Urge to Crossdress

[phili]

Hi Jennifer,
I have been crossdressing since age 5, and now 66, and in the last year I have really worked hard to answer your question for myself. The best scientific answer I can give right now is that crossdressing is our chosen means to a satisfy a need, and that need can vary in complexity at any moment. We may want to look beautiful, or to explore what that slip might feel like, or to fantasize about sex, or to submit to a fetishistic impulse, to feel light on our feet, or to escape the stresses of manhood as we feel them, to be unique, to try to reach in and inhabit a world we imagine is found for those who wear such and such clothes and have such and such look, etc..

The pinkness -intensity of our desire correlates to the intensity of the need, and the fogginess increases with level of tension, frustration, confusion, or mystery that is involved with the need.

Listening to others here, and I feel it too- sometimes I just reach for some pretty and light bikini panties in the morning, and peacefully underdress to be able to remember my feminine side all day, and support it, and , and my day is better and more peaceful. It works, for a while. Then I see a lingerie ad and am overcome by jealousy and desire to be on the receiving end of the kind of attention I am paying to the model. Or I am just angry that people are discriminating against LGBTQetc and I want to go out all girly just to stand up for our gang and say that gender norms are arbitrary. I often just feel bored and drab and pedestrian and I want to feel light and perky and eye-catching. Or I wish my wife would reach for me sexually, which gets translated in my wiring to wanting to dress in a feminine way. Crossdressing is an attempt to satisfy all these needs, and it works 100% only in my anticipating imagination.

Once in a while some of these needs may evaporate, and if they do, I won't want to crossdress to satisfy them. I am hoping to find a different way to satisfy some of them, as another means to reducing the stress that crossdressing causes in my life. So far I can get a lot of needs met by wearing a borderline feminine top and artistic jewelry. I"ve tried to be noble and forgo crossdressing, out of trying to make life better for others who don't like it, but the mass of needs tangled up with crossdressing make that unworkable over any long term.

Crossdressing is an effective shortcut to all sorts of emotional relief, and there are no other solutions that can compete with it for speed and effectiveness, at least in terms of emotional satisfaction. That is why we seize on it so strongly when the opportunity arises in our lives. Of course, it is not generally accepted or condoned, yet, by the society that creates the need in the first place by stultifying the emotional growth and balanced identity within boys and girls.

So we soldier on and try to make best use of it without causing other problems to multiply.

[Ressie]

I had very strong urges when I was younger. Maybe because there were long periods of time (months-years) that I coudn't dress? Now days it's just something I do regularly.

Also I don't see a lack of desire as a reason to purge. Purging is almost always caused by the fear of being caught.

[elliemoss]

It definitely ebbs and flows for me. I can go weeks even months without much urge then one moment in a day it will creep up and consume my thoughts. A lot of the time it can be seeing an attractive well dressed lady either out in daytime or at a club/pub and that can set it off. As far as the urge to dress when stressed (as stated by a lot of people here) I think that has a lot to do with a conscious shift to the present moment. I know when I dress I'm completely in the present moment from a mindful conscious perception. I'm not thinking about the past or the future or concerned with thoughts about the self or problems in my life. I'm very calm peaceful and excited.

[ClosetED]

I have given it years of thought, and as all said, the desire will ebb and flow over the years but never go away. The strongest suppressant seems to be falling in love - many will finally find their SO and the urge goes away for a year or two, so they thought it was gone. Severe personal illness is another. Many will say stress brings it on, but I think, IMHO, that the need is for us to express femininity as a release mechanism to offload the perceived societal demands put on us. So underdressing, having your toenails polished, wearing heels - all are ways for you to be able to express some femininity to let your subconscious have what it needs. I feel it needs to be a change from your usual to achieve that - if you wear panties every single day, then you may not get that outlet. In some disaster, your stress may be high, but the survival mode will take precedence. But feeling pressure at home or work, especially when stretched out over time, will likely bring up the desire. Some may call it an escape, a relief valve, or need to express who they really are and ditch the fake mask they normally have to show the world.
Just learn to accept that you are this way and it is not wrong/evil/or a psychological illness. It is society that is wrong and it needs time to accept.
Hugs, Ellen

[BrendaPDX]

For me it comes in waves and tides. A couple of months ago it hit with a vengeance, thank god for the goodwill, then it was gone, for a month and a half. I just learned to live with it, and DON'T PURGE! I do need a serious culling but that is a different story. Thanks for asking. Brenda.

[sometimes_miss]

Apparently, my desire to crossdress is always there. The mind keeps it repressed pretty well, but when I get stressed out, the desire to crossdress comes out. Think of it like this; say your brain has 100 'cpu cycles' available at all times. 10 go to 'operating system' processes. Another 10 to repress the crossdressing. You've now used up 20. But now lets say you're getting busy; family problems use up 20, work uses up 30, and then exams come up in your classes using up another 35. Now you're 5 'over' your ability to deal with all the stressors in life. So it comes out of the background processes, one of which is repressing the desire to crossdress. As things get 'busier' in your life, it gets harder and harder to keep it out of your mind. Eventually, you can't, and it comes back 'with a vengeance'.

There have been times when I didn't crossdress for many years when everything else in my life was going well; I felt no need to. But when I get stressed out, I want to dress up. It has nothing to do with sex, either, as for me, there's no connection of sexual desire and my crossdressing.

But that's just me.

[Sharon B.]

In recent times the longest I have gone without dressing is about 1-month here lately the longest has been 1-week. I have nail polish on my toenails and wear panties constantly. This morning I went out with woman's slacks and a woman's top on under my drab coat. I can see myself in the near future going out dressed completely as a woman.

[Acastina]

For me, it never really went away, but there have been extended periods during which I deliberately shut it out and tried not to listen to it or give in to it. But it's a lot like forcing yourself to stay awake. With enough caffeine and stimulation, you can do it for a while, perhaps longer than you would think, but, at some point, you have to sleep, and the effort to stay awake will break down. It really is that much of a need for me, and the older I get (now 68) the less will (and the fewer reasons) I have to resist it.

Interesting that your advanced education is a mixed bag of the CD motivation. I didn't come to terms with what I felt until I was about to graduate from law school at nearly 30, and then it just unloaded all over my consciousness. I remember trying to settle in and cram for the bar exam, and I was so wound up that I looked in the mirror and told myself that I either had to get high or get dressed to calm down and settle the anxiety. And of course, if I got high, I wouldn't be able to study effectively. So I got dressed, and sat at my dining table for endless hours poring over the prep materials and outlining sample questions.

That taught me an important lesson, that this was something primal and undeniable within me, and I knew from that experience forward that I had to give it more time and attention than the episodic history I had had before. It set me on a road that's still winding its way through a bit of a mist, and I couldn't have lived my life otherwise.

BTW, I walked out of the final day of the exam feeling confident, and four months later got a letter that began: "The State Bar is pleased ...." That's the word you want to see, not "regrets". The girl cracked the books, and we won.

[pantyhoselvr kendra]

I was miserable for a year when my son and his wife moved back in. They were saving for a down payment on a house and rarely went anywhere.

[Brenna S]

Jennifer the feelings come and go through the years.
You never know when the pink fog will strike.
Just try not to purge your femme things when the feelings slack off.
They will most likely return and you'll be starting over from scratch.
I think the feelings get stronger as you get older, they did for me anyway.

Absolutely agree, the feelings do get stronger as you get older. I'm a notorious purger(?) and went through a limited one a month ago. Fortunately, I didn't get rid of everything as the pink fog crept up on me last week. Normally, I would go for at least a year before it happened.

Everytime the pink fog comes on it gets denser and denser. Tonight I'm going to experiment with make up which I didn't have a strong desire to do not even a few years ago.

[FrankieB]

For me it has always been there, but was easier to ignore when I was much younger. I purged about 4 to 5 years ago thinking that I had gotten over it. However, 12 months ago it surged back (pink fog?) and I just went further than ever relating to previous bouts.
So I would say like the others it ebbs and flows, but maybe each time it returns it is stronger?
Could maybe even an age and personal acceptance thing.
Now it is an almost everday urge, even if I don't get around to it.

[JeanTG]

The desire is there constantly, and seems to be getting stronger as I get older.

It's been like that for me in the last couple of years. Like you only circumstances dictate when I dress. Otherwise I'd dress all the time even though I would not undergo a full transition.

[Swimtran]

For me, it's very tightly coupled to my sexual appetite. It may ebb and flow based on my stress levels and other things going on in my life, but it does so in lockstep with my general state of arousal. Which comes first is a chicken-or-egg question for me: am I turned on because I'm thinking about being a woman, or am I thinking about being a woman because I'm aroused?

[XemmaX]

it really depends on the time of year, what im doing and other factors. sometimes i want to do it everyday and sometimes i go months or even years without doing it.

[Ally 2112]

For me it has just became stronger and more acceptable as i have gotten older .It is pretty well a steady stream of wanting to do although right now i limit to the weekends

[sweetdreams]

Historically it would come and go even at an early age. It almost seems like a four year cycle. Just couldn't leave this monkey out of my life:

First occurrence - about 5 years old and then gone.
Second - about 9 or 10 years old - was caught by mom and stopped.
Third - about 14 or 15 years old - was caught by dad and step mom - stopped.
Fourth - around when I first got married about 20 years old.

As I got older I became more accepting of this part of me and have tried to incorporate feminine attire into my every day dressing as a more natural activity rather than peaks and valleys. This had a lot to do with the typical emotional reactions and guilt. Boys/men shouldn't wear girls clothes. I've gotten past this to a large extent and feel better just being me, whatever that is.