Unexpected pros of E:

• after 3 - 4 months on E, my leg hair has become more thin and light colored, so I can get away without shaving before it becomes ick
• I seem to be able to communicate what I’m thinking / feeling better, both better verbal skills but also just more internal clarity in general, I am more likely to know what to say in a situation and I stand up for myself more and interact more like a real human rather than dissociating and having to “think” my way through social interactions
• my skin is much, much softer than I thought it was going to be, all over
• even though I can’t sleep as much on E, I feel more rested with less sleep. Pre-HRT I could probably sleep 11 - 12 hours every night, 10 - 11 hours and I wouldn’t necessarily feel fully rested even though I clearly should be. Now I can sleep 8 hours and I feel fully rested / normal.
• how extremely “normal” I feel, basic tasks that were hard before become straightforward and simple, motivation comes more naturally, happiness comes to me more easily, etc.; I really did not expect how extremely it altered my mood and mental health.

Unexpected cons of E:

• sometimes it feels like my brain is having to recreate pathways I used to have and rely on (for example when I was writing code when first starting E, it seemed like E made me a worse programmer, e.g. I was less meticulous and kept missing small, tricky syntax errors; over time I think this has gotten better, so I think I just had to sorta “relearn” some of those habits on E, which was weird)
• with less anxiety and stress I am also less prepared and put together sometimes, I’m more likely to not think everything through or be late to something; I think anxiety made me more reliable as I couldn’t help but obsessively think about all the ways I was going to miss something, etc. and now that I’m just happy and less neurotic I find myself having to be more intentional about thinking through everything (rather than relying on obsessive, anxious rumination).
• breast growth can be really painful and can make it hard to sleep in certain positions sometimes
• my fingers started to look different and I hadn’t noticed, and while doing something for a brief moment I couldn’t recognize my own hand, it suddenly looked like someone else’s hand, which was not necessarily a happy moment despite the fact that my hands look more like I want them to look; just the sudden disconnect before identifying with the new was unsettling, lots of changes and it can be hard to know how to feel about them, esp. when obsessively watching them and asking yourself how you feel over every small change