Helpful advice

[Ariana225]

I have been here a few months and I haven't seen this idea before.

I recommend that a lot of you lovely girls start a "to whom it may concern" letter/diary. I just started one and I feel like it helps to put my feelings to words. I am going to keep added to mine with new things or new thoughts. I feel like this helps. Especially if you're in the position where you're not out to anyone. A "to whom it may concern" letter/diary feels like you're spilling the beans about something with not actually telling someone about it.

Has anyone started their own diary to make themselves feel better?

[Tracy Irving]

I don't have anything to feel bad about so no reason to write in a diary to feel better.

Besides, I thought this site was my diary...

[Ariana225]

Tracy,

It's not for everyone, but it may help some. And the thing about a diary is there is no audience. Sometimes it feels good to get things off your chest without actually telling someone else, irl or on a forum.

You do you though.

[JenniferZ]

I love to write and try to do it every day. If it feels good....do it!

Jennifer

[Tina_gm]

Writing can be very therapeutic. It can be especially helpful to re read your thoughts later on and see how far you've come. I used this type of diary when I quit drinking. Later on re reading my early days and it would bring a tear to my eye reading it. The anger, the anguish, the sadness. But it also showed me how much I had grown through sobriety too.

[Leslie Langford]

Roberta,

Great suggestion, and one that would be particularly useful for those of us here (many, actually!) who are...ummm...of a "certain age", and who have far fewer years ahead of us than we have behind us.

Not to be too morbid about this, but just realistic - should the Grim Reaper reach out to us before we have had a chance to get all of our affairs in order (including advising anyone who would have needed to know about our true selves) - such a diary (or even a single explanatory letter) would go a long way towards alleviating any potential shock experienced by anyone unexpectedly becoming aware of our "secret" as they go through our personal effects following our demise. Our legacy will be what it is - we can't change that, but this may be one way to at least control the narrative somewhat, even if it will be in retrospect and in our absence.

Some of our survivors might feel sympathy for us and our plight upon reading such a document, and it may help explain certain behaviors on our part that they might have found puzzling at the time, but that will now make more sense to them. Others may feel a certain revulsion upon discovering this "unnatural" dysphoria of ours, not to mention a sense of betrayal in that they never got to know the "real" us...for better or for worse.

Neither outcome can be changed depending upon how each individual reacts to this revelation, and it will be up to them as to how they come to terms with what they now know about us. But at the very least, we won't have left them perpetually wondering what this was all about without this measure of closure.

[Teresa]

Roberta,
I tried starting one after my bad time when i first came out to my wife twenty years ago,I thought it would pick me up when i was down as a pick me up but it made such depresing reading after several months I stopped and threw it on the woodburner, It server a far better purpose for a few minutes by keeping me warm .

Sorry to spoil your idea , it didn't work for me , now it doesn't matter because I'm OK about my CDing situation .

Maybe I should try it again just to record the funny stories and good friends I've made .

[Tracii G]

I had thought about a diary years ago but I didn't want anyone to find it and read it.
Its kind of like telling on yourself.

[Elizabeth G]

Hi Roberta,

I wrote a "To whom it may concern" let some time ago in case something ever happened to me and someone found my stash and decided to tell my wife about it. Since that time my wife learned about my dressing and my stash is in a closet in the house so that letter is no longer necessary.

I also started somewhat of a diary as a homework assignment from my therapist decided to keep it up as an ongoing thing just because I found it helpful to me.

Elizabeth

[sometimes_miss]

Closest I came to a diary, is my truncated autobiography that explains how I wound up where I am today; a still messed up crossdresser; less confused, but still broken as far as being able to function exactly as what is commonly known as a normal man.
There's a disclaimer notice explaining what someone might find upon entering my home, in an envelope taped inside my entryway doors, so that police, firemen or EMS crews don't try to revive me should I be found dead.

[Sarah Doepner]

I've found a certain amount of satisfaction in writing over the years and have journals that I maintained for short periods throughout the years. None of them ever lasted longer than 6 months but they all prove to be as interesting as photos from the same time in my life.

I used the idea of a letter to my wife as a way to organize my thoughts as I waited to come out to her. She caught me first, but the work on the letter helped me respond in something other than total panic. After she passed away I was back in the closet and alone at home. I wrote another letter to my adult children to explain what they would find in the closet and how to dispose of it if I were to suddenly die or be tossed in prison or lost at sea (you get the idea). I ended up telling them, and again the letter helped me form my thoughts. Within the last year I decided to get a better handle on my gender identity and spent a few months seeing a counselor and in between those monthly sessions I would keep a journal of my thoughts and feelings. As the sessions wore on the journal entries got shorter but there were some very interesting ideas and realizations that I recorded and was able to use as I worked my way through things.

One value of a diary or letter or journal is you put your thoughts down and sometimes purge a lot of emotion as you do so. That keeps it from flooding out uncontrolled in a behavior or argument. The other value is going back and reading what you wrote down. You might just find thinking errors or false choices brought on by emotion rather than logic.

As the "most interesting man in the world" might say, I don't always write down my thoughts, but when I do I've probably been drinking. Stay thirsty my friends. ;-)

[taylor12]

Transgender have disadvantages in getting Job and getting the opposite sex partner unless you have lots of cash to attract them.
I do not need a diary as a transvestite.

[Heather J]

I started one about six months ago. I prefer to call it "My Suicide" letter

[Teresa]

Heather,
May I ask if that comment stems from your own experience or a light hearted slant on your CDing feelings.

Mine stemmed from almost ending my life and I thought staring a diary might improve the situation because it couldn't get much worse , but writing those feelings down was no help at all .

[Jaymees22]

I kept a journal for the first year of my journey and found it helpful. I don't do it any longer it got a little boring for me.

[Sabrina.K]

I had a vlog on youtube for a few months before purging it like a CD's first panty collection.

[Robertacd]

If having a diary makes you feel better, then go for it.

Frankly I don't see the point in doing it to explain your stash after you die. You will be dead, why care about what people think?

Besides the letter is not going to change anything for the kind of person that would object to your secret anyway.

[NicoleScott]

My wife knows I CD. She is the one it concerns, nobody else.

[Stephanie47]

I haven't read the other comments, so this may have already been covered. A diary is not such a bad idea especially if you are ending your time on this earth and haven't been out to family or loved ones. What will happen if you pass on and a family member finds your feminine wardrobe, pictures, etc. If the person has no prior knowledge what are they going to think? You may not really care being dead and so on, but, maybe you do not want their minds racing to the wrong conclusions. Maybe a brief history would be in order. I have wondered what would I do if my wife predeceases me or we died together in a car crash, etc. Our kids do not know our little secret.

[Cherylgyno]

Roberta. I never thought about doing a diary or a to whom it may concern letter.
As a child I would have worried about the wrong person finding it. Same goes for my time serving my country and away at college. I actually thought that there was something wrong with being a cross dresser.
I got married, my wife caught me. I promised to purge yada yada. My wife told me that she would not allow me to purge.
2 out of 3 of our children knew that I was a cross dresser. The only person left that I care about is my wife. If she precedes me in death no one will care. If I precede her she will instruct the funeral director to 👗 me then give me an old fashion Viking funeral.
My diary has been and always will be in my head.

[Ariana225]

I started one in my phone, my wife is the only other person that knows my 6 digit pin. I am out to her. The diary is for me to write in to express my feelings to words not for someone down the road to find. The to whom it may concern is just a way for me to write like I'm talking to someone else about my life, without anyone ever actually reading it that doesn't already know about me. I guess if the FBI wanted to know they could always hack my phone 😂