Taking breaks with the CDing

[sissystephanie]

I mean, I wonder if thoughts of not passing is what dampens the joy of expressing femininity for some people, and if this is why they lose gusto for being femme for awhile?

I don't know ... that's why I've started this thread.

I don't even try to pass now that my wife has passed on! When she was alive and I dressed as Stephanie, she did my makeup and fixed my wig so that I was passable! Since she is gone, I don't even try to pass, but I still do dress enfemme a lot of the time! And yes, I do go out in public dressed enfemme but looking exactly like the man that I am!!

But I have stopped dressing enfemme, for 5 years in the past, and do now for weeks at a time. I control my life, not the way I dress. If I feel like dressing I may do it, or I may not. My mind is not controlled by the clothing I have on, or that is available to me. I put on clothing that I think is going to be most comfortable for me in the situation that I am going to be in. I usualy dress enfemme when I have nothing special planned, like maybe going out to eat. Guess maybe I am one of the weird ones??

[Alice Torn]

I must admit, that i am super sensitive, with sensitive conscience. I have had a guilt complex my whole 56 yrs, and, am the black sheep baby of the family, forced to move back to family of origin, (HELL). If i know i have to be with my rejecting, hostile dad, i cannot dress for a few days. I suspect my brothers and dad all have deep sex hangups, and leg fetishes, like i do. They do not respect me at all, and may have sexual things concerning me. I do not like the idea of them ever seeing me dressed up, and lusting for me! Sometimes, if i got to be around religious folks, i abstain for days, too.

[katrinakat]

I'm not sure who said it, but there's definitely an ebb and flow. Lately I've been flooded with femme desires. But thats been the trend for the past few years.
I've come out to a lot of people in my life recently and the love I've gotten back has been amazing. gotta go


to be continued................

[busker]

It is only in recent years that I have come to realize the origin of my interest in dressing, or wearing some female clothing. I started when I was 13 or 14 and would wear panties and other purloined clothing. I got caught and embarrased and that stopped that, at least in the practise end. After high school came college, military a wife and a career and no dressing to speak of. Wore panties for a while during married years but there wasn't any desire to dress. In the last 3 or 4 years though my interest has increased and I only dress at home and do it when I feel like it which is now most evenings after my day is over, but it is not an obsession. It is more of a way to relax also.
. What became clear for me though is that I did dress only during times when I had no relationship, and it was clear at some point that I began because there was no mother in my life (so I made a cloth substitution). My parents worked in jobs requiring them to be away when I was home and they were there when I was asleep. So the ebb and flow is really part of the psychology of my life and the lack of a female in it--a mother when young, a wife or other female companion as an adult. Though I do have a lady friend now, I still find that I like dressing, more so since my hormones after surgery have gone haywire, and a medication gave me gynecomastia. Now my cup nearly runneth over. The other odd thing I discovered was during a whole lifetime, when I would be in a store, I would unconsciously walk down the isles in the women's dept and look at the clothing without realizing that there was something there in the back of mind. SO while I substituted clothing for a parent and it simply went away when I was in a realtionship--and I wasn't subservient by any means--there is still something there that says it was not just psychology. And. of course, there was always the embarrasment and the bad feelings attached to dressing that may have unconsciously kept me from doing it.. Otherwse not dressing seemed to be voluntary and it was something I didn't need. I had basically a voluntary 40 year hiatus.
I'm a regular guy with lots of things to do and every day is too short.

[Carly D]

I haven't fully dressed up in a year and a half but I do wear heels everyday... My clothing of choice to stay in contact with my fem self I suppose.. I do miss it but my situation is set that I can't at this time dress as I would like.. I'll live with it..

[Raine]

I stopped crossdressing for a year since I only had one outfit. Recently I've started again, still with only one outfit. I did intense endurance cycling all summer (my legs are relatively perfect now) and my natural brown hair has grown out androgynously. I've also learned how to do ultra cute make-up. Although testosterone has killed a bit of my youth, it's still fun.

[Debglam]

Hi Reine. I think that the urge to CD hits everyone differently. I've never really dressed for the past forty years, a bit here and there, and just started feeling the need to dress completely. To answer some of your questions, for me the urge is always there but it ebbs and flows. It can be in the background for a period of time but eventually reaches a point where it has to come out in some form. Without making light of it, I kind of view it like my craving for ice cream. I like ice cream, but can go months without eating any. Sometimes that craving means that if I go down the ice cream aisle while shopping - I buy some. Sometimes that craving means that I will go out in the pouring rain to the local ice cream shop to get some. Why - I don't know.

Second, and I don't know if this is typical or not, I like to do a lot of "manly" things that make me feel great as a guy. When I am doing these things I'm not doing them in the frame of reference as crossdresser. I'm just doing them because I like them. That is not to say that once I crawl out from under the car or come in out of the woods the urge to CD doesn't come back at whatever level it happens to be at that time. I think that the urge to CD is just a separate piece of the whole me.

Finally, "the love of a woman" an "parental responsibilities" have a lot to do with it in my case. I have been married for twenty years and adore my wife and family. I recently broached the subject with her and would have done so before we were married had my urge to dress been anything like what it has become recently. She understandably did not take it well and doesn't want to know about it or talk about it at this time. As I said earlier, this urge has to come out though. I hope that we can maintain some equilibrium but while I might try to stop and succeed for awhile, the urge is always there.

Hope that this helps a little and thank you for your posts. They bring great perspective to alot of these issues.

Debby

[Maria 60]

I find that summer i don't dress or even underdress as often due to wearing shorts and sandals and summer it just seems more busy around the house. Still seem to find away to dress once a week. As soon as fall starts the pantyhose are on every day, and seeing the woman wearing pantyhose again gives me more reason to dress. All my life when i thought something was wrong with me because i enjoyed wearing woman clothing. I would throw away all my stuff. With in the next few days i would buy a pair of pantyhose again. When i got married i thought that was it, but it got worse now i was in a room full of woman clothing.

[Jonianne]

Reine, it's been almost 2 years since I have gone out dressed and have dressed at home only a few times to take some pics of my hair, to post here. As you know my wife had a brain aneurism/stroke and that has put a serious damper on going out.

Yes, I do think that "not being passable" contributes, because sadly, the last time I went out, 2 years ago, some guy just laughed me to derision as I walked by and I think that affected me far more than I thought it would.

Also being overweight has kept me from enjoying wearing the majority of cloths I have. Economics also plays a major part. We used to go to a hotel where I would get dressed and go out to a botanical garden, but we cant really afford to now.

It's not that the desire has gone completely and I do think about it often, it's just the emotional drive to find a way, just isn't there. Maybe that's called depression.

I do have a wonderful and realistic way of expressing my feminity by having my hair long and styling it femme all the time. I am so glad that I have been able to do that even at work (minus the clips and barrets of course!)

My Angel's support, this forum and having friends like you here helps me a lot.

[eluuzion]

Hiya ReineD

I did not start CD until I was around 35 years old. I have been divorced 14 years now. I live alone in my own house. I have a teenage daughter that stops by for dinner one day each week (if I’m lucky). I have no other family in this state. I have no SO. I’m self-employed and aside from a couple of hours a day meeting clients, I am home and free to do whatever I want. My house is ridiculously fortified with security equipment including 6 cams & motion sensors outside displayed on an office monitor system ( In short, I can dress 24/7 with no chance of any surprises). I have never “purged”, as the logic in that exercise escapes me.

I do not have the “drama” attached to my CDing that many here seem to wrestle with on a daily basis. I am not transitioning into anything, or confused, or frustrated, or trapped, or following a course/agenda, or “progressing”, or interested in lobbying for a cause, or lonely, or defensive, or gender dysphoric, or feel any motivation to “come out”, or suffer any “withdrawal” or anxiety when not crossdressing. I just do what feels right and adjust accordingly to any circumstances as needed.

There have been a few extended times I have decided to abandon all CD behavior. I do not feel there is any type of “cycle” attached to those times. They were all based on adjusting to the individual circumstances present at the time. Here is a brief recap of those periods…

- when I was married (4 years), I did CD, but only in my hotel room while traveling (I was out of state Mon-Fri every week). My wife was never aware of anything.

- When I got divorced, I began custody of my 2 year old daughter every Sat-Mon. I rarely did any CD when alone, and never did during times my daughter was here. Life was just too busy dealing with all of the responsibilities at that time.

- Back in 93’, I completely abstained for about 1.5 years, when I was doing a turn-around operation and rebuilding/managing a flailing corporate branch facility with 80 employees. I was working 12 hours/day, 7 days/week and had no time for anything else.

- Somewhere around 97’?…I decided I needed a few weeks away from my computer and the insanity of the Internet. I shut it down, and before I knew it, 2 years had passed by with no Internet connection. During that time I returned to playing tennis and accepted a job creating a new national equipment re-sale division for a huge leasing company. That was about a two year hiatus from CD that was self-imposed, mainly due to extensive demands of work.

- In 99’ I took on a project orchestrating the buy-out/takeover of 7 independent companies here in Denver by a National Company based in California. That was about 6 months of total abstinence.

I left the corporate world for good after that project and have been an “entrepreneur” ever since. I began dressing about 24/7 again at that time. That was about 10 years ago and I have not had any “gaps” to date.

I always enjoy my “male-ness” or whatever you want to call it. I have no plans to “stop” or modify my CD interests. If I became intimately involved with a GG SO, I would not feel compelled to “share it” with her. If it posed a significant obstacle in that relationship, I would abandon all CD interests, and not suffer any regrets or inner drama. I adapt well to whatever strategy keeps my daughter, myself, and if applicable…a SO happy in life.

~And I all lived happily ever after,~
No End..

[SallyS]

My urge to dress comes in waves. Its always there in my mind but sometimes I have had breaks of several months.....and that's when I put on weight

I've just come back into a CD'ing phase at the moment and dress 1-3 times a week (only during the day, at home).

I have a lot less 'gear' these days and dress for comfort not style....plus I'm nearly two stones heavier since my last break...see what I mean

[Laura_Stephens]

The opportunity to dress comes and goes when one is married, has children, a career, etc.

The desire to dress comes and goes -- never completely goes away -- but, for me, it is very much influenced by the amnount of stress in my life. More stress = more desire to dress.

[Dawna Ellen Bays]

I do not have the “drama” attached to my CDing that many here seem to wrestle with on a daily basis. I am not transitioning into anything, or confused, or frustrated, or trapped, or following a course/agenda, or “progressing”, or interested in lobbying for a cause, or lonely, or defensive, or gender dysphoric, or feel any motivation to “come out”, or suffer any “withdrawal” or anxiety when not crossdressing.

I always enjoy my “male-ness” or whatever you want to call it. I have no plans to “stop” or modify my CD interests. If I became intimately involved with a GG SO, I would not feel compelled to “share it” with her. If it posed a significant obstacle in that relationship, I would abandon all CD interests, and not suffer any regrets or inner drama. I adapt well to whatever strategy keeps my daughter, myself, and if applicable…a SO happy in life.

These two paragraphs sum it up almost PERFECTLY for me. I've just come out of a two-year period where I had NO desire to dress. I simply found another hobby as an outlet that superseded ANY desire in me to let "Dawna" surface. All the usual triggers and trappings were still all around me, but I was deep enough into what I was doing that I used THAT as an escape.

I'm not all that into my hobby (for the time being), and Dawna wants to play. She HASN'T as of yet, but there are plans in the making...

Lastly, when I'm in a relationship with a woman, Dawna goes bye-bye all on her own. I don't suppress anything...the usual "triggers" just aren't strong enough for me to call Dawna back...