Meant to ask also, is there ever any kind of psycho-active effects from taking testosterone?
As in, even if I dosed thyroid hormone by example, I notice a mild "buzz" psycho active effect within about 1 hour of dosing.
I understand on higher doses of T some users can experience increased aggression.
But what I'm asking is, is there, following dosing/injecting etc., any kind of distinct affect or alteration in ones "headspace", in any way?
Feel more stimulated, light headed, tuned-up, etc.??
norAll of the above, and more. That's one of the biggest attractions for lots of recreational users but it depends entirely on your psychological makeup. For some people that's why they take it, and abuse it, because they get a massive buzz from having that much test flowing through their body. You can feel on top of the world and like nobody can touch you. Invincibility can kick in, as can grandiosity (if you are prone to those narcissistic traits). Your ego widens. It can give you an edge mentally that is hard to replace with any other drug. Confidence, aggression, resilience, dominance, positivity, vitality. It's the dirty little "secret" around steroid use and something I notice a lot of veterans don't like to bring up easily.
Its also why they are addictive. The addiction is psychological after all, and for good reason. When you are a certain somebody with certain personality traits and made in a certain way who is drawn to addicting to things that seem to numb parts of yourself you might not be happy about while enlarging parts you struggle to acknowledge, steroids are a very good ally. Steroids can give you the impression you're somebody different to the person you are off the gear. And you are different, both psychologically and biologically and so those assumptions are right.
Question is, what is different and why? And what is it you find different that you're potentially addicting yourself too? In most cases its always an escape as with any other drug. The drug provides an escape window from normality into a world that feels better. You're a "bigger" man, both psychologically and physically and that's alluring to any man with an inch of competitiveness and alpha male characteristics about him. What they can do is turn that alpha male thing from whatever it was before to x10, x50, x100 times
Where you go from there though is down to you. And that's where the problems can start. Because, how do you come down from such a high where you are a man you feel you can't be off the gear? How do you cope knowing there is a state you can reach that you can only reach injecting hormones into your body and without those hormones you're just an average man? Or maybe (as you perceive anyway) less than average? And that's where they trap you because now its no longer about the gains in the gym or even the wicked sex life, the recovery or whatever. Now its just about maintaining the high so you don't crash and return to being normal and witnessing your ego diminish and your artificially imposed king gorilla complex deflate.
Again, depends on your makeup. And that will depend a lot on your life history, experiences and trajectory, lifestyle choices and how that's made you into you today. Some will fall off the edge (albeit secretly as like I said, the side effects of steroids psychologically are a taboo topic. Most men who talk about them may talk about the physical side effects but there's a denial of why they themselves need to keep taking them) and stay on a cycle for months or even years and never really come off properly. And some will recognize the impact they have, both positively and negatively, and be able to remain relatively grounded.
The one thing that gets me is how and why people don't recognize that steroids are a drug like any other. People associate injecting things with heroin and then there's the stigma with that, but people don't draw parallels with steroids. In reality, its the same thing with heroin as it is with steroids. I speak with coming up to 10 years experience with them. Sure, you're not doing it the same way, its not the same molecular compound nor the same physiological effects and culturally they are worlds apart. Still though, if you really dug deep and asked why a steroid user continues to inject, the answer would be not that dissimilar to any other drug user who injects drugs into their body.
