thanks correiovip, you are right, focusing energy and intent on other matters is a very positive thing to do for mind and body. The mental thought process and cycles that our heads go through are enemies to a centered and peaceful being. So yes I have been looking into Buddhism, with the exact intent of quieting the mind and feeling a connection again with the world, but I just dont have the patience so I turn to the bottle, or I did, to shut that voice up. A noteworthy advocate of the buddhist mentality is Eckhart Tolle, he says that voice in our heads is the enemy and we need to click out of it constantly by using koans, or mind vexing realizations and tricks that snap the conscious flow of thought and tune us into the wide world for a brief moment. It helps to put a stop to depressing cycles of thoughts for a while but then it all comes back. I just pray to St. Jude frequently in hopes that a change will come.
I hear ya, go out and live, but how can I live life when I lost the capacity to enjoy anything? It’s not that I’m depressed, it’s just that I don’t care. So I’m supposed to go out and socially interact and enjoy life, but I can’t derive pleasure from doing these things, so what is the point? Everything just seems so pointless, I wish I could wake up from this nightmare.
I hear everything that you are saying. It’s not that you have to go out and interact socially, because this usually causes stress when your brain is not ready to do this. I would just go out on my own. I spent ALOT of time alone. Go out and try to be outside, walk, fish, do things on your own and try to feel the day. Try and just be. Now, the reason we have trouble doing this is because the gaba channels are fucked up. These are the parts of the brain that “let us be.”
You also have to always be doing something to push yourself in the right direction, always. Time will only do so much. You have to push yourself towards the goal. Just like working out, you have to use it. I don’t know if this is coming across the right way…When you work out, it is hard and uncomfortable to do the exercise at first, but when you keep doing it, your body becomes used to it and it becomes easier. People think the brain is different than the body and to some extent it is, but people also don’t understand how pliable and changeable the brain is. It IS, you just have to do the right things to get it back to where you want it. Just like lifting that weight is uncomfortable in the beginning, so are the mental gymnastics. Actually, they are harder then lifting the weight. They are more uncomfortable, so people tend not to do the right things to get there brain back.
You need to slowly get yourself back into the social scene. Start slow. Hang with just a few select people, even if it’s just family. You need the interaction. Then go out from there.
Get on the right supplements, eat the right food, work out (hard), read. I used to have very bad difficulties reading until I started forcing myself to do it. I would literally have to read one word at a time to let it sink in. It was like I was retarded.
Expect change. Welcome it. Don’t dwell on what is wrong, dwell on what it right. This all may seem like a bunch of feel good crap to alot of you, but it is the truth. I’ve been following a good path for the past two years since I’ve been off the drug and I was very, very bad. Mentally and physically. I can pass for normal now. I keep getting better day in and day out. I never stopped pushing towards my goal. You just can’t stop…
As an artist myself(or used to be-before fin?still trying to be?)
that was BEAUTIFUL man!
Im more confused now about this shit than ever. Here’s my weird take and mind bending, psychologically perplexing messed up revelations.
First I don’t have any idea still what has caused my problems. I’m pretty sure it’s low DHT and high estrogen. So I quit drinking and began taking DIM 4 months ago now and I sincerely thought I was better, but now I’ starting to think that was placebo. Although there were some definite undeniable phsyical signs. First afew pimples returned to my face, before propecia I had a pretty good crop of them on my face then they magcially disaperared when i bgain the drug and never came back until now. Next my hair is greasier and smellier than usual and finally I morning wood almost everyday. BUT there is no libido AND itgets even weirder…I dont get turned on by anything anymore I have to force myself into action but once I get going it begins to feel 45% of what it used to feel, the porn becomes engrossing and somewhat exciting, not nearly where it used to be but something begins to churn in my head. And my theory is that this is DHT rushing into my brain and begining to act again. When I’m done i feel more sexually in touch, not horny, than i did before I even started which is the complete opposite of a normal person, but once again i attribute this to the rush of DHT. then later it seems the DHT wears off and im back to my languid self and i know i weill never get a orny feeling at all unless i force myself. Im really confused here, really pissed off, im only 23 I should not have to be writing this shit, I should be excited about a date tonight and getting horny over thought that this girl might go down on me or i might get to see some tits. Even if I had a date, whcih I never will beacuse nothing in my head or body tells me to give a shit anymore, I wouldn’t care, I wouldn’t even act like right because being around women feels so blah now that it;s like taking my grandma out to brunch. its devastating to know you cant enjoy life anymore
A POSITIVE UPDATE…
Pretty much I have realized that over the past 4 years or so I was inadvertently putting myself through a transexual hormone regimen haahaha—and this has been the cause of ALL my problems. I took 1.75 mg daily of proscar which was my antiandrogen of course, but then on top of that I drank excessively. Being in college I drank on average prolly 40 beers a week and prolly a 1/5 of hard alcohol. This excessive drinking does a number on estrogen levels, in fact the introduction of alcohol in the system immediately and exponetntially increases estorgen levels to an extent that I was shocked to hear.
So the whole time my AR activity has been shutdown I’m pumping estrogen into my system!!!------What were the effects? The same as transexuals going through treatemtn!!! Fat deposits in thighs, hips and butt and chest I got so much fat in these areas that I have stretch marks now, I also didn’t gain any fat in my abdomen a place where men are supposed to gain fat but FUCK i had HIPS and flabby thighs. Also my face turned feminine and i didnt have a pimple ever again. My sexual problems also correlate with transexuals—I got watery semen, loss of morning erections and overall libido I also began to suffer from panic attacks and sleep problems. My body odor changed and I could not feel smell or dseire the phermones of women anymroe. But even more my mind changed my perspective changed to that of a feminine nature—I was overly emotional, depressed and passive. Studies show that transexuals going through HRT have measured changes in brain mass specifically in the hypothalamus region. I was turning into a woman!!! Luckily female to male trans experience a masculinization of the brain so I believe i can recover.
Why am I so excited?? Because now I feel like I can do something about it all. I have a map of my misery and now I feel like I can find my way out. My goals are just to get as much T into my system as possible and get rid of as much E as possibel. I have been abstaining from alcohol for 5 months now and the fat in my thighs, butt and chest has subsided. Since having this target I feel 10X better than I did this time last year. I feel like i’m getting my mind and body back whereas before I felt totally lost and feminine, a stranger in my own body. I think allof this has a lot to do with some of your problems. We took a transsexual drug and not only did our bodies suffer but our minds did as well, impacting our sexuality and outlook.
inLimbo1,
as crazy as that sounds, your about right. If our bodies were taking on more estradial than T we what would the outcome be?
I recall on a few occasions calling customer service to dispute errors for bills and being called “sorry Mam” , The first time I thought nothing and by the third time I was like WTF is going on here.
I agree that we should heal over time, but the question is how long do we have to wait? I definitely feel better than 4 months ago; and 4 months ago I felt better than 5 months ago. I just pray we can experience things very close to the way they used to be.
Are you taking anything right now to help your recovery? I just received new blood work and was debating wether to begin some type of treatment. I am just fearful of causing more side effects or making things worse. Today, after reading about SHBG and how it is secreted in the liver makes me think our livers may be more at risk by having to work harder to create SHBG. Most of us obviously have higher SHBG levels.
Is it more damaging to have low T levels over an extended period or to be putting a substance like TRT into our bodies? I’m starting to think the low T levels could be more damaging.
mmn
A Ball Zinger will give you better results, not to mention the price is way better. I’ve used both.
Yes a ball Zinger, that’s what I plan on getting. How did it work for you? any side effects or problems?
A strange question to all…
In the first few months on propecia i experienced obvious and pressing changes in my prostate, urine patterns and all of that. I went more frequently and starting experiencing dribbling after I thought I was done. BUT even weirder I started to get this orgasmic feeling and pressure when I did certain lifts in the weight room ie; tricep pull down and anything else that seemd to put stress on the prostate. It was a feeling like if I kept going I would ejacualte on the spot (not from penis stimulation but from pressure on the prstate). Its fuckin weird but desperately true and I had never experienced it before and I had lifted weights for 4 years before. I knew it had something to do with the propecia. This problem persists to this day. Any of you expereience this?? Is it from an inflamed prostate?? My sexuals problems would soon follow along with everything else but from this I can say that this poison had an immediate and undenibale impact on the function of my prostate. What the fuck did propecia do to me???
Look at the studies in FINASTERIDE STUDIES section on the prostate. Drug atrophies and involutes (loss of function) prostate tissue and likely associated nerves.
The Zinger works great for me and I rarely ever take it off.
Hello again, to the misfortunate vain.
It’s been years since I’ve been on this forum. Years. I made a choice to break the habit, the cycle, the search. It was too much to bare and I had a life to try to live. I was 19 when I began Propecia in 2005, the summer before my freshman year in college. The spring before I was in my “Mr. High School Charity Event” and a respected varsity athlete. Graduation came and I had my dreams waiting, my life only just burgeoning. I was tall, athletic, handsome and thought I was pretty damn funny too. I hardly had any hair loss, just a vanity streak fatefully attached to a healthy libido and even healthier ego. I took Propecia in July. July 2005.
Then, college happened…
4 years
4 Fucking, lost.
I remember losing myself everyday. The self I always was. It was like there was a warming and vibrant cloth work structure that was pulled away from my body and I remember the tearing moment by moment, symptom after symptom until I was no longer able to find comfort or peace in anything. I couldn’t feel anything–the warmth of a woman.
I became the tattered loss of an identity, cold and naked laying alone. Look up my previous posts for more detail. I can’t go into it without the shield of a broad metaphor. it’s too hard.
After college…
Tried and tried.
Wrote a novel or something, just anything, about the pain of not being able to move forward when everyone else just…does.
Tried some more as everything went by.
I’m less than a year away from thirty now.
I tried. I fucking tried with earnest with years of regimens: weights, DIM, diet…and then even taking in the ignorant perspectives of friends and family that ‘this is nothing’, ‘everyone goes through shit’, ‘you’re being paranoid’, ‘you’re fine, get out of your head.’ All the while my balls went soft, I grew hips, a fat ass and puffy lips.
They just don’t know.
The last girlfriend I had a healthy relationship before Propecia said to me, “What’s your problem? You’re a catch?” I tried to tell her.I told her my whole mind down to my fucking penis is broken…It’s just incomprehensible.
The world operates on the pervasive nature of a healthy libido and sexual identity. It's what drives people, whether they are fucking aware of it or not. I'm tired of being aware of that whole fucking deal. I wish I was like them oblivious like wile e coyote. Like I used to be and could have been when things were just second nature. I have lost all pursuit. My dreams are dead because my libido, everything that made me feel like a competitive male. Nothing matters because I have lost the animal drive to procreate. I can hardly talk or even walk with questioning myself and how I fit or am perceived in this world in the 10 years since I took finasteride. Kids? if i even could anymore physically, I can't even perceive that emotionally. I haven't grown since I stopped myself with Propecia when I was 19.
My penultimate notion in this spreading stain of consciousness is that this is karma. This was meant to be for me because of my vanity and ego and the pain I caused others and the pain I might have caused others had I not taken this drug. And it is the only thing that keep me going. It makes me believe in God. It has to.
MJS
I’m really sorry to hear about that man. I’m going through a weird/rough patch right now too, mentally speaking.
In all of this time, none of the symptoms improved at all?
That’s the rub…I don’t know anymore. The impact was so sudden and powerful that it sent me on a tangent that sent my mind and body spiraling since. I don’t even know if who I thought I was is real anymore or if it even was how I think I remember it. I am this person now who is incapable of any kind of a relationship, female intimacy or male friendship. I look at myself and I feel myself as stripped, feminized, lost and empty. Physically I feel stalled like I stopped growing into a man, but I don’t know if that is reality. I was never able to confidently go through any mature sexual and emotional developmental experiences. The whole time people were growing up having meaningless sex leading to the most meaningful, I was existentially lost because suddenly one day I didnt feel anything anymore except the anxiety of not feeling. Nowadays I get the occasional morning wood and even a really present sex dream that makes me realize how I used to feel when I was with a girl. But it has never worked out in the real world. There have been many times since propecia where I’ve been with women, I’ve had girlfriends one night stands, its been nothingness. I just feel empty and incapable like I could pop a viagra and be hard but still not feel the moment. Something is missing. The tension. The feeling of not knowing where she ends and you begin. Something I knew so powerfully from before, that werewolf mentality, and the guilt of not having that feeling makes me useless. Then I look at my feminized body and feel worse. But everybody is different. There is hope in curtailing acute side effects with a healthy lifestyle because in the end there is a macro endocrine effect that every male feels: the more T the better and so on…And that may be true for me and for the most affected but the mind is powerful too and now I don’t know where my mind begins and this propecia mentality ends.
^^^ I meant unfortunate. Brain fog.
Old thread but was willing tocsay bodybuilders that start finasteride, while having enough of testosterone and dht, aslo seem to change by using finasteride.
A very good thread. PFS described perfectly by inlimbo during Dec 15. I’m sure many can relate to his words, losses , the emptiness that becomes our 24/7 life. I hope he found himself again, I hope we all do one day 
This hit me way harder than I would have liked.
@inLimbo1 sure had a way with words. I hope he’s feeling a little better these days. He even mentioned a novel he wrote, I would like to read it.
“I loved women and I still do but its different its almost from a distance now eventhough I ,might be literally inside of one. I dont feel anymore, I dont get that horny feeling where your mind goes into tunnel vision, you begin to shiver and your body craves a sexual magnetism. Ive been demagnetized and even to the point where I questioned my sexuality and I never even considered men to sexually attractive in any way. But I began to feel femine, my body fat deposits changed to my butt and thighs and I got flabby moobs. I begain to feel so emotional and I began to have panic attacks. This was so far from where i was before the drug a three sport athlete with a 4.7% body fat and an insataible appetite for women whether in person or in the pornographic form.
Now i dont even think i want a bj or any form of sexual gratification because that innate pull isnt there anymore. I dont even know how love, or dating is supposed to feel anymore. I just want to be horny again, or in love or even lust, but I’m dead to itall.”
This is exactly my experience as well… Literally everything.