How do i accept myself

[Megan.]

Hi there its megan i would like to ask a question about acceptance for a while i have not been very happy with myself regarding dressing how have you great people accepted this part of yourselves and become happy with it thanks megan.

[marsha leanne]

hi megan, I struggled with the same question for years. i would dress, then rip it all off in discust, brood over it for days, and wonder why, even as i was getting dressed again. I had to finally seperate myself from societies rules and just pay attention to me. i needed to find out how Marsha felt, How my male self felt and realized that both sides were part of the whole. Once i got there, (and that took a while), I was able to accept that my dressing was in fact a real part of who i am and what made me tick. Then, I was able to begin to re join society and figured out how to play within its rules. some of those rules didn't apply anymore and they got discarded. some new rules now applied and they were accepted and even embraced. once i found out how this all was a part of me, I was able to step up and accept this new integrated person i discovered i was. Is the journey over? NOT EVEN CLOSE!

[Joanne f]

Hello Megan,
I often wonder if the accepting yourself thing has two parts to it that although seems separate can be quite linked to each other in being able to accept yourself , the first part is believing in yourself that what you are doing is right for you as it is doing no harm to anyone and you enjoy it , the second part is accepting the way that other people look at you which in theory should not matter so much but it has this backlash way of you judging yourself because you think others are judging you , this will affect some more than others and I do not know if it is affecting you at all , in the end you just need to remember that everyone has different thoughts ,styles of dress, desires and ways of life so if you know what yours is then just accept it and enjoy it to the sensible levels that will not be likely to cause stress in your life , you will find a level of acceptance some time .

[Tallulah Rose]

Some excellent advice here, Megan - I can't add to what has already been said, really, but I will say that it took me many years to accept myself. I just wish it had happened sooner. Work on it in your own head and acceptance will happen. It takes work.

[Katey888]

Hi Megan - Happy New Year!
For me acceptance is about understanding that first of all, something drives you to do this that is just a natural part of who we are - most of us don't have a choice anymore than we choose our skin colour or body shape. Beyond that, what we do seems somehow offensive to 'normal' society and I think a lot of us feel guilty for that (and for some of us still in the wardrobe/ closet, that also includes our SOs, friends etc.) - but just think about actually how trivial and often private what we do is compared with other forms of societal rebellion: remember Punks - offensive language; dressed to shock; behaviour to offend - some grew out of that, some didn't. More cultured forms of rebellion could be art, music, politics - we're just rebels in a way, but because we're rebelling against gender stereotyping and that underpins a huge part of the framework of modern, western society, we appear strange and dangerous to those who don't understand (actually, if they understood that we also don't understand, that might help!) and therefore a curious - if very gentle - threat.
That's my simple thoughts: think of yourself as a bit of a rebel, but no worse and, in fact, a lot better, than most other cultural rebels that are out there today. I remember reading that the native americans used to treat crossdressers as gifted - perhaps we should just think that way too.
You're not alone, and what you fell isn't wrong, it's just different to what we're brought up to believe is 'normal' - keep reading the back posts in this forum and you'll find plenty to support this. :hugs:
Katey x

[Teresa]

Hello Megan we all know the question but you will have workout your own answer. You don't mention partners or family so are you getting positive support or are in solitary confinement? To work out my answers I found I had to go back the age of 5 and what was influencing my life then as I got older an accidental sexual experience with clothes at 9 locked it in my brain and it has never gone away. Part of my brain is being told men don't do this the other part is saying I want sex let's do it, also the way it happened to me I want to share it with women, I know I'm not gay which is what partners and family often fear. I hope this helps TERESA

[Marcelle]

Hi Megan,

Firstly what you are feeling is something we all have felt at some point or are still feeling. Acceptance for me only came after I accepted the fact that I am who I am and I cannot change it anymore than I can stop the world from spinning . . . I am a guy who likes to dress like a girl and go out. Once I became happy with that thought, the next level of acceptance only happened once I was out and about and realized that people don't really care or if they do, they have the good grace to keep it to themselves. But that is me.

For yourself, I can recommend that you look deep down into your being when dressed and ask yourself "How does Megan feel when she is dressed?" So you feel a twinge of excitement when getting dressed? Do you feel good when dressed? Does it feel right when your are dressed? If you have even an inkling that these things feel great then it is part of you sweetie and you need to open that valve and just let it escape. Go with it, don't try and fight it and you will find that acceptance is the next step. Of course this is contingent on this being truly what you want to do . . . if you don't then yes there will be some confusion as to why it does not feel right. For me it has always felt "normal and correct".

Hugs

Isha

[Gigi9]

For me I used the internet and did alot of research on the subject and identifying the issues that stopped me from accepting myself. Then I looked for exceptions that include me and do give permission to live how I wanted to. The internet is a great place (but don't fill in personal info) I suppose it helped that I have many interests and am often looking for a "loophole" in other life situations (business, job, hobbies.) I have never fit very well into a box and I'm always looking for a way around those walls. Accepting dressing was still a fairly long trail but, if you really like it, search for a way to give yourself permission to enjoy life.
Best of luck with this
Gigi

[Beverley Sims]

Dressing successfully comes with lots of practice.
Once you get over the man in a dress look you are half way there.
Then it is choosing the right clothing, a suitable hairpiece and lastly mastering makeup.

[adrienner99]

I think acceptance can be very hard, but it's all based on how much credence we give other people's projections. How would the good people that you know react if they saw you on the street in a dress and high heels? A few women might be supportive but the men would mostly out do each other in efforts to laugh at you or ridicule you. In the normal world I never hear crossdressing mentioned in any positive way...it's almost always negative....for us to be what we are, and to reject all the negativity directed toward CDing takes one heck of a lot of self esteem....What we do hurts no one...yet I experience occasional guilt, even after dressing for decades....we deal with something most people don't have to deal with. Our gender identity is not always as black and white as it is for most people. It is a struggle, and I really envy those CDs who really don't give a damn what other people think....I don't know how to achieve that.

[Tina B.]

Self acceptance is one of the hardest parts to cross dressing I think. I learned to do make up fairly easy, choosing clothes came natural, and hair was just fun to play with. But looking myself in a mirror, and reconciling the difference in my upbringing, and the guy standing there in a dress, that took years.
Like so many others, I dressed, satisfied my needs and then stripped it all off as fast as I could. Guilt, Shame, self disappointment, it was all there.
Then I started to change, not my clothes, but me. I realized, I am a miserable unhappy person when I don't give in to the need to dress, and worse, I make those around me miserable. Not dressing and what it was doing to me was running my marriage. So after much though, about who I was, what I was doing to my life by my denial, I changed the way I think about it. I hurt no one, I'm a caring and thoughtful person who goes out of his way to help people, in other words, I don't consider myself to be a bad person, so why should I feel guilty, ashamed on anything else. At that point I told my wife about me, we went shopping for clothes, and all has been right with my life since then. Of course it helped, that the wife accepted me just the way I am from the moment I told her, which was a pleasant shock to me, as you might imagine.
You can hide from you family, you can hide from the world, but you can't hide from yourself, so you have to learn to live with yourself best you can.

[Cheryl T]

Having grown up without the aid of the internet and feeling so alone for years it was a long process for me.
I began at about 6 and it wasn't until I was 18 and ventured into an adult bookstore and found magazines and such depicting others that dressed. That finally let me feel that I was not a "freak", I was not the only boy that felt as I did. Since society didn't accept my kind and viewed us as a fringe element it still didn't let me be comfortable in my own skin. As the years passed and I went through the buy/purge/guilt cycle over and over I began to feel that maybe this isn't so far out there.
About 10 years ago I came out at last and joining a support group was my "Aha" moment. I now knew I was normal, just different, as we all are different, but in a special way. I have the ability to see things from 2 perspectives. I can experience the world from 2 view points and what a view it is!
There is no more desire to purge, to be "normal" because I AM NORMAL! I'm just not the normal that most of the world thinks is normal.


I am happy to be me. I am happy to express my femininity without guilt and fear. I am finally HAPPY!

[Jaylyn]

Megan I can say that accepting yourself is the hardest thing to do in life. Every one who does is usually called many other adjectives unless they fit what society has determined the norm for every one. It is easier with time to accept what we do. If all cross dressers ( that's what I am ) were together and were getting dressed to go out to dinner even some would be considered different by our own little group. People have hard time accepting anything that in their mind they consider off the norm to them. Remember every ones normal is how they consider it to be in their own mind. Some can accept themselves but detest others when they are not like them. Here's my thinking try just being yourself. Letting yourself decide how you want to be. To heck with every one else if you want to truly accept yourself. With this though your life could change. You may lose friends, loved ones and even careers. To be accepting of ones self is hard but you have to weigh what one has to give up to get to true acceptance of yourself. I choose not to truly be myself but to enjoy my time when I can be myself. I chose to give myself a few days a week that I can dress and pretend to be someone I'm not. I have made myself be at peace with what I am doing rather than have to deal with a rather large family which thinks the norm is what they do. These are just my opinions but maybe they will help.

[kimdl93]

Self acceptance is a challenge for many people, not just the transgendered. The crucial realizations for me, as others have noted, were that CDing is normal, not commonplace but normal. it's not a crime, deviance or perversion.

The second thing was to learn, through repetition if necessary, that each of us is a person of value and worthy of self respect. Remind yourself of these truths as often as the negative thoughts arise.

[KayleeDahl]

Hi Megan,
I think acceptance is something that we all struggle with, and happens on a number of levels. Here are a few things that have helped me reach my current level of acceptance.
1) having a SO that is accepting - This one is huge, especially for me because inherently I care too much about what other people think. Being able to have someone who isn't looking at you and shaking their head really helps you feel like you are not a wierdo.
2) attending events that allow you to interact with other people like you - Going to these events allows you to see that there are other people like you, get to know them, and through that understand more of yourself. For me, the more that i understood, and talked with people who had the same exact experiences as I did, the more "normal" I felt.
3) Care just a bit less about what other people think, and allow yourself to not see yourself through other people's eyes, and instead see yourself through your eyes. This is something I struggle with every day, but in the end probably the most important step towards self acceptance. Therapy can also be helpful in this area. One thing that I found very helpful is recording videos of myself talking about myself (not to share, but just to actually work through those thoughts, committing yourself to actually doing the thinking by using the video camera - plus its a fun thing to do while you are dressed up)

Hope some of that helps!
Hugs
Kaylee

[Annaliese]

Realize this is who you are, you are not going to change, so enjoy how you are.

[CarlaWestin]

I finally figured out that I was wasting too much emotional energy trying to justify my difference to others perceived view of me as a gender explorer. I eventually figured out that 99% of all stress I had, was brought to me by other people. Think about it. Go down the list of stressful things. Now, throw away the judgemental crap. Not much left, is there? My acceptance seminal (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/seminal) moment came when I pre formed the dialogue, "So I'm a crossdresser. So what?"

At the very beginning, of the first meeting, with a terrible therapist, many, many years ago, he said, "What we do here is get to the heart of the matter."
I've lived by those words ever since. And it truly applies to me and CD. What's the heart of the matter?

I LIKE IT!

Enough said.

[Jocelyn Quivers]

Relate it to a few other things that you really have no control over like.

1. You are attracted to either men or women its a trait you were born with. Believe it or not there was a phase way earlier in life also during my non-crossdressing phase where I vowed to live like a priest almost meaning no women believing this would make life so much easier and less complicated. Of course that was over before it started.

2. Understand it's a part of you and will not go away. In fact trying to make it go away will only cause it to come back stronger as if your girl side feeds off all the negative energy. Or another comparison although kind of morbid one could be like trying to ignore a tumor, by not going to the doctor, not looking at it, and as long as you feel ok thinking everything is fine. Eventually it will need to be addressed the sooner the better.

3. Also take advantage of this website. I can understand wanting to not be a CD back in the "day" before the internet when the only examples you had were Psycho, Dressed To Kill, or some really bad comedy scene, because that had a lot to do with my never wanting to accept it. This website had a lot to do with me changing my thought's and acceptance for the better.

4. Consider yourself one of the lucky ones. Imagine a boring uneventful life not going through the thrill of buying your first pair of women's clothes in the check out line for you. Not having to determine what outfits look best on you, picking out wigs, make up etc. How and when to come out the closet to a SO, friends and family. The real fun of dieting and exercise to get a more feminine build, living a double life. Fun Times, enjoy and accept!!:2c:

[CarlaWestin]

Consider yourself one of the lucky ones. Imagine a boring uneventful life not going through the thrill of buying your first pair of women's clothes in the check out line for you. Not having to determine what outfits look best on you, picking out wigs, make up etc. How and when to come out the closet to a SO, friends and family. The real fun of dieting and exercise to get a more feminine build, living a double life. Fun Times, enjoy and accept!!:2c:

This is it. Your two cents are priceless!

[Katy120]

I don't know what acceptance looks like, smells, tastes, or sounds. Acceptance is elusive. I hope at some point in time I will discover it, but there is simply no assurance that I ever will. Perhaps your journey will be more fruitful in that regard. This is my hope for you.

[Jenniferathome]

Megan, the truth is, I never struggled with this. I am pragmatic. Things are what they are. You are a cross dresser. So what? Cross dressing does not define me. It is a part of me. No different than my brown hair or my 5'7" height. As you have read here, you are not unique. Cross dressing, while weird, is "normal" for a lot of us. So why stress about it? The only thing that I think really keeps one feeling shame is the hiding from a loved one. You can fix that.

[Valarie]

Hi Megan in my signature I have one of my favorite quotes from Harry Potter, "Understanding is the first step toward acceptance." Acceptance happens differently for all of us, but like Isha said it is something that we have all dealt with. For me I had to understand myself and really deal with problems I had.

Therapy helped me with that, I had a lot of unresolved anger because I hated myself. Now that I understand that; I am not sick, there is nothing wrong with me, and the desire to dress does not make me into some psychopathic degenerate, I accepted me and finally started to love me.

You will find your own way of accepting you and loving yourself. :)

[Lorileah]

I would like to say there is an easy way but we each work at our own speed... self acceptance? I still have times when I have doubt but I know that now I am happy and that when that creeps in, it is just something I need to work through. I look at myself and I see who I really am. It took a long time, especially when the old "you shouldn't do this, it isn't normal" demons show up. But then I smile at the mirror and I know all is right.

[ronni white]

I am what I am. And like who I am.

[suchacutie]

Megan, putting crossdressing aside for a moment, it might be helpful to realize that self acceptance for any human is one of the last personal goals we accomplish. It's incredibly difficult to stop being subservient to the authority figures in our lives, especially those close to us. That includes parents and all our professional mentors. My reference here is one's ability to be confident in one's self under "normal" life circumstances

Now add crossdressing into the mix and if you've not fully shed the codependence of others on every other part of your life, how can something (as of yet) socially little accepted as crossdressing going to be aanything but a very difficult road. I would suggest that when you master the subtle codependence of others in the rest of your life, the tools you learn in that process will apply here as well.

Your acceptance of your selfworth is so important and you are important. Opinions of others can be good input to how you shape your life, but in the end the judgement is yours.

[Tina_gm]

I have gone through so much of the repression and self denial, self loathing. A year ago, I waived the white flag. The process is not an easy one. I have had many strange and sometimes difficult days this past year. One thing I can say, at least as it applies to me is to not get too wrapped up in the actual dressing part. Sounds kinda strange on a crossdressing site.... ultimately what we are here for. But, for me, just realizing I am someone who has a strong feminine side. I was born with it. As I gain self acceptance, and let it out, I feel better, calmer, more relaxed and at peace. I am not there yet, not totally. Maybe I will never be there totally. But I am doing better than I was. I am a good person who wishes to do good for others. I keep my priorities of kids and wife before anything else. For those who I am not fond of, or have issues with, I merely try to let them be and have as little to do with them as possible. I am a good person. Keep telling yourself this. You are a good person. It is ok to dress in a way which makes you feel comfortable, or that you enjoy however it is that you enjoy it.

[julia marie]

Megan. Step one is to recognize that "acceptance" only matters when it is you who accepts, um, you. You like to wear clothes that traditionally are associated with women. Whether you do it for comfort, questions of gender, sexual thrill, or "don't know", be comfortable with it. When you are out in public - if you haven't already done so - you will find that if you do the whole wig/makeup thing most people don't even realize that you're a guy in a dress. Those who do - surprise - generally don't care. And those few who giggle or stare (people you'll never see again anyway) seem insignificant when you encounter a few people like waitstaff, sales clerks and others who go out of their way to make you feel welcome (happened with me the other night). Maybe we bring out the best in more people than we realize.

[Heather-Barbie]

Megan,

I was reading this thread because I too suffer from not accepting myself. There were so many wonderful posts, and it has helped me, so I hope you found some answers too. As you can tell, you are not alone in this. Like many, it will always be a bit of a struggle, but I also realize that for many of us, we would be so unhappy without cross dressing.

[Kate Simmons]

You simply need to get to know yourself and your feelings. This is mostly what the human condition is all about, gender notwithstanding.:)

[LaraPeterson]

Megan, until you accept yourself as you are, you won't be able to accept yourself as you want to be. Relationships are really hard to develop and maintain when you are doing OK inside yourself; they next to impossible when you can't figure out who you are or want to be. I'd suggest you try to find someone you can talk to frankly--maybe a professional--who might be able to help you sort things out. Just don't give up on yourself. Keep on thinking and I'm sure you'll find some answers, soon.

[NathalieX66]

I like myself. It feels pretty good.

I didn't start out this way....having this side of me, but I adapted. ...and I feel more inner harmony than I ever have.