Taking HRT and Antidepressants (My 3 Big Questions Answered)

For those who don’t know, I am currently on 2 different Antidepressants, one called Lexapro and the other called Mirtazapine. I take the Lexapro every morning and this helps me combat the long-term depression I’ve had in the past. I also take Mirtazapine, which I take before bed and this helps me with my Insomnia. Both of these medications have helped me tremendously to navigate through the sadness and despair I was facing, and helped me to do the self exploration I had to do to get to where I’m at now.

There’s a huge stigma about Antidepressants, which I am so happy I didn’t give into. Only you know what you need to be happy, so don’t let anyone else’s opinion get in the way of that, including family.

In this video I want to address the Big 3 Questions I had about taking antidepressants with HRT, prior to starting HRT.

So let’s start with the first one:

Will I feel less depressed on HRT?

In my case, yes! What I mean by this, is that everyone’s root to their depression is different so it really comes down to you and your unique story. For me, it took me years to figure out that my depression came from Gender Dysphoria and not being happy in the body I was born in. So when I started HRT, all of a sudden, I started to focus better, think better, and just be overall more happier and content with my life.

The 2nd question younger me had was:

Will HRT make my sleep better or worse?

I haven’t noticed much change in the quality of sleep I was getting, but what I did notice was that, as I mentioned in my last video I made about my 1 month update, I talked about how I had to take the Mirtazapine medication along with masturbation to fall asleep. When I didn’t do the 2nd part, I wouldn’t be able to sleep as well. However, after starting HRT, and after experiencing the decreased sex drive from the testosterone blocker, I am now able to sleep just fine whether I do the deed or not. So I would say yes!

The Last Question that clouded my head prior to starting HRT was:

Will I be able to feel my emotions better than before and perhaps even cry more than usual?

I honestly would say I haven’t necessarily felt my emotions better, I feel like I just understand them a lot better if that makes sense. I was always an emotional person, and as a kid, when the bullies would pick on me and they’d always say “he’s about to cry”, and I’d literally helplessly cry right after. As I got older, I learned that I couldn’t show my emotions so I started bottling them out and letting them out when I would play basketball. Then when I started on Antidepressants last year, I, overtime with the diagnosis of ADHD, felt like I was finally addressing my issues and my life started to get better with the medications and therapy I was receiving. Though many people had told me that antidepressants will make me emotionless, I felt like I was still emotional just not as much as before. I wouldn’t feel it as deeply if that makes sense. It definitely did get a lot harder to cry after starting antidepressants but occasionally when I’d be really down in the dumps, I’d have a quick session.

But after starting HRT, I feel like I’m slightly less numb to my emotions now but because I’m finally addressing the issue that’s caused so much confusion and frustration in my life, I no longer have those occasional crying sessions I used to have.

And that concludes today's blog post on 'Taking HRT and Antidepressants'. I really hope you all found this blog post useful and please feel free to send me a message regarding any of this, I'd love to know about you and your journey! Goodbye for now my friends and I will see you all very soon in my next blog:)