Why testosterone?
Asking as a female.
Asking as a female.
[1] https://www.healthline.com/health/side-effects-of-low-testos...
Also, I'm supplementing to levels normal for young men. And young, I am not. So there's zero chance that I'd have adequate testosterone now, even if I'd never used a supplement, or had some disorder that reduced testosterone production.
I am aware of increased health risks. Especially for testosterone-dependent tumors, such as prostate cancer. So I get screened frequently. Also cardiovascular stuff.
If your hormones are out of balance - it makes sense that your brain isn't going to be working optimally. That being said, I believe it's a hormonal deficiency issue - and not a gender issue. So it's going to be rare for most people to be affected by this.
[0] - https://www.webmd.com/men/features/how-low-testosterone-affe...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4330791/#__sec1...
I'm not looking to pick at the trope argument here. I just really don't know if these kinds of evidence are evidence enough to use such research to support oneself in one's own sense of what it means to take care of oneself. When you lead with a statement that is an absolute, with a citation to a respectable publication, I mean, the conclusion in the publication simply is not an absolute, and there are many reasons given as to why that is the case.
When there's barely anything to go on, I think that can be one of those instances where you can be simply, overloaded with the sheer amount of information available and sheer amount of information you've tried to work with. People exhaust their own minds trying to go through all of that, because there's probably a real issue they are really dealing with and don't know how to fix.
This is a kind of tolerance(?) I've developed by growing up with family of people who either have total careless attitudes about health or a level of hypochondria that death often seems preferable to (but isn't, but can really seem preferable than looking forward to a lifetime of 'find problem/solve problem' for literally everything - missing out on the whole everything else of life, perfectionism yo-yoing with "i do not care about anything"). I'm like my family in many ways as well, probably similar to your friends in person. I just know that what looks 'stupid' isn't always, and likewise, what looks like intelligence, isn't always.
I have my own problems with self care, but I'm often feeling as though I am carefully treading a line that I would rather call a tightrope, than anything so simple as 'balanced'. Try to have a sense of humor about it, and sigh.
I don't know if the problem is just a problem of doubting oneself. I don't know if what I say helps. I know understanding this aspect of it helps me feel less like my family is driving me insane, just having some tolerance for it, acceptance, and trust that they can deal with their own stuff as independent people, and if they need help, they'll ask.
I guess my point is having all of the science can be as good as having none, because that's what science is. Sometimes it doesn't know what it does. Sometimes all the research we've done simply isn't enough. That's not said with the attempt to rationalize 'go do crazy XYZ everything is fine ignore consequences etc all science is stupid'. It's just literally, what looks like having a lot of information can be comparable to having next to none, and what looks like having next to no information can actually be having a lot of information.
It's always puzzling though.
There is a tremendous amount of context that is critical to fully understanding a person’s situation. Most often, there is a lot that doesn’t get revealed. It’s extremely tough being in any condition mentally or physically that, even with our supposedly best tools and research, can’t yet be addressed. the weighty of that could also conceivably fuel a cycle of degrading the condition of the other (physical -> psychological -> physical etc..).
In the particular situations I’m thinking of, these considerations need to be made and the complexities explored. It can be tricky at times, but I try and take the time to understand what the context is that I might be missing. What problem are they really trying to address? What’s led them to seek X treatment? Were there negative experiences in the past that either failed them or complicated their situation? I say it can be tricky, because I never want to see them do harm to themselves or others, but what they’re doing might have potential to do that. Often times it is just a matter of realizing that this person is going through some struggle and trying to find something that works for them. I won’t fault a person for that. Trying new workout routines that I find on YouTube is something I do, but with no particular expectation that I can expect anything definitive from the variety of sources I’m using. Others, such as the hypothetical, but not unrealistic case of a Naturopath who might have sold a bill of goods to a cancer patient, leading them to go off radiation therapy and subsequently die, are a bit different.
Your attempt at finding a balance between the polar opposite and probably unhealthy approaches your relatives have taken is an admirable effort. It’s tricky to break habits you might have been raised with and I can definitely relate. My father has, to minimally variation, eaten peanut butter sandwiches on white bread, along with large fountain drinks and no doctor appointments for the last 20 years or so. If you’re a person who wants to improve your well-being, already you’re off to a good start. That keeps you above the extreme of not caring. If you’re a person who seeks information from multiple sources and can critically examine it, you’re likely to come across confounding evidence quite frequently, which is less likely to get you to the upper extreme of thinking that every problem can be addressed or that there is a definite solution at all. Things are not clear cut in this world.
Everyone has their own self-care problems. The best we can do as individuals is more than nothing but less than everything. Look for good information, and try to do well for yourself.
Lastly, I do get your point and agree that things are puzzling. Puzzles can be fun though.
It is tricky, because the person can be aware you are aware of this, as you are trying to help. They may have been aware of it the whole time. And with every attempt to 'fix' the issue, the problem just gets reinvented. I say fix as in 'direct, require, guide with an expectation, approve'.
Because that's what a person with a problem keeps doing. Over and over. And they eventually come to realize the way you see things. They could potentially be still hurting others or themselves. Over and over. But it can't be helped sometimes. You can try to control every detail and there's still that little room for improvement. Eventually it comes down to minutia - obsession with things that really have no relevance to the overall problem. The problem has instead turned into a dynamic of leading and following - one has to be right, the other has to approve of the information given by being 'fixed'.
And that's sometimes enough for a person to just want to constantly go 'fuck it', because it's completely ignorant to all the positives - both from the help you've provided, and the improvement they've made. And if you let them see that you've been helped in the process too, that's validating for them and that's validating to you too.
If you don't understand their problem in entirety, you have no goalpost to define for them. And the problem might be that they just want to accept themselves without the identity of 'having a problem'. But they just might not have figured out the words to say that yet, or they may be afraid of letting go of that identity because what if bad things happen the way they've come to expect? They may have both awareness - that they need to let go of the identity of having a perpetual problem, but also, some of those fears go very deep, and it's not so much that 'having a problem' is an excuse, it's more that, they've had shitty experiences, and the past can't be rewritten. It takes time to heal, accept the past for what it is, and be able to persist through the present while letting go of whatever fears they have.
A lot of people with 'a problem' blame themselves. By trying to fix it for them, it doesn't allow them to see they can fix their own problems.
Thank you for your reply as well!
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