can feel that it's still lurking there under the surface - chemically suppressed - waiting to spring forth again if I miss my proper dosages of blockers.
My fear is that something will force me to stop. And I'll be back where I was.
A prisoner again.
But now, I am free.
Free from solitary sexual compulsion & everything that springs forth from it.
And I will fight for that freedom.

Athena - the warrior goddess

Estrogen is another matter entirely.
I love it. I wish I could get even more in me without it chemically converting into testosterone.
Now, I feel a sense of connection to feminine power that's coming from within... rather than imported from without when I was just crossdressing.
I feel the intangible, divine feminine in my body and in my mind.
A stronger awareness of emotions, empathy, intuition. A feeling of being "in" my whole body, not just some parts of it.
I cherish and guard this just as fiercely as I do the freedom from testosterone.

It feels as if I've stepped out of the dark and into the light.
My sexuality feels so much less complicated. The fetishes are gone, and as a woman the fantasies finally make sense.
I'm certainly not chaste. But I'm far from being chronic now.

So for now, I leave you with this thought - a metaphor for what I've experienced from the injection needle:

As you roll over & thrust your hardness
into the long tunnel of my wanting,
seeding it with dreams & unbearable hope,
making memories of the future,
straightening out my crooked past,
teaching me to live in the present present tense.

-Erica Jong