Yup.
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@mw @mekkaokereke because of lifelong hormonal issues, my E levels were high (>150pg/mL) and T levels low (<320ng/mL), all endogenous.
about six or seven years ago i started taking a non-HRT medication that cut the E to <20pg/ml and roughly doubled T (>650ng/mL).
i was more sociable, it was much easier to start conversations, and every interaction-related thing became almost weightless. T has far more to do with cooperation than aggression.
biological essentialism is a cursed idea.
@mw @mekkaokereke i have a friend who started HRT in his 50s because of a different medical condition. he had the same experience.
more energy, easier interactions with others, and far more patience under trying circumstances.
the people flattening and corrupting the myriad ways hormones interact with behavior are demonstrably wrong and absolutely causing harm to everyone.
this is the twinkie defense all over again.
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One thing to keep in mind: as an adult, it is your responsibility to manage your emotions and learn how to do so in a socially acceptable way. In 95% of situations, that means not being violent.
If you are being violent, It doesn't matter why you are being violent. You are breaking the social contact.
Don't make excuses, do the work and sort your shit out.
There are multiple types of therapy and various medications that might help. You have to take care of it. You can't make it everybody else's problem.
And if you find that certain sorts of things push you close to that line, avoid those situations or learn to just shut up and walk away, no matter how bad it makes you look or feel.
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Yup.
Like I've said: roid rage isn't a real thing. It's not. Anyone that tries to tell you that it is a real thing, is probably trying to justify violence by petulant man-babies.
If you're thinking "But steroids can make you irritable!
" I don't care. All women get irritable. All women know how guns and knives work. But they don't shoot and stab and beat people every time they get irritable. Part of being an adult, is learning how to regulate your emotions. Keep your hands to yourself.Steroids don't make big men angry. Steroids make angry men big. What would've been a 150 lb twerp, is now a 200 lb twerp. Steroids give them the opportunity to try to live out their violence. When I worked as a bouncer in college, I often had to hulk-smash roided out dudes that don't understand that steroids won't help them against me, and that fighting is a skill, and that they didn't have that skill.
I've never taken steroids. I'm an elite level natural powerlifter. Many powerlifters and bodybuilders aren't natural, which means that they do take steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. They don't rage on people.
I don't judge people who take steroids for sports. I certainly don't judge people who do gender affirming care. I am pro-gender affirming care. What I'm against, is violent people that try to blame steroids as their excuse for hurting people that they perceive as smaller than them.
No.
It's not the steroids. It's you.
@mekkaokereke *aste*roid rage, on the other hand...
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One thing to keep in mind: as an adult, it is your responsibility to manage your emotions and learn how to do so in a socially acceptable way. In 95% of situations, that means not being violent.
If you are being violent, It doesn't matter why you are being violent. You are breaking the social contact.
Don't make excuses, do the work and sort your shit out.
There are multiple types of therapy and various medications that might help. You have to take care of it. You can't make it everybody else's problem.
@jrdepriest @mekkaokereke
You've perfectly described resentment junkies that thrive on anger, threat of violence, and execution of violence. A sense of revenge is their cocaine...pure criminal temperment. -
I never pass up an opportunity to push bell hooks.
mekka okereke :verified: (@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io)
@Jeanniewarner@wandering.shop @jonquass@techhub.social @donlamb_1@mastodon.online And for folks thinking "Are you saying that misogyny didn't play any part in Trump's victory?"🤡 Or "Are you saying Black men can't be sexist?"🤡 Or "Are you saying that women politicians don't face sexism?"🤡 Of course not. Those aren't even reasonable questions. If you ask me to estimate the combined weight of an elephant and a mouse, I'm just going to estimate the weight of the elephant. If you then say, "Are you saying mice are massless particles like photons?"🤡 I will also say "Of course not." Sexism in Black men in a racist country, can express very differently. There are many paradoxes where white women support a pro-patriarchy position to a greater extent than Black men. That doesn't make Black men, or Black women, immune to sexism. No I'm not some kind of expert on sexism or feminism. I'm an expert on US and UK racism, and have a deep understanding of the ways that fake feminism is used to advance racism in those countries. All men should read "The Will to Change" by bell hooks. It's my go to book for men to understand feminism. No book is perfect, and I 100% am not open to discussing anyone's critiques of the book online. I'm not saying that there is nothing to critique. I'm saying that it's close to perfect as an intro feminism book for men whose initial belief is "feminism is about hating men!" Or "societal power is zero sum, so if women get more, that means men will get less!" or that think that patriarchy benefits men. Audiobook: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAEBs9lW2KM Ebook: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/bell_hooks_The_Will_to_Change?id=G28LTQltyVAC
Hachyderm.io (hachyderm.io)
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@gme i've had a similar experience, actually. i discontinued arimidex after a few months because it caused unpleasant side effects. a few years later when i ran T & E panels, i was in a far better range (37pg/mL, 509ng/mL) despite not taking it for a long time or my body composition changing significantly.
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@mekkaokereke The ones who got t. and not told what it was played somewhat more fairly than the control group, which is interesting. But much more interesting was that the ones who were _told_ they were given testosterone played much more selfishly, whether it was placebo or not. The conclusion was that people's _idea_ of what hormones do completely overrides their actual effects on behavior.
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@mw @mekkaokereke "Researchers at the University of Zurich and Royal Holloway, University of London conducted a study of 120 women and found that testosterone promoted fairness in a bargaining game."
120 is interesting, not proof.
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@mw @mekkaokereke "Researchers at the University of Zurich and Royal Holloway, University of London conducted a study of 120 women and found that testosterone promoted fairness in a bargaining game."
120 is interesting, not proof.
@CStamp @mekkaokereke Yeah, statistically not huge, and psychology-study games don't always translate well to the real world. But there are lots of other related studies if you really want to dig into it. This is just the one I remember hearing about :-).
For me, the big thing isn't so much the hormone effect, but the effect of people's _ideas_ of the hormones, which in this case were opposite to the actual ones.
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@mw @mekkaokereke I don't even care if it's a misapplication of the study, from now on, I'm gonna tell people that using "woke" as a pejorative indicates low T.
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Yup.
Like I've said: roid rage isn't a real thing. It's not. Anyone that tries to tell you that it is a real thing, is probably trying to justify violence by petulant man-babies.
If you're thinking "But steroids can make you irritable!
" I don't care. All women get irritable. All women know how guns and knives work. But they don't shoot and stab and beat people every time they get irritable. Part of being an adult, is learning how to regulate your emotions. Keep your hands to yourself.Steroids don't make big men angry. Steroids make angry men big. What would've been a 150 lb twerp, is now a 200 lb twerp. Steroids give them the opportunity to try to live out their violence. When I worked as a bouncer in college, I often had to hulk-smash roided out dudes that don't understand that steroids won't help them against me, and that fighting is a skill, and that they didn't have that skill.
I've never taken steroids. I'm an elite level natural powerlifter. Many powerlifters and bodybuilders aren't natural, which means that they do take steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. They don't rage on people.
I don't judge people who take steroids for sports. I certainly don't judge people who do gender affirming care. I am pro-gender affirming care. What I'm against, is violent people that try to blame steroids as their excuse for hurting people that they perceive as smaller than them.
No.
It's not the steroids. It's you.
I have no idea what testosterone or PEDs do. The steroid I've taken is prednisone, almost always for poison ivy.
The worst bout with it was when I was a camp counselor and the idiot doctor who wrote the scrip, because of confusion between per pill dosages, accidentally put me on twice what I should have been on, for what was already a very heavy dose for me, until the camp nurse double checked and was like HOLY SHIT CUT THAT DOSE BY 2/3 NOW.
Holding your temper with a bunch of unruly 11 year old boys, some of them deliberately taken off their meds by their parents for camp, is a huge part of the job. And I will tell you that job was a LOT HARDER when I was on the mega-prednisone dose. It without a doubt made me jumpy, irritable, and kept my heart rate well above normal.
But just like being drunk doesn't make you racist, it just cuts your filter, I didn't actually *act* on being angrier. I just had to catch myself from yelling a LOT more.
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@CStamp @mekkaokereke Yeah, statistically not huge, and psychology-study games don't always translate well to the real world. But there are lots of other related studies if you really want to dig into it. This is just the one I remember hearing about :-).
For me, the big thing isn't so much the hormone effect, but the effect of people's _ideas_ of the hormones, which in this case were opposite to the actual ones.
@mw @CStamp @mekkaokereke The same thing has been shown to happen with alcohol. As much as 50% of "drunk behavior" happens when you give people quinine and tell them it's vodka. This effect has been shown to be true across cultures, where different cultures have different ideas about what "drunk behavior" is. People act more like a stereotypical drunk for their culture, specifically.
In America, people talk about alcohol reducing inhibitions, but most of the inhibition reduction, specifically, happens when people just think they have alcohol. The alcohol just gives them permission to drop their inhibitions.
This does not mean that alcohol doesn't impact the mind. It does. It just doesn't as much as people think it does, or necessarily in the ways that people think it does, but people behave as if it did.
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Yup.
Like I've said: roid rage isn't a real thing. It's not. Anyone that tries to tell you that it is a real thing, is probably trying to justify violence by petulant man-babies.
If you're thinking "But steroids can make you irritable!
" I don't care. All women get irritable. All women know how guns and knives work. But they don't shoot and stab and beat people every time they get irritable. Part of being an adult, is learning how to regulate your emotions. Keep your hands to yourself.Steroids don't make big men angry. Steroids make angry men big. What would've been a 150 lb twerp, is now a 200 lb twerp. Steroids give them the opportunity to try to live out their violence. When I worked as a bouncer in college, I often had to hulk-smash roided out dudes that don't understand that steroids won't help them against me, and that fighting is a skill, and that they didn't have that skill.
I've never taken steroids. I'm an elite level natural powerlifter. Many powerlifters and bodybuilders aren't natural, which means that they do take steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. They don't rage on people.
I don't judge people who take steroids for sports. I certainly don't judge people who do gender affirming care. I am pro-gender affirming care. What I'm against, is violent people that try to blame steroids as their excuse for hurting people that they perceive as smaller than them.
No.
It's not the steroids. It's you.
The only thing I've seen testosterone do to masculinity is make a great big smile and happiness
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@mw @CStamp @mekkaokereke The same thing has been shown to happen with alcohol. As much as 50% of "drunk behavior" happens when you give people quinine and tell them it's vodka. This effect has been shown to be true across cultures, where different cultures have different ideas about what "drunk behavior" is. People act more like a stereotypical drunk for their culture, specifically.
In America, people talk about alcohol reducing inhibitions, but most of the inhibition reduction, specifically, happens when people just think they have alcohol. The alcohol just gives them permission to drop their inhibitions.
This does not mean that alcohol doesn't impact the mind. It does. It just doesn't as much as people think it does, or necessarily in the ways that people think it does, but people behave as if it did.
@Azuaron @mw @CStamp @mekkaokereke as I recall, there's a similar effect with "feeding children sugar makes them hyper", e.g. telling them this is part of it
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@mw @CStamp @mekkaokereke The same thing has been shown to happen with alcohol. As much as 50% of "drunk behavior" happens when you give people quinine and tell them it's vodka. This effect has been shown to be true across cultures, where different cultures have different ideas about what "drunk behavior" is. People act more like a stereotypical drunk for their culture, specifically.
In America, people talk about alcohol reducing inhibitions, but most of the inhibition reduction, specifically, happens when people just think they have alcohol. The alcohol just gives them permission to drop their inhibitions.
This does not mean that alcohol doesn't impact the mind. It does. It just doesn't as much as people think it does, or necessarily in the ways that people think it does, but people behave as if it did.
@Azuaron @mw @CStamp @mekkaokereke see also Jimi Hendrix, who was an incredibly gentle man, but per Wikipedia citation, "turned into a bastard when he drank". Alcohol I would rank in the top 3 most dangerous substances, under meth and opiates, in that specific order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix
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@Azuaron @mw @CStamp @mekkaokereke see also Jimi Hendrix, who was an incredibly gentle man, but per Wikipedia citation, "turned into a bastard when he drank". Alcohol I would rank in the top 3 most dangerous substances, under meth and opiates, in that specific order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix
@codinghorror i think you’re misreading the study referenced above.
Alcohol doesn’t make people into assholes. Assholes use alcohol as an excuse to behave the way they want.
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@mw @CStamp @mekkaokereke The same thing has been shown to happen with alcohol. As much as 50% of "drunk behavior" happens when you give people quinine and tell them it's vodka. This effect has been shown to be true across cultures, where different cultures have different ideas about what "drunk behavior" is. People act more like a stereotypical drunk for their culture, specifically.
In America, people talk about alcohol reducing inhibitions, but most of the inhibition reduction, specifically, happens when people just think they have alcohol. The alcohol just gives them permission to drop their inhibitions.
This does not mean that alcohol doesn't impact the mind. It does. It just doesn't as much as people think it does, or necessarily in the ways that people think it does, but people behave as if it did.
@Azuaron Alcohol affects people very differently. @mw @mekkaokereke
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@Azuaron @mw @CStamp @mekkaokereke see also Jimi Hendrix, who was an incredibly gentle man, but per Wikipedia citation, "turned into a bastard when he drank". Alcohol I would rank in the top 3 most dangerous substances, under meth and opiates, in that specific order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix
@codinghorror Again, different people react differently. I met someone who said he was a mean drunk when he specifically drank tequila. I know someone who turns into a teddy bear when drinking. Some people are boisterous, some introspective. Etc. Some have addictive personalties, some don’t.There are more shared things such as motor skills being affected, so no one should drink and drive. @Azuaron @mw @mekkaokereke
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Yup.
Like I've said: roid rage isn't a real thing. It's not. Anyone that tries to tell you that it is a real thing, is probably trying to justify violence by petulant man-babies.
If you're thinking "But steroids can make you irritable!
" I don't care. All women get irritable. All women know how guns and knives work. But they don't shoot and stab and beat people every time they get irritable. Part of being an adult, is learning how to regulate your emotions. Keep your hands to yourself.Steroids don't make big men angry. Steroids make angry men big. What would've been a 150 lb twerp, is now a 200 lb twerp. Steroids give them the opportunity to try to live out their violence. When I worked as a bouncer in college, I often had to hulk-smash roided out dudes that don't understand that steroids won't help them against me, and that fighting is a skill, and that they didn't have that skill.
I've never taken steroids. I'm an elite level natural powerlifter. Many powerlifters and bodybuilders aren't natural, which means that they do take steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. They don't rage on people.
I don't judge people who take steroids for sports. I certainly don't judge people who do gender affirming care. I am pro-gender affirming care. What I'm against, is violent people that try to blame steroids as their excuse for hurting people that they perceive as smaller than them.
No.
It's not the steroids. It's you.
@mekkaokereke
Tangential to your (accurate) point: Roid-rage is a myth, but "steroid psychosis" is a real and terrifying phenomenon, one that doctors do not routinely alert patients to the risk of. It was scary enough once we understood what was happening, but before then -- brrrrrrr! -
@codinghorror Again, different people react differently. I met someone who said he was a mean drunk when he specifically drank tequila. I know someone who turns into a teddy bear when drinking. Some people are boisterous, some introspective. Etc. Some have addictive personalties, some don’t.There are more shared things such as motor skills being affected, so no one should drink and drive. @Azuaron @mw @mekkaokereke
@CStamp @Azuaron @mw @mekkaokereke that is definitely true; the radical distortions in behavior depend on DNA/physiology. There are "happy drunks". But as my therapist said to me, ask bouncers if they'd rather work a concert where alcohol is on tap vs. THC and the response is almost unanimous
