I feel this very much.
I get so mentally flat I cant feel anything on long ester test. But it helps with depression and give me some energy.
Test prop/no ester helps some but headaches and pinning daily are not worth it. However, something about cream actually wakes my brain up, where I can feel somewhat alive.
If you look back at my post history I thought I finally figured everything out with the test cream but it was short lived. Probably could have tested more but had to much stuff going on in life at that moment to truly be going through a major trial & error phase with how I felt.
Have tried proviron, masteron & primobolan in the past that raise dht but never truly felt anything so maybe if I try dht in a cream the results may differ since my body seems to prefer that method.
Have you ever tried Pregnenolone?
The one thing that changes everything for me is neurosteroids. Pregnenolone especially makes TRT work better than anything else, but I know I'm extremely deficient because I've seen a drop of 60% in DHEA-S levels after starting TRT, and that over a few dozen lab results.
I feel better on cream than on any other formulation/ester of Test, but there's still something missing. Pregnenolone gives me back enthusiasm for life and a sense of adventure and excitement for the future that TRT completely takes away.
It also antagonizes E2 for me, presumably through conversion to Progesterone, which antagonizes E2 at the receptor level. I immediately start shedding water and getting much leaner. Progesterone also inhibits 5-ar enzymes and my theory at this point is that higher levels of it end up begin/feeling feminizing because the 5-ar inhibition effects overtake the E2 antagonism.
But at lower dosages Progesterone feels actually very masculinizing to me. Interestingly, while I anticipated feeling better from topical than oral Pregnenolone (because topical formulations of hormones will undergo in general a conversion to more androgenic downstream metabolites through increased 5-ar density in the skin (especially scrotal skin, but not only)), I do feel better on oral micronized (and specifically slow release) Pregnenolone, again I hypothesize because of increased conversion to Progesterone.
Topical DHEA does make me feel better however, while oral bloats me and increases E2 too much, so I would stay away from it personally.
If you've never tried, I highly recommend trying scrotal Test cream with a small dose of oral Pregnenolone. Just make sure you get it pharma compounded; the stuff you get OTC is not the same. I remember Dr. Saya mentioning in a thread here on EM that OTC stuff is significantly less strong than what you get from compounded pharma.
For me, even 5mg/day compounded pharma Preg makes a huge difference.