Importance of PFS friendships

I am normally not a very open person but i am going to be just for this post. I currently live in England, but i am orignially from Ireland. my story is typical in that the drug complelely ruined everything. i am 30 years old and i have never had a relationship as i have been like this ever since i was 18 when i started taking finasteride.

i got to a really low point. i had written a suicide note, had sent timed emails to be sent out after my death. i bought a rope and had picked out a tree to hang myself, and i just couldnt do it. i wanted to but the survival instinct kicked in. Part of the reason i was so down was i wasnt doing well at uni and just felt worthless. i knew however if i was going to keep going, things had to change.

so i sent out an email to the PFS foundation saying that i was looking for other pfs guys for a friendship, to make me feel i wasnt as alone.

A guy responded to the email and we became fast friends. he doesnt live in the same part of England as me, but we see each other when we can and we speak every week on whatsapp, and his friendship in a way saved me. He doesnt judge me for my failures and his positivity for getting better is what i needed. We have been friends now nearly 5 months and i hope there are many years of friendship to come.

i would encourage anyone to seek out guys who are near them, in the same city, or as near as you can, to regularly meet up and discuss finasteride and how you have delt with it. the key thing is no one else will understand what it is like to be chemically castrated at such a young age. everyone else says that its all in your head and you just need to snap out of it. you dont need to do that with another pfs guy. it is an enornmous weight off your shoulders. Also the amount of lies i have had to tell about why my life has went the way it did, to everyone else. i dont have to do it with this guy.

its just an option guys, but talking about it face to face, might make you accept it more and it might save your life

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Great post! Thanks for telling your story and I am sure you will also help a lot of people on here.

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Thanks for your inspiring and open post. Even if many of us are suffering badly from anedonia, having someone to talk to is a need that probably most of us have. It is not seldom that family and existing friends will show little understanding for our situation. They can’t be blamed, as often not even we understand our situation. Sure, we can feel it - the pain and everything - but really, it doesn’t make much sense.

The characterization of friendship on Wikipedia include kindness, sympathy, empathy, honesty, altruism, loyalty, multual understanding and compassion, trust, and the ability to be oneself, express one’s feelings to others, and make mistakes without fear of judgment.

I think the above characterization of friendship perfectly describe the values we strive for in this community. Even if we can’t all meet in person, or even all talk to each other, we can still be there for one another. When relaunching this site, and redesigning the logo, this is the spirit of what we had in mind.

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