Me and My Emotions

How It Feels For Me To Grow an Emotional Range

Photo by Tom Caillarec on Unsplash

So, what the hell am I supposed to do exactly with all of these emotions?

I mean, I read the ‘What to expect when you start Hormone Replacement Therapy’ brochure from cover to cover. I understand the basics of neuromodulation in layperson’s terms, and it was made abundantly clear in all communications I should expect some kind of expansion to my emotional range after starting my transition.

I knew this would be just one of many changes to occur when I decided to transition to become a woman.

But these feelings are something else.

Expansion is such a dry, unfeeling, understated clinical term for an involuntary mechanism which produces so many tears.

My emotions are off the charts. Off the fucking dial. Although I haven’t been a woman very long, I persistently feel overcome by emotion. Moved easily and often, I can now produce tears at the drop of a hat.

They’re not tears of sadness, although I’ve felt plenty of those. They’re tears that reflect feelings. Mine and others. They are like a fluid sign that my emotional system is now fully operational and open for business.

I become overpowered by emotion almost every day. Alone or in company. I’ve become expert at looking away, pretending I have something stuck in my eye, or when it’s becoming really gushy, getting up suddenly to attend to an imaginary task, and hoping they can’t hear my sobs from the bathroom.

Tears arrive when I’m telling a story, hearing of some kindness or sadness, observing moments small and sweet, or large and abhorrent. It happens when I’m reading, or listening to music — the worst offender, is however when I observe tender moments in movies. A sweeping score combined with some poignant images will overwhelm my nervous system in seconds. Dog movie? Out of the question.

I love film, and have blubbed away quietly in theatres all over my city, hoping the dark and my heaving chest isn’t giving me away. I carry packs of tissues in every handbag.

These feelings generally begin as a tightness in my stomach, then migrate upward until my lip starts quivering, my chest intakes a large amount of air, and then I start tearing up. I apparently now possess untapped stores of empathy and emotion, it’s pretty magic, and slightly inconvenient.

I can’t sing really along in the car to my favourite songs, because my voice cracks as I reach my favourite part and my throat tightens. Actually, don’t mind crying when I’m in the car, although I’m such a bad driver already, the tears probably don’t help.

Observers might see an older woman in some kind of distress, but I love these tears. I’m now happily and powerfully connected to myself. The processes that control emotion in my brain have been transformed from being a goat track, into a busy four lane highway, and the traffic of cortisol and neurotransmitters produce an unholy peak hour every time I see something affecting.

I mean, what’s the point of having access to one’s feelings if I don’t do anything with them? After so long withholding them, being suppressed, emotionally stunted and blunted, it’s a relief to have emotions make their watery way to the surface.

Speaking of transmitters, I also feel as though for the first time, my internal parts have been properly tuned. I am open to receive signals from the universe, and allow those expressive, heartbreaking, inspiring, touching signals to find their way under my skin and into my heart. This trustworthy organ appears to have unlimited storage for such moments. After a life of dissociation, it’s a relief to feel new comfort in emotion, as my inner and outer body come into alignment.

Relieve is another word I catch myself using quite often.

The therapy I take to change my hormonal makeup has also provided an exit door, a way to relieve myself of so many of the feelings I found so troubling and burdensome to carry.

I was never terribly stoic, but I’m no longer under any obligation to think, act, dress, walk or be as unfeeling as some men.

Today, I provide myself aegis to behave in a way that reflects my authentic and newly attuned sensitivity. I am free to express my feelings and joyfully connect myself to the woman with the inner wellspring of feeling, the one that surely flows in all of us.

That very spring makes its soggy way to the surface every time I am moved.

Judging by how salty it tastes, I’m probably not drinking enough water.

If you’re here, thanks for reading. Thinking about all my beautiful sisters today and hope you’re all doing OK. Love, Sarah