WTF this is a serious matter, seek professional help, don’t rely on random strangers for critical life choices.

Personally, at 26 I wouldn’t tell my parents about reversible drugs I’m trying out under doctor supervision to help with mental issues. But at 26 I also wasn’t rushing into chemical therapies against the advice of my psychiatrist. So maybe you need your parents or other trusted person to be a sounding board while you make a decision.

And seems like the same with any large medical decisions, it may be worth getting a second opinion from another doctor.

Punishing yourself won’t help you in any way. Talk about it with your therapist, and if your therapist was the one to bring chemical castration up, bitchslap their f*cking face to the ground, because they are not a therapist. Change IS NOT about punishing yourself, change is about taking care of yourself. Punishing oneself achieves NOTHING.

I met my fiancee at 31, and I only had one real relationship before that and was single for over 10 years. Just because you’ve been unsuccessful so far doesn’t mean you’re forever alone.

Chemical castration is a pretty extreme reaction. I would suggest you interrogate why you want to do this, like at the deepest levels. Removing your libido won’t keep you from being lonely.

You say you were in therapy for 7 years. What kind? Was it all with the same therapist? Maybe you need a different therapist, or perhaps an actual psychiatrist or psychologist, or to try a different form of therapy. There’s lots of things to try.

You say you’ve been unsuccessful in dating. What does that mean? You’re focusing on your libido, so does that mean you’re having trouble getting sex, specifically? Is that all you’re focused on in dating? If so, maybe you need to change your approach to dating.

That sounds like a permanent solution to what could very well be a temporary problem. And castrated or not, you’ll still be you. If you’re horny and unhappy, I suspect you’d just end up not horny and still unhappy.

EDIT: And I just realized how apt the name “Throwaway Salami” is for someone considering this.

Have you considered hookers?

Albeit I am in my 70ies now and married for >40 years, I sometimes think that I should have myself castrated when I was young. Sure, my path of life would have been very different after that, but it would also have spared me a lot of stress, grief and drama. Looking at my dogs that were all spayed/neutered - they had a happy life, haha. But you never know, what such a decision brings and how it changes your life and if you really want that.

Also, you’re an adult. You decide if you inform your family. If you cannot take that decision by yourself, you may not be ready to take the other, bigger decision just yet.

Can we step back a few paces first? Has any kind of doctor actually okayed the procedure for you?

You may be pursuing the wrong goal. Taking strong T blockers to nuke your testosterone will likely slash your libido. However, if this was just about sex, if you were just horny…well escorts are are a thing. But people seek out partners for far more than just intimacy. The sex really is a small part of a relationship. What you’re really seeking in your heart of hearts is companionship, love, and romantic fulfillment. Nuking your libido won’t solve that fundamental human longing.

Also, you really don’t want to be without any active sex hormone. Your system can run on T or E, but it needs one or the other. With all your hormones at low levels, you’re at risk for menopausal symptoms like osteoporosis, cardiovascular effects, hot flashes, brain fog, etc. You could take estrogen along with the blockers to avoid these effects, but that would have severe issues (assuming a gender transition isn’t something you desire.) If you tried to take estrogen along with the T blockers, that would cause a high level of feminization - you would basically be doing trans hormone therapy at that point. And the E might cause your libido to come back as well.

Dropping your T level to near zero will produce serious long-term health effects that you really don’t want to experience. If someone told me they were, like, a non-offending pedophile who desperately wanted to nuke their libido before they hurt someone, well in that case I might say the negative health effects are worth it. But by doing this, you’re signing yourself up for serious long-term health effects, all for something that is unlikely to really solve the true source of your pain.

To answer your question: you probably shouldn’t tell them if you don’t want drama.

I’m an older man. In the past decade, my libido has decreased significantly. I used to fixate on sex. I’d feel incredibly frustrated when a perceived opportunity for sex fell through. I spent an unhealthy amount of time looking at porn. A constant desire for sex complicated my romantic relationships.

Now that my libido is lower, sex feels like a fun activity. A missed opportunity is a minor disappointment, rather than severely frustrating. Porn feels like an occasional treat rather than a necessity. Wanting sex is something I choose, rather than a compulsion.

So I think I understand where you might be coming from. If I could have turned down my libido when I was your age, I think I might have considered it.

I don’t know much about chemical castration. Other posters said there may be undesirable long-term side effects. You should discuss those with your family, since they might know about issues that run in your family. But there will be drama.

Jesus Christ 😒

If the procedure is reversible, sure. Give it a try, and if it doesn’t work for you, you can go back.

You should probably tell them your plans before going through with it. They know you better than anyone on Lemmy could know you, and could probably help you identify the real issue that you’re trying to resolve, because I don’t think that chemical castration will fix the thing you think it’ll fix. Looking through some of your previous posts, I get the feeling that perhaps you may suffer from some social ineptitude, which I can almost certainly guarantee you is not going to be fixed by castrating yourself.

You say that you’re aromantic, but you also say you’ve “never been successful in dating”, implying that you’re not actually aromantic and have actually been seeking companionship, and just not finding it. That’s not what “aromantic” means, and I worry that you’re twisting your own self-perception to fit into the definition of aromanticism. If you were aromantic, then the lack of romantic connections would not be affecting your everyday life as you say it is; the lack of successful romantic connections would be a boon to you.

I’d strongly recommend a different therapist, maybe one who specializes in this field.

May try hoes for an initial push, to get going.

If you are 26 and male there is still a lot of stuff to happen in your life, men can perfectly reach 30s being single and at 35+ get a partner, differently to women which have the most male attention from 20 to 25, my point is you are still too young for such a thing. Focus on improving yourself and leave the rage away and you will get a lot of attention later, you can enjoy sexuality later, just don’t make the stupid error to get serious with the first single mom of 3 different baby daddies when such time arrives.