Long hard look

[andrea lace]

I got dressed today.
I was home alone and had a successful dressing session. I have been experimenting with my look especially make up to see what works and what doesn't. I say that today was successful as I was happy with the end result.

Once dressed I reflected on my life and was thinking how lucky I was to have such a good wife and great kids. My train of thought immediately centered on myself and my cross dressing. I stepped out and took a good long hard look at myself. I came to the realization that what I am doing is a little weird and messed up. I understand that many of you purge which I understand to be throwing away your female items. Do many of you purge for those reasons ?.

I do enjoy dressing and don't think it is something that I could give up. The feelings that I have regarding my CDing are that I am hurting no one and if it makes me feel happy then why not. But I also have a small doubt that creeps into the back of my mind that what I am doing is wrong and I should not have this compulsion to wear women's clothes. I am sure its the way society has conditioned my thinking to make me feel this way and I don't feel like this all the time when I dress. Do any of you feel this way when you dress?

[Laura912]

In a word yes, but at current age with support of wife and this forum, decided it ain't broke so I do not have to fix it. Instead, will continue, enjoy, and primum non nocere to me or anyone else.

[Jenniferathome]

I never think it is "wrong" but for sure it is weird. Maybe "unique" is a better word. I never worry about the "why" of my cross dressing. It just "is." I feel good, I think I look good, and as you stated, no one is harmed.

[Gillian Gigs]

Purging and self doubts are two things that most of us have done and had to live with more than once. After my fourth, or was it fifth cycle, I came to the conclusion that something had to change. The last two purges were even after my wife knew and had accepted me where I was at. The problem was I wasn't accepting me for where I was at. It was only when I came to terms with my quirks, peculiar behaviors, that alot of things started to change in my life, and for the better I might add. There are still many times that I stop and reflect about the why's and motives for what I am doing, this one thing helps. It is the serenity prayer of AA.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

I personally have attempted to change me several times, and with no success in the arena of dressing. In my case that was probably the biggest factor in the purging. So, I can't change me there, maybe God will. What I work on to change are the things that I can, things like being kind, loving, non-judgemental, gentle, peaceful, and so on... I found the wisdom to know what my diferences were, you need to find yours.

[Beverley Sims]

This is a fairly unique thing we do, and it has no shame, some weirdness, but so were beatniks of long ago.
Purging is just damn wasteful. useless also.
Take this advice from a passer by. Enjoy what you are doing and try not to worry about the rest of society and their thinking.

[suzy1]

Please don’t think you are weird or doing something wrong Andrea.
Just ask yourself, who made up the rule that says what we do is wrong?:strugglin

We are just in a minority doing something that should hurt no one. But Society sees it as wrong and that’s where the problems start.

Only if you think its wrong are going to have feelings of guilt.

[~Joanne~]

Society CERTAINLY has conditioned us to think this way ( amongst all the other things) from time to time. I have these same thoughts creep up on me also every now and then but I always say to myself, if Women can wear mens clothes and not a word is ever said then why should I be treated any differently because I chose the same route of wearing what makes me feel comfortable?

Sometimes it can be a real emotional roller coaster too but what ever you do.....DO NOT PURGE. We all know that there is no changing this. You can suppress the hell out of it but it always comes back and is usually worse. If you want to hang it up for a bit, pack everything away and put it all somewhere until that happens. I personally have lost tons of stuff because of purges and it cost me a boat load to get back to where I am now clothing wise. Lost some really great stuff too.

[Karren H]

Personally I haven't had those thoughts in decades..... and I'm proud to be strange and different.... if we were all the same life would be way to friggin boring!

[Jaymees22]

Sometimes I look in the mirror and think this is insane but I'm loving it so I'm not going to stop any time soon...Jaymee

[suchacutie]

I thought it was insane the first time, but my wife has helped to make being transgendered a guilt-free process. When my wife said she thought Tina was "sweet", the rest of the world just ceased to matter!

[minalost]

I sometimes ask myself "why do I bother?" I must look stupid or ridiculous. The possible negative impacts on m life are huge. I won't/can't DO anything while dressed up like a woman. So again, "why do I bother?"
Sometimes it's habbit.
Sometimes it's compultion.
But most of the time it's because it feels good and, most of all, because it's FUN.
So, I've puged once in my life (never again!) and gave it up for 7 years - and it just came back stronger than ever.
Lately I've been able to tell self doubt to go hang it up, but it's something we all struggle with at some point (or points) in our life.
I don't believe there is any magic rout to self acceptance. I'ts an ongoing struggle, but the more we accept our uniqueness, the happier we'll be.

[Barbara Maria]

Hi,Andrea.One of my favorite things about the forum is the different view points.You can ask ten girls this question and get ten different answers.In my case,I fought and supressred the female me for so many years that when she came out last year she pretty much took over.It was like she was saying"OK,buster,this has gone on long enough".I never felt weird and never looked back.Like you I've been lucky and have had a pretty charmed life.I love my job and have been fairily successful at it,but when I'm home alone,he goes on vacation and I'm Barbara 24/7.Seeing myself as the woman I am brings me joy I haven't known since my kids were born.Never any guilt in my case,just joy.XOBarbara

[ReineD]

The feelings that I have regarding my CDing are that I am hurting no one and if it makes me feel happy then why not. But I also have a small doubt that creeps into the back of my mind that what I am doing is wrong and I should not have this compulsion to wear women's clothes. I am sure its the way society has conditioned my thinking to make me feel this way and I don't feel like this all the time when I dress. Do any of you feel this way when you dress?

My SO did. But rather than second guess why he felt that way, or whether he SHOULD feel that way, he just gave him/herself permission to just go with the flow. I can't tell you how much I admire this in my SO, because it led to being an extremely well balanced person. :)

If you have an inkling of doubt sometimes, then just don't dress for as long as it lasts! Don't give yourself any negative self-talk, don't over-think it, just tell yourself that you're not in a mood to dress. And then go do something that you enjoy doing in guy mode! And when you next feel like dressing, just dress and enjoy it. :) Simple.

My personal take on this is that although you and others were socialized to believe that the CDing was wrong, this is not the only reason that you feel conflicted sometimes. I'm convinced that you (and others) also have a genuine male identity that wants nothing to do with femininity sometimes, and so you (your own inner core ... not what you were told years ago) temporarily reject the feminine things.

Take for example a child who was raised and educated in an extremely religious family in a large equally staunchly religious community. This is all he knows. Then one day as a teenager, on his own he decides that the religious beliefs he was taught do not fit into his personal view of life and the universe. Maybe he has read philosophy books that are more meaningful to him. Anyway, initially he might feel guilty for going against what he has learned all his life, and his parents may threaten him with Hell eternal should he leave the church, he might lose some friends, but as he ages and grows into his own, he will no longer feel guilt about having adopted his own belief system. He will not regret no longer believing in something that does not make sense to him. In other words, having been raised a certain way and coming to realize as an adult that those core beliefs don't fit, do not need to cause any guilt, after a person has accepted who they are and what they believe in.

So if you do reject the femininity sometimes it could just be a normal internal conflict because you ARE a man and you are not a woman. It need be nothing deeper than this.

It's difficult to learn to live with dual gender pulls since none of this is modeled around any of us. And I think the instinct is to try to obliterate one or the other. But if you can accept that you are ALL of who you are like my SO, (a man sometimes as well as a person who needs to express femininity at other times) then you will not beat yourself up when you fluctuate and you will be happier.

Sorry I took so long to explain. It's difficult for me to put this into words.



.

[SusanLCD]

There is nothing wrong with what we do. But, we need to be honest with ourselves about why we do it. (No, not the underlying psychological/medical cause. We can never get to the root of that.) Rather, what is your purpose for becoming your femme self?

If it's because it gives you the ability to be the person you know you are inside, that harms no one. For most of us, that's our main reason and society/religion/politics have no right to define that as "wrong." Yet, most of us were raised with such defined rules that, on closer scrutiny, show themselves to be hollow and pointless.

So, if your reasons for dressing are harmless and doing so allows you to open up to your spouse and/or yourself, how can anyone believe that it's "wrong."

Now, you must find a way to accept that it's OK. Once you do that, this question will lose it's importance.

[ReineD]

So, if your reasons for dressing are harmless and doing so allows you to open up to your spouse and/or yourself, how can anyone believe that it's "wrong."

SusanLCD, please don't feel as if I'm singling you out, but you wrote something that I've seen shared here over and over again, and that I think is a common belief among CDers. The premise is that the crossdressing allows a crossdresser to get in touch with the real inner self, open up to others, and appreciate the softer, kinder, more compassionate things in life.

Having known a multitude of men in my life, both CDers and non CDers (I've been the only female in my immediate and extended family for all of my adult life which is more years than I care to tell :p), I can honestly say that the non-CDers that I know intimately are just as capable of getting in touch with kinder, more compassionate and sensitive feelings as the CDers, or at least all the wonderful TGs that I do know. The non-CDs in my life may not do this in the locker rooms at school or later on when out with the guys drinking or establishing their pecking orders at work, but they certainly are capable of a great deal of compassion with their wives, female friends, best male friends, children, etc.

So I've always wondered why so many CDers have said that dressing helped them get in touch with emotions that are shared by both men and women.

I've noticed in my SO and other CDers that I've talked to, that while growing up they never gave themselves permission to show any softer side because they didn't want others to guess what was inside, which was an attraction to feminine expression and feminine things. The CDers that I know seem to have a much more rigid definition of maleness than the non-CDers that I know. My SO for example had built a lot of walls which actually prevented him from engaging in the more sensitive activities that he might have engaged in naturally, had he not been a CDer … like taking ballroom dancing lessons, collecting art, and enjoying to cook, among other things. My SO is OK with all of this now, he has knocked down all his walls and he no longer feels that he needs to dress in order to do what s/he likes to do and also express the gamut of human emotion. Rather, she dresses because she likes to be pretty and feel feminine and she also really likes the clothes, jewelry and shoes, which are separate from being compassionate and sensitive.

Anyway, this was just an observation which may or may not be of interest to the OP. :)

[NathalieX66]

Compared to what's going on in Syria and Egypt, or a Mexican border town like Juarez, or being poor in America, or a village affected by cancer in China from industrial pollution, I say we got it pretty darn good!

One of my old memes is "Smoking kills 5.4 million people a year world wide, while crossdressing kills zero".

[Jessica_NZ]

Hi Andrea,
I have the same thoughts from time to time. I thought I had come to terms with dressing, and got to the point where I just enjoy it. But sometimes, I'll get dressed up - spend ages doing so - take one look in the mirror and think "what the....what am i doing!" and take everything off. Then about an hour or so later I regret taking everything off haha. But the way I look at it is like any other hobby you may have. I'm really into mountain biking, but sometimes I think nah I can;t be bothered with this or why bother heading out by myself etc, then after I have decided not to head out and its too late to go back I regret it haha. I've just put it down to being a gemini - always two minds about everything!

J

[teri g]

Count me as one of those that found the wisdom to know the difference between what I could and could not change. After decades of the all-to-common guilt/purge/renewal cycles, I finally gave myself permission to express myself in this way without the burden of meeting social gender expectations. My current situation is far from ideal (was "discovered" by my wife, in a don't-ask-don't-tell status now, etc) but at least I've made peace with myself. It takes effort but I refuse to allow society's rules to dictate my behavior behind closed doors.

[PaulaQ]

Yes, Andrea, I very definitely have these doubts quite often:
- am I weird?
- am I some kind of selfish narcissist?
- am I losing my mind?
- am I throwing my life away?

[Amanda M]

Two of the most damning words are "must" and "should". Weird you are not. So you like to wear a dress? So do I - and I'm not weird!

[PaulaQ]

"must" and "should".

You are so right. Anytime you start using "should", the discussion has stopped being about reality! The only two things that matter:
1. What is real
2. What we can do about it
Not much else makes much difference.

[TeresaCD]

I got dressed today.
. I am sure its the way society has conditioned my thinking to make me feel this way and I don't feel like this all the time when I dress. Do any of you feel this way when you dress?
It's funny, I thought I might be unique in this. I often feel this way, this is the conflict that goes on in me at times.
My greatest fear is that my SO would say 'enough', my second greatest fear is that what I do might impact others around me in a bad way..
I also have found that if I work to suppress desires to dress, they come back stronger.
These days I am starting to accept the way I am, and embrace it, whatever that might mean..

[Cheryl T]

Do any of us have the same feelings? Yes, I'm sure that most of us do at some time.

I had those feelings for decades and went through many purge/buy cycles thinking I was crazy, something was wrong with me or the like. Then finally I accepted this as part of who I am. I realized that we are all part male, part female and I just have a higher portion of female than most males do and this is how I must express that in order to be fulfilled.
I'm not of the order of my TS sisters, but I am certainly more feminine than most of my friends. I'm proud of the aspects this brings to my personality and my being and no longer deny they are there. I embrace them, and display them when I am dressed for all the world to see.

[CDChloe1972]

In a way there is something I have been noticing lately and that is the need amongst CDs (and myself included) to cross dress to escape the pressures of being a man. I've dressed up and immediately felt calmer, more relaxed and more in tune with myself and I feel more relaxed like I imagine you might feel after some Yoga or a good meditation session. SO I guess what i'm saying is that if you can get rid of the societal hang ups and conditioning you can allow CDing to relax you and not feel any of the shame and guilt that can come with it. Give into it, give over to it and you can really just enjoy having a quirk which makes us the same but unique.

Anyway thats my two cents

XX

xx Chloe xx

[dominique]

I've pondered those thoughts for many a year. The conclusion I've reached is that maybe society is wrong and we're right, we've pushed the boundaries stepped over them and left them in the distance. While every body else is constrained by them. Am I doing any thing wrong no, then why the self doubt that's always in the back of minds. Self acceptance is a large part of our thinking.

[EllenJo]

Andrea, I have felt this way many times in the past, and of course went through several purge cycles. The great thing about this forum is that here, I have found these feeling to be common among us. Finally in my 40's I realized that it is just who I am. I do not let my CDing rule my life, it is just something that brings me peace and pleasure and hurts no one. Whether we should have these feelings in the first place is not something I dwell on any longer. Diversity is one of the great joys of my life. We are all different. We all have things in our life that make us unique. Mine just happens to be an affinity for things female. With all of the evil in the world, wearing panties and skirts does not even register in the grand scheme of things. Let your feelings take you where they will and know that being a good person is all that matters.

[Abigail]

Perhaps the only real harm we do is to ourselves.
Certainly in my case i have shyed away from forming serious relationships for fear of the reaction my lifestyle could bring.
Maybe one day i will find a partner to share this with, at 50 the liklehood is getting less

[SANDRA MICHELLE]

Years ago I used to think I was weird and the only one doing this but I learned there are others just like me, so we all can't be weird.
I purged at least 6 times, oh how I wish that I didn't.

[stacycoral]

I never think it is "wrong" but for sure it is weird. Maybe "unique" is a better word. I never worry about the "why" of my cross dressing. It just "is." I feel good, I think I look good, and as you stated, no one is harmed.


Purging and self doubts are two things that most of us have done and had to live with more than once. There are still many times that I stop and reflect about the why's and motives for what I am doing, this one thing helps. It is the serenity prayer of AA.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

I personally have attempted to change me several times, and with no success in the arena of dressing.


i would have to say i must agree with these two ladies on the subject, dress for many years, it is just part of me, and my SO knows it. i happy i have a SO that don't go off the deep end. hugs.