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You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist is a podcast for seekers, dreamers, and questioners that intimately explores the human experience. Your host, Stephanie Winn, distills years of wisdom gained from her practice as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She invites guests from a broad variety of disciplines and many walks of life, including researchers, writers, artists, healers, advocates, inventive outliers, and creative geniuses. Together, they investigate, illuminate, and inspire transformation - in the self, relationships, and society. Curious about many things, Stephanie’s uniquely interdisciplinary psychological lens tackles challenging social issues while encouraging personal and relational wellness. Join this journey through the inner wilderness.
Swell AI Transcript: 125. Taylor Murphy FINAL.mp3
Taylor Murphy:
The antidepressant wasn't my, that was just thrown on me. That was like a kind of have to do it. And then the birth control, I think both of them, if I had never gone on either of them, I think I would have learned to manage my anxiety by myself in a healthy way. And I would have learned to manage how to. deal with the period. And there's not an easy pill fix. And I think I would have learned how to regulate my emotions easier versus, you know, having all these. It's just, I think in the long run, it made it harder because it doesn't teach you how to do anything on your own. It's like, here's this easy fix that masks it. So when you do come off of it, it's a lot of learning how to manage it after all those years. And it's clearly possible, but it's hard. But when you start that so young, it takes a lot of work. Now you have to really teach yourself.
Stephanie Winn: You must be some kind of therapist. Today I'm speaking with Taylor Murphy. Taylor has an interesting story. We met online. She is a desister who spent many years thinking that she was transgender and wanting to become a man. But she actually realized that her gender dysphoria was attributable to the medication that she was on. Taylor has a fascinating story and represents, I think, sort of an underrepresented side of the psychiatric survivor community. So I'm really grateful for her to be here sharing her story today. Taylor, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. So this episode, I think, is going to be a good sort of follow-up on some topics that we've covered on this podcast in the past, the experiences of detransitioners and desisters, the experiences of people with adverse medication side effects, and the harmful side of the pharmaceutical industry. So would you mind just sort of telling your story from the beginning, wherever that beginning might be for you?
Taylor Murphy: Yeah. So I mean, it's kind of funny. All a blur. I was young. I was probably about 12 when I started on antidepressants. And throughout the years, I was just very uncomfortable. Never really felt like I had that sense of who I was. And at the time, didn't really know the term gender dysphoria. All the trans stuff wasn't really talked about for years later. And so I was just always kind of felt lost and always kind of felt like I was in the wrong body. It wasn't really till like I got to college when I really found what transgender meant. And I was like, I felt like that was maybe.
Stephanie Winn: Like maybe it explained something about you? It felt like it fit maybe. Well, can we talk about why you were placed on antidepressants at such a young age?
Taylor Murphy: I had anxiety and that was, I guess, the answer at the time. Not by my choice, but that was what was thought to be right.
Stephanie Winn: I wonder if you'd be okay unpacking that a little bit. I want to respect your privacy around any personal circumstances that you don't feel comfortable sharing about, but a lot of young women have anxiety, mood swings, and things like that at that young age. There's a lot going on. At 12, there's puberty, there's middle school mean girl stuff. I have about a thousand guesses about what could be going on for any 12-year-old girl, What do you feel comfortable sharing about what was happening in your life that ended up landing you in the office of a psychiatrist?
Taylor Murphy: To be honest, I don't even know. I just remember always being super anxious. I hated school. I hated going to school. I guess I was just anxious about everything. To be honest, it's all a blur. And I just remember being told I was going to be on medication. And I think back then, I just didn't question it. I was young, and it kind of just became normal to me.
Stephanie Winn: There's just so many reasons that young people can have it, that kind of anxiety, you know, whether it's that they're being bullied in school or have a bad teacher. There could also be physiological underlying reasons for having high degrees of anxiety. Like, you know, even digestive problems can cause anxiety and vice versa in children. And was therapy explored as an option, or was it just straight to the pills?
Taylor Murphy: No, I believe I went to some therapy before that. I'm just way too young to remember most of it. And I don't think any of it helped. And then that's when the pills came in.
Stephanie Winn: So at the time, it just seemed like this is what you do. And do you remember experiencing any symptom relief from the pills?
Taylor Murphy: Not back then, no. I don't remember noticing anything. took them because I was told to take them and didn't really have a choice. But I don't remember noticing anything. Looking back now, I can see a difference between how I am now and maybe how I was back then, but not at the time.
Stephanie Winn: So you didn't necessarily get any significant improvement in your mental health from taking the pills?
Taylor Murphy: I was told that there was. I mean, I was probably just too young to see it, but like my mom said, she noticed a difference. It's hard to say on my end because I just don't really remember most of it.
Stephanie Winn: Do you recall, if you're comfortable sharing this level of personal detail, do you recall what age you started menstruating? Probably around the same time. And did anyone talk to you about how the onset of puberty comes with this flood of hormones, and that it can be a really rocky roller coaster at first emotionally?
Taylor Murphy: I'm sure. I'm trying to remember if I was on them before or after. I think I was actually probably on them after. I'm not actually sure, though, because I know I also started hormonal birth control young, so I'm sure that also didn't help anything. So I was on it.
Stephanie Winn: There it is. There it is. So what was the rationale for putting you on birth control?
Taylor Murphy: completely hated my period. I hated having it. I was miserable. I was in the nurse's office all the time because I just wanted to go home and I at the time had really bad cramps and just the whole idea of having a period was horrible to me and I remember my friend telling me that one of her friends got on the pill and then I started like asking about it and instead of like anybody educating me on like side effects or anything about it. It was just kind of like, OK, here you go. And not knowing the side effects at the time, it felt like the answer to all my problems because it made it so much easier to deal with my anxiety, go to school and be able to manage it. But that also in the long run had a lot of negative side effects that I didn't see till years down the road when I was older and educated myself about it.
Stephanie Winn: What have you learned since then about the effects of hormonal birth control?
Taylor Murphy: For me, it's also hard to tell what was what because I was also on an antidepressant. So it's hard to say what was the antidepressant and what was the birth control, but I do know the both of them had a huge impact on my libido because I was on them so young. And that was probably the biggest impact besides I'm sure it affects your mood, but libido was my biggest issue.
Stephanie Winn: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm grateful that you're sharing this story for a number of reasons. One being that I saw this so much as a therapist. I haven't been seeing patients for most of this year. I've been taking time away from that to focus on other things. But I was a therapist full time for 10 or 11 years before I took this pause. And a lot of that, I mean, almost the entire time I had You know, some of my patients were young women. And I saw this so much. You know, a young woman coming to me in her 20s who had been on both antidepressants and birth control since puberty started. And I would ask these same types of questions that I'm asking you. Like, well, did anybody explain to you about the hormonal rollercoaster? Did anybody explore other causes of, you know, anxiety during this very sensitive time in a young woman's life? Did anybody tell you it's normal to hate your period? Or that there might be medical reasons that you have, severe cramps or PMS? Like, you know, all this kind of stuff. And so often, it's just like, Nope, I was anxious and I hated my period, so the doctor put me on these pills and then 10 years passed. You start the pills at 12, you grow up, you're 22, you're in a therapist's office saying you have depression and anxiety. And what I learned is that a lot of these young women had never been educated, for instance, When a doctor or a therapist tells you you have depression or anxiety, that's not the same as a doctor telling you you have diabetes, right? If you have diabetes, it is very risky to not follow the medical protocol because there's a problem with your body generating the things it needs to survive. And for most people, that's a lifelong diagnosis. I mean, for some, you know, pre-diabetics, type 2 diabetes can be reversible, but I'm not an expert in that, and that's not what we're talking about. But it's just that this distinction isn't made between what is a diagnosis that now you are living with this for the rest of your life, and it has to be managed, versus what is just a label that we affix to something you're going through maybe temporarily. So these young women were placed on antidepressants and birth control, at a young age, often not aware of how the birth control, if started first, can actually cause depression and anxiety that is then medicated with the antidepressants afterward for some girls. And then it's like they show up in the therapist's office, and they don't know themselves without these drugs, without these ways of thinking about their mental health. And I feel like it's disastrous for young women's self-esteem. Because if you're like, well, I need my antidepressant. I've been taking it for the last 10 years. You've got this narrative going on that I am a mental patient. I am somebody who needs an antidepressant. Plus, like you were saying, the effect on libido between the antidepressants and the hormonal birth control. We know that hormonal birth control can affect a woman's sexuality, who she's attracted to. And I just feel like it's so irresponsible of providers to just be like, sure, take these pills, check back in a year during this really critical developmental period of a young woman's life.
Taylor Murphy: You know, I agree. I think I was on them too young and was given no guidance to why I was actually on them. It was just kind of, here you go if you want them.
Stephanie Winn: You stayed on the same meds from?
Taylor Murphy: I was on them from about 12 years old and I came off recently. I'm trying to think that was. around when I was 26.
Stephanie Winn: So more than half your life. What? Almost all your adolescence and young adulthood.
Taylor Murphy: Yeah, it's crazy to look back on because I always wonder, you know, like the what ifs, like if I had never gone on anything and just the way it affected me, I, you know, I look back and I feel like I had a lot of wasted years and I'm glad I can find the good in it now and kind of share my story and something good came out of it at least, you know,
Stephanie Winn: So you were in the middle of your story, and I interrupted you to ask all these very particular questions. But you were explaining how you started on antidepressants and birth control around puberty. You were on the same meds until college. You said you felt kind of lost. And then it was in college that you were introduced to the idea of trans.
Taylor Murphy: I think I might have known about it in high school. I don't even really remember when transgender kind of became a thing. When I, yeah, I think like the college age was when I really was like, I think this is who I am. And that's when I really changed my look. You know, I, I was kind of always, you know, playing around with how I dressed, but once I got to college, it was kind of definitely changed how I dressed. I cut my hair off. I just was very confused trying to figure out who I was and doing research. I, you know, I'd find things online of videos of other trans men or just any experience I could, books, I just wanted to figure out who I was. And there was a part of me that just felt confused, because it's like, of course, I didn't want to be like that. But I felt like, well, this is who I am. I don't see any, I didn't see how it could possibly change. Like, I just felt like I was stuck like that. And it was very hard to deal with.
Stephanie Winn: So what was it about the things you were learning about what it meant to be a trans man? Or the things that you felt in yourself that made you feel like not only this is who I am, but also I'm stuck this way.
Taylor Murphy: It blows my mind that I even, like, looking back on how I used to think, like, it just, I feel like a different person. So, like, back then, I hated, like, looking in the mirror, like, at my reflection, like, that's not who I am. Like, I wanted to look like a guy. I wanted the body, the voice. I wanted it all. And I knew that was never possible. I'm like, you can't change your sex. So, like, I knew, deep down that even if I had transitioned I it wouldn't have made me happier because I still no matter what I would have done I'm a woman and that was like the hard reality because it's like you don't want to think that when you feel such dysphoria but I could see deep down that you felt stuck. I can do this in transition and still be measurable and not have much fixed, maybe some outside look, but there's not much you can
Stephanie Winn: really due to fully… It sounds like a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance, because on the one hand, there's a part of you choosing this, right? And part of young adulthood is making your own choices. Part of you saying, this is who I am, and only I can decide who I am. So on the one hand, there's this element of free will and personal volition. But on the other hand, there's a sense of feeling out of control. There's a part of you that's like, You're a female, Taylor. You can't actually change every chromosome of your body. You can't actually, you know, change certain organs into other organs. You can only do approximations at great cost. There's this cognitive dissonance between this part of you that's marching in this direction and this part of you that's like, but I don't want to go in that direction. That direction is futile.
Taylor Murphy: It was very hard. I was almost torn between both. There were so many nights I would just cry myself to sleep. The pain was just so hard to deal with. I'd cry and be like, if I could start my life over, would I wish to have just been born a man and not have to deal with this? Or would I want to be born like I am as a woman, but not have to feel the dysphoria? And sometimes it was like a hard decision, but I think I would probably lean towards, I sometimes would lean towards, I wish I could just have the woman part and not have to, you know, have the dysphoria either. Cause it's just, it's, it's very hard. And I would kind of have those thoughts sometimes too, of what would, what would be easier and just what would make me happier and Thankfully, I like didn't have the push to be like, well, if that'll make you happy, go do it. Cause if I had that, I'm afraid that I would have gone into transition and then I would be completely in regret. So I'm very thankful. I had the right support to be like, that's not who you are and ask lots of questions and try to understand my thought process. And I think that at the time I was angry and frustrated, but looking back, I'm very thankful. that I wasn't pushed into being like, well, if that's what will make you happy, go do it because I feel like that could have ended badly. What support did you have? I really didn't talk about it to a lot of people. I was very, I guess, in other words, almost in the closet about it. I would talk to my mom about it and she would ask me lots of questions and didn't think that's who I was and was confused on the whole thing. We would, you know, talk about it a lot, but I also hated talking about it. So I kind of would not go into a lot of detail. I would try to say enough so she'd understand, but it was just, it was really hard for me to talk about. Cause I was, I felt embarrassed and I felt like no one really understood me, like where I was coming from. It was just kind of didn't make a lot of sense. And you know, my, my friends, when I was in college, I kind of. told some of them about it and none of them cared, but we didn't like go into detail and talk much about it. It was kind of, you know, this is who I am, but it was kind of in the background also sometimes.
Stephanie Winn: Would you mind my asking which specific antidepressants and birth control you were on at the time?
Taylor Murphy: I was on fluoxetine and I don't even remember the all the brands of birth control. I think the thing changed a few times. For sure, fluoxetine for the present.
Stephanie Winn: Okay. And so one of the names that's known by is Prozac, and that is an SSRI, so a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. So you run fluoxetine, aka Prozac, and SSRI for all those years and different kinds of birth control. And Do you remember? Because I understand that since then, you've made the connection that it was actually the antidepressants. And I want to know how you got there. But first, I'm really curious about, you know, the kind of the original idea of trans sort of sticking and landing with you and feeling like this is who I am and what you felt like that explained about you or why it resonated.
Taylor Murphy: I mean, at the time, it was the only thing that felt right. Like when I would dress that way. It was my style at the time. It's how I felt. I was upset that I was too small to fit in men's clothing. I'm like, I want to wear this, and it's too big on me. Having the short hair, it felt like me for a while, but I also still had that, I don't look masculine enough. That's why I would, at the time, thought about, I want testosterone, and then I really wanted top surgery. blows my mind, but it just at the time, like, that's just what resonated with me. I felt like that's what I was supposed to be. And over time, that changed when I decided to come off the medication and the whole as I as I came off of the medication, the dysphoria just went away. And it was kind of like, wait a second. And then it's just now it's just completely gone. And I just look completely different. My whole thinking, my whole thought process is different. I look back on how I once identified and all the things I thought about it, and I have a completely opposite viewpoint on it now. What's your viewpoint on it now? After going through what I went through and the pain, I just don't see how transition is going to make anything better. Maybe that's just because I Also saw it as as much as like I felt the pain I also saw it logically like well it's not gonna change anything and maybe you know people disagree and at least maybe their appearance would look different and they know that they're not gonna be able to change sex but for me it was like the whole thing it was kind of all or nothing. And I just, I don't really see how that is a happy life. And I just don't logically see it the way I used to. I guess the best way to put it, I don't, I don't see a, I don't know what word to use.
Stephanie Winn: I want to kind of pause here just to make sure you understand who you are helping on this podcast, because a lot of my audience is parents like your mom. It's parents whose kids identify as trans and are pursuing different degrees of social and medical transition. And many of them are frustrated and scared in ways that your mom was probably frustrated and scared. And you describe that you were close with her and that she did ask a lot of good questions, but that it was hard for you to talk about. So your hindsight being clearer than your perspective at the time, I think you are really in a great position to help a lot of these parents understand What might be going through their kids' heads right now? You know, they're kids who were where you were at a few years ago, and I'm so grateful to hear that you were spared that medical pathway and that you came out of the fog. Curious about your reasons for getting off the antidepressants, but… But first, I mean, it sounded like as much as on the one hand you describe your thinking as very all or nothing, at the same time, I'm hearing this, again, theme of cognitive dissonance, that while you believed yourself to be trans, On the one hand, there was this pursuit of, you said you wanted testosterone, you wanted top surgery, which is a euphemism for breast amputation. And at the same time, there was always a part of you, it sounded like, that knew that those things weren't, or at least that doubted the potential of those things to really alleviate your feelings. So could you speak to that more or speak maybe to what you mean when you say dysphoria, like what was that inner experience like?
Taylor Murphy: Yeah, it's hard because it's like as much as I wanted that, like I wanted it so bad and I thought, I was like you said, I was torn between wanting it but also in the back of my mind wondering if that would even help or if it would maybe even make things worse. It could have made me more miserable. So I kind of As much as I always was like, this is what I want, in the back of my mind, I always had that questioning of, well, what if it's not? And always kind of wondering, well, what if I have regret down the road? Or so I, I did, I did a lot of thinking about it. And, um, I think, I think the, you know, conversations I would have with my mom kind of helped with that because it gave me things to think about. And. you know, just trying to figure out who I was, because I know it would, it would make things complicated, and it wouldn't be an easy life. And I just, you know, I know it's as a parent, it might be frustrating and hard. And as the as the child, it's frustrating and hard, because it's like, you want to feel like they're listening to you. And if they're not supporting you and hearing what you want to hear, it is hard, but Do you have an adolescent or adult child who is at risk of heading down a path of medical self-destruction in the name of so-called gender identity?
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Taylor Murphy: Yeah, I'm glad she questioned the way I was feeling versus just letting me go off and do what I wish I could do. Or accepting it and being like, you know, that's if that's who you are like it's like she she knew that wasn't who I was it's like she she wasn't gonna lose her daughter and she knew that wasn't really realistic so she just the question and kind of very the way she would go about it was you know it wasn't mean or anything it was very just more in concern of like are you sure about this or you know like she was just trying to understand it and at the time I guess I didn't see it that way but looking back it's I see how she carefully went about it.
Stephanie Winn: Did you ever get angry or explosive at her for asking those questions?
Taylor Murphy: No, if anything, I would usually just shut down because it did make me very upset to talk about. As close as I am with her, I still had that embarrassment. I never liked talking about it. It was always super hard for me to talk about. I would freeze up. There'd be things I'd want to talk about and I just couldn't get the words out or I would just go on and on in my head about how to say it or what to say. Sometimes I didn't even really get to say all that I wanted to because it was all in my head.
Stephanie Winn: I think what you're offering parents is so valuable because I personally consult with these parents who are on the other side of these behaviors of the kid shutting down. So you're helping so much by describing what that experience was like for you. So when parents are left to fill in the blanks about what is going through my son or daughter's head, one of the ways that they fill in the blanks is, you know, with regard to that shutdown in communication that, well, my kid has just been consuming a lot of online, frankly, propaganda. and that the things that they're saying sound like they're coming from a script. So parents assume one of the reasons that it's so hard for my child to answer these questions or to just have a conversation with me about their thoughts and feelings is because these aren't necessarily my kids' own organic thoughts and feelings that they've come to. That it's more like they have this script and if I ask a question that's not on the script, they don't have an answer. Would you say that that was true for you or do you have a different perspective on it?
Taylor Murphy: No, I wouldn't say anything online or anything I was reading was influencing that. It was more just the things that I felt I resonated with and I didn't feel like pushed or inspired by anything, I guess. It was more just what I was feeling myself.
Stephanie Winn: And those feelings that you had yourself, were they more about your body? Did they have to do with sexuality?
Taylor Murphy: It was more my body. I already knew I had always had an attraction to men. I never questioned any of that. It was more just feeling like I was in the wrong body. That made that confusing and then it's complicated when you start to date. It's like, well, I want to be a man and I like men. It got very complicated and it was more like my body image and then how I felt mentally.
Stephanie Winn: If you don't mind my getting graphic, feel free not to answer anything you don't want to answer, but did you feel like you were missing a penis or was it more like the secondary sex characteristics of height and shoulders and facial hair? What body characteristics did you feel like were wrong or missing?
Taylor Murphy: At the time, all of it, like I just had, I just, I wanted to just wake up and be a man. And that's what was hard because it's like I was the complete opposite. You know, I'm like, I have the feminine hips. I'm a woman. It's just everything about it was like, I don't want to look at that. And yeah, it was really hard.
Stephanie Winn: Hmm. So, so tell us about the point in your story where you stopped taking the antidepressants.
Taylor Murphy: I kind of just came to a point in my life where I was like, you know, I've, I've been on these for so long and I just, I kind of wanted to see life without them. I don't really know if I have one reason. I know doing research, I was like, well, maybe coming off of these will actually help with the libido. And I started doing more research and that was the reason. And then just to kind of feel free, I guess. And it was probably the best thing I've done. I mean, it was a really. hard process, but seeing everything I've accomplished now, it was well worth it. And I can't even imagine where I'd be if I hadn't come off of medication. I'm very curious where I would be now and how things would be different.
Stephanie Winn: How did you first notice that it seems like maybe there's something wrong or off about your libido as a young person?
Taylor Murphy: I didn't notice it back then until I was older. I never really dated when I was young and it wasn't until like my twenties when I, even, even then, I guess I didn't notice it. I mean, I had some like comments from like the first person I dated, which would mean, you know, things frustrating in my part. Cause like that whole, like the whole albedo thing was brought up. And back then when I was on the medication, not really. educating myself and knowing I got mad that, you know, I was like, that's not the medication and this and that and never, still never put two and two together. And then years after that, it was when I did start looking more into it and just kind of being tired of taking medication. That's when I was like, okay, maybe this will actually help because it's like, I really never had libido. Like, that's why I'm like, I think I was so detached from myself. And I'm sure the gender dysphoria didn't help because I just completely hated my body on top of having no libido. So I guess those two reasons are just why I came off is I just wanted to see life without it and I was really hoping to just kind of fix my libido.
Stephanie Winn: So you came off of the medications. Did you taper off or go cold turkey?
Taylor Murphy: I tapered off. Yeah, I tapered off slowly. So good. It took definitely took a few months to get through that and I did both the fluoxetine and the hormonal birth control very Not at the same time, but very close together. I was having a double withdrawal, which was very difficult, but I wanted to get everything, be off of everything, be done with it. I set my mind to it and I'm doing it and it was well worth it.
Stephanie Winn: How old were you at the time? 26. More than half your life and it took a few months. I'm glad that you did it the careful way. It was partly just like, I want to know who I am without these medications, and partly maybe I have a little libido caused by the medications. And then it sounds like a fog lifted. Can you describe that sort of awakening?
Taylor Murphy: Looking back on just how I was as a person, I feel like my whole mindset has changed. I feel like looking back, I see how I was almost non-deterrent things or would react differently now to something back then. And I just have a way more, I feel like I have an actual sense of self now. I know who I am. I have a disconnection with myself. Like, I feel like I finally, like, I love who I am. And I never had that before. And I think that's because I was always questioning, like, well, who am I? Why do I feel like this? And I just, I never had that self connection. I always felt very detached from myself. And I don't feel like that anymore. Like, I feel like I finally have clicked with myself. And life feels very different. I feel like I've always been an emotional person. But like, my emotions now are like, even like even more heightened in a good way. And everything about it has, I think, been positive. I can't really think of anything negative that has happened because of coming off medication. I haven't really had any side effects. I think the only side effect I've really had I've noticed since coming off Floxetine was I'd have like slight tinnitus sometimes in my ears, but it's not very noticeable. But other than that, everything else has been super positive.
Stephanie Winn: So how do you see it now? Now that you can look back on all of this and notice that fog lifting, how do you connect the dots between the experiences you were having and the drugs that you were on?
Taylor Murphy: Well, now knowing what medication can do, it's very obvious to me now why I never had libido, why I felt so detached from myself, and why I felt the way I did. And it all makes sense now. So are you asking like, how did I know it was the medication? Or is that just… Sure.
Stephanie Winn: I mean, wherever you want to go with that, I guess I could speculate and throw some theories out there if it would help. Sure. I'd love to hear. Let's see. So I'm a highly sensitive person who reacts to substances. And I tried a brief round of antidepressants when I was 12. And just a few weeks into it, I felt so weird. I felt like prior to that, I had had some dissociative symptoms. And those got a lot worse on antidepressants. Like I felt really detached from reality. I felt like I was kind of in this like peaceful fog, but the everything was like on the other side of a screen or something. And I knew I didn't want to live that way. And then similarly, I had a couple of times in my life that I tried hormonal birth control and immediately had such a negative reaction to it that I immediately got off of it. So those two things had opposite effects for me in the sense that the antidepressants made me feel really just detached, and the hormonal birth control made me feel crazy. It made me feel really emotional, like my whole body was welling up with tears and I just couldn't stop crying over the smallest thing. And then You know, those are my personal experiences. I understand individuals are different. But then in my experience as a therapist, like I said, you know, just hearing from one young woman after another that she was placed on both of these types of drugs at such an early age with very little checking in as she went through all these developmental stages and she reaches her 20s and she doesn't know who she is off of antidepressants and birth control. So that's my personal background. And I think one thing that these antidepressants and birth control have in common is that it's sort of this external chemical you're putting into your body that modulates some kind of emotional process, because antidepressants are literally there to affect how you respond to emotions. And similarly, there's a huge connection between hormones and emotions. And as women, especially young women, discovering our emotionality and how to interpret our emotions wisely, how to ride those waves, how to learn what our emotions are telling us. When they're telling us, you need to stay away from this person, or hey, this activity really lights you up. You should look into it further. Or you need more time to think about this. I mean, emotions tell us all kinds of things. And I think that that process of developing emotional intelligence is a really important part of growing up. So what happens when you have multiple chemicals modulating this process? We know from, you know, for example, Sarah Hill, Sarah Hall, I forget her name, but she wrote, This is Your Brain on Birth Control. Have you read that book? Oh, it's right up your alley. So in that book, and I haven't even finished it, I've just gotten a few chapters in, but there's fascinating research on how birth control affects women psychologically. It affects mate selection, right? And so then I have to wonder, coming from my background as a marriage and family therapist, I have to wonder if even divorce rates are influenced by the widespread prevalence of hormonal birth control as this very normalized form of contraception for sexually active women prior to marriage or prior to whenever they want to have babies. If it's become so normalized for women to be putting chemicals into their body that literally change what type of men they're attracted to, then does that maybe have anything to do with why after they get off of these drugs, they're, you know, more likely to divorce their husband when their children are young? Now, I understand the first few years of a baby's life are really critical developmental windows for the baby, but also really stressful times in a marriage. They're some of the most stressful years in a marriage. The parents are losing sleep. It's just a lot more responsibility. Certainly, whatever cracks are there in the foundation, those are going to deepen under pressure. All of that being said, I am still suspicious. You know, if you are selecting a mate to marry and have children with while you are under the influence of a drug that changes your attraction to different types of men, changes what you look for in men, changes your responses to their pheromones, right? Then you get off the drugs, you have the babies, and you're looking at him like, who is this bozo that I married, right? I mean, there's – so, I mean, your feelings of detachment from yourself, I guess the part where it gets really interesting is where specifically it's gender dysphoria, right? Because the feeling like I don't really know myself, I don't feel like myself. I don't trust my emotions. That totally makes sense as a result of antidepressants or birth control or both of them, because they're affecting your hormones chemically, and so you're literally not experiencing your own natural body chemistry doing its thing. But then I think the gender dysphoria part is super interesting, because what makes the most intuitive sense is someone so-called identifying as asexual. And this is where I am just so frustrated with the mental health field for trying to normalize this idea of asexuality, like it's some kind of identity issue, like it's some kind of human rights issue. I'm like, no, if someone is reporting, if someone is of reproductive age, especially if they're in a time in life that they're supposed to be healthy and fertile, and they're reporting no sex drive, we need to look at trauma? Or we need to look at something happening biochemically in the body that's affecting their health, because fertility, including libido, is a sign of health. And if you have low libido, there's, you know, maybe you're experiencing low vitality in other ways. So this push to normalize it is, I think, ridiculous. So, it's understandable to me how in your case, for example, that being on these drugs that affect your sex drive, both antidepressants and birth control affect sex drive, affect attraction. I can imagine thinking I'm asexual. It's the part where you think that you're a guy that becomes really interesting to me because you are at this point on progesterone, basically, right?
Taylor Murphy: Yeah.
Stephanie Winn: Right? You've tricked your body. When you take hormonal birth control, you have tricked your body into thinking you're always pregnant.
Taylor Murphy: Yeah, which is very interesting of why I would feel the opposite way. Yeah. It's very interesting to think about. So I almost wonder, do I have the gender dysphoria because since my hormones were not doing what they were supposed to do. Did it give me the gender dysphoria? Because I don't I just it's very, you know, very complicated.
Stephanie Winn: Wow. I mean, I have some other theories on gender dysphoria. Like, for example, there's some ways that it can be really analogous to addiction processes and to obsessive compulsive disorder in the sense that the thought I'm a man or I'd be better off as a man or the activities like binding these ideas and actions become a momentary source of relief or escape from distressing emotion or sensation. And then the person, through thousands of iterations, carves out those neural pathways and develops a process that, like I said, is very similar to OCD or addiction around the idea of being trans as a coping mechanism. So I'm just curious, I'm looking at where did that get in for Taylor, and maybe I'm putting you under a microscope more than you're comfortable with, which is fine, you can tell me to back off. I just think it's that moment that the thought I am trans comes in, because for a lot of people it is obsessive consumption of thousands of hours of TikTok videos that does the trick, but for you I'm hearing you really didn't feel like it was coming from social media. It was more like an internal process of just feeling really uncomfortable in your own skin, and this belief that being male would fix it was somehow appealing to you. As opposed to other ways that, you know, I mean, you could have, like, developed an eating disorder, not to say that's any better, I'm just saying, like, there's lots of different ways people's body dysmorphia can manifest.
Taylor Murphy: Yeah, exactly. I mean, for me, it was more before, you know, social media exploded. So like, for me, it was, yeah, social media kind of helped me put a term on it. But yeah, for me, I think it was more just, I think, not having that natural libido, I guess, just made me confused about myself and not like my body because I didn't have that, you know, connection to myself. And I thought, well, I guess I must be something else then. So I think it's like if you take away your libido, you're not going to have that connection to yourself or know who you are. It's like a big part of your identity. And without that, I think kids would be very confused. And I do think that medication is a huge, huge reason and why we have so many young children now coming, you know, there's so many terms, you know, transgender, asexual, non-binary, and just the list goes on. And that's, it's, it's not normal to have a whole, this whole umbrella of stuff that just doesn't, I hate to say it doesn't make sense, but it, it, it needs to be looked into. It just, if you, if you don't accept it, you're just still, well, you're, you're transphobic. It's like, well, sit and think about it. You know, it's, it's not that, it's not the answer to everything.
Stephanie Winn: When you thought you were trans, were you aware of how invasive and medically problematic these drugs and surgeries were?
Taylor Murphy: I tried to educate myself. I mean, I did look into what types of surgery there were and stuff like that, because it's like, well, if I want this, I have to be educated. And I didn't go fully. I would look up like, what are the side effects of taking testosterone and I would weigh out the pros and cons and I looked into different types of what kind of top surgeries are there, what kind would have the least amount of scarring, which I looked into it and I was like, if this is what I want, I have to be 100% with it. And I feel like because of how I felt in the back of my mind, I just, I- Well, thank goodness for your doubt. Yeah. And I feel like I always kind of, I tried to always question it.
Stephanie Winn: Going back to the part about your mom and the questions she asked, are there any things she said that stand out in your memory that lit a light bulb for you or planted a seed of doubt?
Taylor Murphy: Nothing particular. She just would always kind of say, that's not who I am. And it didn't make sense because she's like, so you would just be a gay man and she would kind of try to make sense of it. It was frustrating that I even had to sit and have these conversations. I'm like, why can't I just feel normal and not have to have this problem?
Stephanie Winn: Because I talk to parents every single week whose daughters are insisting that they are gay men. At the time, were you like, yeah, I am a gay man or that is the life I want for myself or were you confused by it all?
Taylor Murphy: At the time, it was like, well, if I do transition this is, if I do transition, I like men, so I guess, yeah, I would become a gay man. And it, I mean, part of it sounded weird, but part of me is like, well, I guess this is who I am and I would try to make sense of it. And it was just a very, very confusing time of my life because I knew dating would not be easy and none of it would be easy.
Stephanie Winn: So every now and then when I'm talking to an ROGD parent, rapid onset gender dysphoria I hear them report things that their kids are saying and doing that lead me to see that the kid's worldview is really cynical and the kids express feeling trapped. And again, there's kind of this like dichotomy, not dichotomy, what am I looking for? There's this internal contradiction where on the one hand, the kid is the one driving this thing. saying, I am trans, you need to affirm me, yada, yada, yada. And at the same time, the kid reports feeling out of control. And I hear that you were kind of like that too. I mean, you weren't aggressive about it. You weren't one of these kids who gets like into explosive arguments with your parents, if anything, you were just the shut down kind, but, but you were driving it. And at the same time, you felt so lost.
Taylor Murphy: I felt like I was just never going to find who I was. I felt like I was never going to be happy. I felt like I was never going to be in a relationship and, you know, find somebody to love me or love myself. And, you know, that that itself is hard. It's like, you know, you see everybody else doesn't have dysphoria and you just kind of wish that could be you.
Stephanie Winn: But now you do have a boyfriend. Yes. Yeah. So what are the ways that your life has changed and improved since you quit the drugs and had this realization?
Taylor Murphy: everything just seems brighter. I'm so much happier. Not having dysphoria anymore is just a different world. I'm a different person. It's, I look back and I just see a very, I almost see myself as like a stranger. Like I don't even recognize who I was. It's just, it's kind of, it's like sad to look back on, but it was a part of my life. So it's, you know, I don't like dwell on it or anything. I use my experience to share the dangers and the, my concerns of medication, but. I've just, I've never been happier, and I've never, I don't know. It's just, it's been amazing, and it's just a completely different world right now than it was.
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Taylor Murphy: Well, it would've been nice back then. Maybe they did and I don't remember it, but I don't remember anybody telling me anything about side effects or educating me on the medication that I was on. It was just giving it to me. I think informed consent is huge. Then again, would I have cared that young about sexual side effects? I'd probably not. But it doesn't mean that it's OK to give a child things that can cause sexual dysfunction and hormones.
Stephanie Winn: Well, and also your parents could have been notified.
Taylor Murphy: Yes. I think just not informing a child when they're this young on any medication and making sure that they understand.
Stephanie Winn: So there is a problem that a lot of people run into in trying to help young people with this sort of issue, which is that impulsivity. Like you say, I don't know if I would have cared when I was 12 if they tried to tell me about something that was going to happen years down the line. Fair enough, that's why parents need to be included in these decisions. Let's say that your family had been properly educated on the risks as well as the potential benefits of these treatments, and that your mom had said, I'm sorry, Taylor, I know you really want to take antidepressants or take birth control because you want to feel less anxious or because you hate your period, but I, as your mom, have decided it's just not worth the risk. How do you think that would have left you Because I'm hearing that at the time you felt pretty hopeless and not resourced as to how to deal with distressing emotions, with anxiety at school, with the pain of your period. Would that have left a gap, and is there anything anyone could have offered that might have filled in that gap?
Taylor Murphy: I think if I had been told no… The antidepressant wasn't my, that was just thrown on me. That was like a kind of, you have to do it. And then the birth control, I think if I wasn't on, I mean, I think both of them, if I had never gone on either of them, I think I would have had, I would have learned to manage my anxiety by myself in a healthy way. And I would have learned to manage how to, you know, deal with the period and you know, there's, you know, it's not an easy pill fix. And I think I would have learned how to regulate my emotions easier versus, you know, having all these hormones and their medication. It's just, I think in the long run, it almost, it made it harder because it doesn't teach you how to do anything on your own. It just, It's like, here's this easy fix that masks it. So when you come off of it, it's a lot of learning how to manage it after all those years. And it's clearly possible, but it's hard. But when you start that so young, it takes a lot of work of now you have to really teach yourself.
Stephanie Winn: Yeah. I think you just articulated that so clearly. I think you put your finger on it. And of course, I'm a believer that good proper therapy can certainly help. but that the type of therapy that a lot of young people need involves exposure and independence, responsibility, and, you know, it's like we say in the gender critical worlds, with regard to our many reasons to argue against the use of puberty blockers, the cure for puberty is puberty. Puberty is not an illness to be medicated and controlled. It is just a really rocky time in life when everything's undergoing rapid, intense transformation. And I think you've made some excellent points here about the risks, whether it's through the lens of so-called treatment of gender dysphoria or so-called treatment of the conditions of anxiety or depression or I mean, I don't even want to call it anxiety and depression. I want to call it the human condition. I want to call it the rockiness of being an adolescent girl at the onset of puberty, the periods, the PMS, everything, right? All of that that is just the human condition, maybe at certain extremes, you can say there's a pathology to it, right? If someone has a genuine medical condition, PCOS or endometriosis that's making things worse or anemia. You know, sometimes there's a medical condition that needs to be treated. Sometimes mental health stuff, there's an underlying genetic or environmental component. Sometimes there's trauma. Sometimes there's a nutrient deficiency. But generally, we are talking about the fact that the human condition includes some suffering. And that, of course, you're going to see an uptick in that during transitional times in life, puberty being the biggest. And, you know, what are the risks of teaching young people that they can't make it through that time without some external chemical crutch? I mean, I think your resilience just goes to show you ended up having to do it the hard way because you were not told the things that you needed to hear about how, you know, this is the nature of growing up, and, you know, let's see if there is anything we can do to identify what's making it harder, you know? Maybe there's something making it harder. There's a mean girl at school? Okay, we need to give you some tools for standing up to the mean girl, or maybe mom needs to talk to the principal, depending on exactly how mean she is, right? Like, there's – there are things we can do about the things that are making life especially hard for you right now, But for the most part, it's important that we allow young people the opportunity to gain the experience that settles the knowledge into their bones that they are someone who can handle this stuff. And the fact that you had to go back and pick up the pieces in your 20s, that you had to do this all on your own, you had to make it through this time period not knowing who you were, having your emotional and psychological experience chemically mediated, then pull yourself together, Pull yourself up by your bootstraps at age 26, be like, I'm going to figure this out. And you're thriving now, and you look beautiful, and you say that you're happy, and you're in a relationship. And actually, I didn't mention this earlier, but you look so much like one of my best friends from my 20s. You remind me of her. And I adore her. And you could be any young woman in the USA, right? So you did it all by yourself. there was never anything actually wrong with you. There was, I mean, I'm not hearing that you ever had a medical or a mental health condition that was so far outside the range of just normal girl adjusting to life and all of its ups and downs and all the chemical-induced mood swings that happen in our bodies in puberty. And you are I don't know if you have any idea how many people you are speaking for, but that's why I'm saying in my experience as a therapist, your experience is so common and I want all these young women to know there is nothing wrong with you. You can figure this out or you can find the tools within yourself and you will be, as much as it might be harder in the short term to go through life without a chemical crutch, you will be so much better off in the long run. Really thank you for sharing your story, Taylor, so that those young women can hear that message. And also for the parents, because there are a lot of parents of youth with rapid-onset gender dysphoria listening to this podcast, gaining insight from your experiences. And some of them don't know this stuff. Some of them, their daughters are on Prozac and Yasmin. And they don't see the connections. So I really appreciate you helping them see the connections and really weigh the pros and cons of letting your child grow up with the experience that normal human emotions have to be managed through a pill. Yeah.
Taylor Murphy: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was a great opportunity. And I hope that more people can start really opening their eyes to how big of an issue this is. It really is so overlooked, like the amount of antidepressants that are just being handed out like candy and no one's putting the two and two together of the sexual piece of it at all.
Stephanie Winn: Absolutely. Discovering sexuality is a tumultuous but very important part of growing up. Well, Taylor, thank you so much for sharing your story today. And where can people find you?
Taylor Murphy: People can follow me on X @taymurph26
Stephanie Winn: Okay, and we'll make sure to include that in the show notes as well. Thanks so much, Taylor. I hope you enjoyed this episode of You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist podcast. To check out my book recommendations, articles, wellness products, guest episodes on other podcasts, consulting services, and lots more, visit sometherapist.com. Or follow me on Twitter or Instagram at sometherapist. If you'd like to go deeper, join my community at somekindoftherapist.locals.com. Members can dialogue with other listeners, post questions for upcoming podcast guests to respond to, or ask questions for me to respond to in exclusive members-only Q&A live streams. To learn more about the gender crisis, watch our film, No Way Back, The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care, at nowaybackfilm.com. Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, Half Awake. If you appreciate this podcast and want more people to find it, kindly take a moment to rate, review, like, comment, and share on your platforms of choice. Of course, just because I am some therapist doesn't mean I'm your therapist. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. If you need help, ask your doctor or browse your local therapists online. And whatever you do next, please take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well, move your body, get outside, and tell someone you love them. You're worth it.