Not Pink Fog - dark cloud

[Darla]

Hi

I'm not too sure how I managed to get here, but every day is harder and harder. Should I pack it up and move to the woods where everyone dresses in jeans and lumberjack shirt? Cuz I barely feel like I can cut it anymore. Every waking hour I want to be NOT me, dress up and transform. My wife allows only the most cursory of dressing, and I feel like screaming. I see any able bodied and semi well dressed woman and I ache to be a small part of that. I'm not going to call it pink fog because that would imply that I'm happy, but it's like a dark mist that rolls over me consuming me with jealousy and regret and loss and envy. I so need to find a gender therapist.

Anyone else feel like this?

[Jenni Yumiko]

Every time I see a woman in a cute outfit. Also there is a girl at work who is out, we're not friends, but I see her once in a while and it makes me jealous.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Persistent gender dysphoria...its a nice little slice of hell on earth carved out just for us...

do you identify as a crossdresser??have you always wished you were female?? when you dress is about the clothes or is it about who you are as a person??
is your life making you feel more and more trapped? has anything happened recently in your life that feels like you are doubling down on being a male?

no one can say if pink fog as they call it is just about overindulgent dressing or about the identity problem transsexuals do not share with crossdressers (in other words crossdressers are sometimes in denial that they are ts)

a gender therapist will help you cut through all this...

[darla_g]

Darla somehow I think if your need to dress crosses a line where you cannot function in everyday life, causes problems with jobs or relationships then it is time to seek professional help.

[Fiona K]

I know exactly how you feel. No answer to it though, sorry......

[KellyJameson]

A dark cloud sounds like depression and if it is from GID the clothes will not solve your problem for very long and can actually increase the pain because you create the illusion and not the reality so it is a form of self imposed torment where you dangle the faux solution in front of yourself that does nothing but remind you of what you "do not have"

Crossdressing can cause depression when you have GID while giving you a small reprieve at the same time. It is a terribly difficult path to walk down for long depending on the severity of your GID

I strongly suggest therapy. It does not have to be necessarily GID related because in my opinion it is wise to first remove all other possibilities for what may "appear to be GID" but is not.

Look closely at any reasons for wanting to escape from "life" first, because it is in this need to escape life where you could become confused about what gender you are.

For myself I had to strip off all the other layers until the only possible thing that was left was my female identity underneath any possible psychosis.

Look closely at your childhood and pay particular attention to abuse of any kind that may have stopped your own emotional growth.

It is a strange paradox that GID causes psychosis but also that psychosis can create the "illusion" of GID and this is the mess I had to untangle in my own head.

My own way of understanding GID was looking at the physical structure of the brain and it is this physical structure that "maps" are "experiencing" and creates the expression of our lives.

I could never look at my body and say I'm a woman when on the outside this was clearly not the case.

For me the experience is very subtle but has and had profound affects on my life. It touches everything but yet is invisible so I find very hard to specifically point to and really the only thing to point to is my whole life.

It is like a ghost in the machine making its presence known.

Always there exerting its influence even when I had no idea what this influence was and why this was being done to me.

If this is true for you than you do not want to F..k with this force inside you because it will eat you alive. it is the very expression of your brain as "self" and you cannot change this but must submit to it, if you want peace of mind.

Do not stay in pain, get therapy to put you on the road to healing and self discovery.

This will free you even if in the end it means changing, you will want this change when the time arrives.

Understanding will teach you what you need to do to be able to live with yourself

[Badtranny]

Every waking hour I want to be NOT me, dress up and transform.

I just don't understand this feeling. I have no idea if you're TS or not but I want other people who may be questioning to know that this feeling is NOT universal, nor is it mandatory. Most of the TS (actually transitioning) people I know were not miserable in their lives, they were just not happy. Most of us simply feel a disconnection with life, like spectators in some other person's life. When I read stuff about how awful it is to not "dress", I start to wonder about other issues.

For the record, I was not in a panic about dressing like a dude. I enjoyed it and had a lot of great clothes to give away after I went full-time. If your clothes are causing you this amount of grief, I wonder if there's not some transference involved. A therapist is a very good idea because they can give you a totally unbiased perspective. In regard to dressing, my therapist told me that "gender is a lived experience", meaning that transition is not about dressing as a woman, but rather living as a woman.

[Darla]

Hi All - thanks fr the replies. I'm sure there's more to this than just not dressing or as you mention Melissa "transference". I wrote posts in a tizzy, look back and sometime think I should have counted to ten first. I posted this in the TS forum without really 100% knowing if this is the right place. But here it is.

I definitely identify as a crossdresser, have no outlet to dress at all, unaccepting wife who doesn't really trust me not to dress, and I have a fairly traditional marriage that were I to dress or harbor thoughts of transitioning would blow the lid off my life. So I don't know if it's the pressure of not dressing or something intrinsic, but as I read everyone else's story I begin to question if I'm TS. Yes - like all of you I just haven't felt right. So on I went on my merry way, now thoroughly painted into a corner, admiring my own brushstrokes.

Okay - the votes are in and therapy it is. I had a therapist who had little TS or GID experience and that seems to have petered out. Time to get with a councilor that has experience. I'm just worried I'm going in there with so much baggage and a bias towards an outcome that I want/don't want (probably TS) that it'll be a train wreck.

I'm the suffering artist type, so there has to be a lot of turmoil before things are resolved. Guess its time to grow up a little and just make some progress. Thanks for all the puzzled and supportive thoughts.

Darla

[pose007]

Hi Darla,
I also think you should find a therapist, however I think it is very important to take your time in choosing one. There are many good ones and alas also many bad ones. If you don't like what you see during the first appointment go and find yourself another one. It really makes sense to research the person you are going to see. Some are very limited in their approach and try to push you in one direction, which ultimately may not be right for you.
Good luck!
Tanya

[LeaP]

I definitely identify as a crossdresser, have no outlet to dress at all, unaccepting wife who doesn't really trust me not to dress, and I have a fairly traditional marriage that were I to dress or harbor thoughts of transitioning would blow the lid off my life. So I don't know if it's the pressure of not dressing or something intrinsic, but as I read everyone else's story I begin to question if I'm TS.

You'll figure it out. Alternatively, if you are TS the, realization could well be forced on you.

My real reason for responding, though, is that being a cross-dresser or TS aren't the only two alternatives. There are a lot of gender queer (or pick your own term) people - far more than TSs.