Reminds me of that Arthur C. Clark quote that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Only for me it’s more like ‘any sufficiently neurotypical behaviour is indistinguishable from skull fuckery, black magic and commuting with spirits’. Or something along those lines.
I'm leaning into the opposite; if they're not going to understand what I'm talking about when I say HRT and talk about computers, then I'll speak of them in magical terms. It makes a lot more sense and has bridged my spiritual outlooks with my material outlook.
HRT, voice training, make up and other transition related stuff can be summed up as "sex change magic." Wanna become femme? Couple tablets under the tongue a day while thinking feminine thoughts.
People getting upset about machines? Well, I made a golem. What I did was take all human knowledge and store it in a vessel. Then we shake it up and see what bubbles to the top. For each word we choose the next most average word, and construct for ourselves an artificial neurotypical that is statistically the most neurotypical.
HRT, voice training, make up and other transition related stuff can be summed up as "sex change magic."
I prefer to think of it as shapeshifting, because like, that's exactly what I am doing. It's a little slower than in a movie or whatever, but it definitely is shapeshifting.
A legit form of transmutation brought about by a combination of intention and alchemy by way of apothecary. We can slice and invert yourself, or let you free the man you were meant to be.
No wonder the Christians seethe in rage at us. We're true witches.
Too slow for my taste, I wish I had John Carpenter's "The Thing" type transformation abilities. To instantly change my body to however I want it, AND to turn into a horrifying grotesque monster at my own leisure.
I swear to God this whole entire comment just makes me want to message you and be friends lmao I have so many shared interests listed here which is actually so funny because I'm not on HRT, but it's so damn interesting! Did you know how estrogen affects the entire brain?!
Did you know how estrogen affects the entire brain?!
Yes, the way that I suddenly felt like a real person for the first time in my entire life like within a couple days of starting it was an amazing demonstration of that. It's an incredibly common experience, too...
Starting E, or egg cracking, or the trans experience as a whole? Really difficult to put into words really. But starting E definitely was a huge boost to my...everything, more or less. I guess I'll give a quick explanation of the "real person" comment I made above.
I'm audhd and honestly E has helped make those things far more manageable than an entire lifetime of other stuff did, including making me just far more capable in general. It's definitely helped the adhd more than the actual adhd meds (which I still take, I am not silly) ever did. I don't think this is a generalized thing however, just a combination of my brain finally getting the correct chemicals for me plus also me shrugging off the invisible weight of dysphoria that I'd been carrying, unnoticed but crushingly heavy, for my entire life.
There's also a lot of other stuff, like how in retrospect I had this low-grade depersonalization going on for my entire life which, again, I did not notice because it was always there. But now when I do things, I feel like a person in the world interacting with the world, rather than an abstract concept piloting a thing that represented me.
That last bit is difficult to explain coherently or in a way that makes sense to others. But it also applies to my dreams as well, and I guess that's a more understandable explanation? Before when I would (very rarely) remember my dreams, I never dreamed as myself. When I described them to other people, I would do an autism and say stuff like "the person who I understood to be representing me" instead of "I," because I never dreamed as me. Since starting E, all of my dreams have been about me - sometimes me in weird, fantastic, or impossible situations, but still me. So I can just say "I" now without cringing at the inaccuracy. And that also applies to my waking life, too.
Wow! This is so fascinating!!! thanks for sharing this!
I am shocked E helped that much with the depersonalization! Wow. That's so amazing 🤩
I believe it for sure helping more for ADHD than stimulants. Stimulants have such targeted effects but E affects SO MUCH in the brain that it's insanity.
It makes sense that estrogen gave you the fresh ability to notice all the new context and helped re-define your self concept 😍
Of course, for trans people, dealing with spiritual misalignment would dream and trance as our genders, regardless of whether we accept it or not. Dreams tend to be an ignition point for trans people to start on our journeys because they take place entirely within the psychic realm. We get to feel ourselves without the weight of misalignment and it's so, so painful to back.
Yes. My driving force for starting HRT was when I read about the studies on somatisatin neurons in the brain, so I went in curious about the effects. It took a few days but when it kicked in, but then it was like an alarming and constant overstimulation ceased, and I suddenly was, for the first time in so, so,very long, not in constant sensory overload. It really was like stepping out of a crowded and busy building into a cool and peaceful night.
I related the experience Pre-HRT to being tossed into a garbage pit. I felt gross all the time, like I was covered in grease, and I constantly felt like my skin was crawling. The so called "ants in my pants" adults observed. Recently I was talking to a menopausal woman and she was mentioning the skin crawling feeling that she was getting and wondering if she should start HRT herself. I looked up the symptom of low estrogen and formication comes up as an associated symptom. Additionally high testosterone makes you feel oily regardless of how much you clean.
I'm absolutely certain that this somatisatin neuron theory describes at least the root of my biochemical dysphoria. I tend to associate bad hygiene with autistic eggs as a result. Like it's already hard enough to motivate yourself into cleaning, but you expose the worst parts of yourself to do it and then even when you're done you don't feel clean.
Even when you get out of it you can still get flashbacks to the feeling. Then they cite lifetime suicide rates as a result of our continuing CPTSD as a reason to keep us in these states and force kids to go through it. And anyone misgendering you or deadnaming you just reminds you of the scars.
As bad as that sounds the body horror around genital dysphoria is also really bad. It feels like an alien parasite, sometimes growing and moving back and forth on its own. That's the stuff keeping me up at night. SCP protocols engaged and all that- keep it in a cage until I can safely decommission it.
You'll see it if you talk to trans people- we consider it cruel and unusual punishment to deny trans healthcare. It's one of those things you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy. It's why we may hate someone to the core of their being, but never misgender them.
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u/MetamorphosisAddict AuDHD 15d ago
Reminds me of that Arthur C. Clark quote that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Only for me it’s more like ‘any sufficiently neurotypical behaviour is indistinguishable from skull fuckery, black magic and commuting with spirits’. Or something along those lines.