[flamesabers]

Clara,

I think I feel this way because I've been upset with my tendency to procrastinate and be lazy. I guess I always have the drive to improve, but sometimes (like now) it's more prominent and pressuring me to act.

Misty,

I think your post is my first read on this forum of someone describing T as having a healing property.

In regards to having a dark side, I don't feel my gender identity is relevant. Instead, it's more about reviving the past, specifically trying to take advantage of a class of hormones I've been intentionally suppressing for the last two years. Have you read the story "Retrieved Reformation?" It's about a criminal named Jimmy Valentine who's proficient with cracking safes. After he gets out of jail, he gets a new identity and starts to build a new life that's free of crime. He falls in love with a banker's daughter. Meanwhile the police think he's still robbing banks. Towards the end of the story, the nieces of his soon to be wife accidentally lock themselves in the bank's vault. The timer for the lock hasn't been set yet, so there is no way the employees can open the door. The love of his life begs him to do something to save the girls from death by asphyxiation. He wants to save the girls obviously, but the only way he can save them is to reveal his true identity by using the skills he utilized as a criminal who cracked safes.

I can really relate to the predicament Valentine was in. I've been pummeling my testosterone levels for a while, but now I have an obvious need for some of the benefits testosterone affords. I feel as though to truly raise my level of physical fitness, I have to embrace the primal aspects of my masculine biology. Doing this of course will put my NBE on hold at the very least.