Stopping without anxiety and stress

[Tomi]

Hello,

I want to share my theory/experience about stoppin CDing. I say theory/experience because I stopped only for a month and a half which is not too long and I don't want to rush into any conclusions yet but since I never stopped for more then a week since I started CDing, it's a pretty long period already for me.

The reason I'm posting this is it seems to me that there is a general agreement in CD communities that we cannot stop it without the urge coming back or without dealing with massive anxiety. And although I do believe that this is ineed the case with many crossdressers I don't think it's a universal truth.

I think the misconception here is that for many the idea of "stopping" means a package deal of never dressing again and never having the urge again. It's obviously never gonna happen since the many years of possitive reinforcement hardwired many things into our brains. But I do belive that it is possible to have a healthy stressfree life without CDing even if the urge is always there from time to time.

To back up my theory I share my story in short. I started CDing 4 years ago when I was 27. It started with bra fetish and escalated into full dressing at home not just to setisfy sexual needs. About a year ago I realized that my dressing was indeed a fetish and I only dressed outside of sexual situation to higher up the stimulus. So I started deescelating and after 6 month I only dressed for sexual reasons once again. I never missed the "just doing things dressed" part. A couple month later I run into a relationship problem related to my CDing, and so I came to a crossroad.

So I decided to stop even though my wife never pressured me to stop, it was my decision. I started meditating daily (which I wanted to do anyway) which helped with the urge and helped see my CDing from a higher perspective. After a month my relationship with dressing started to change. I did have the urge once or twice a week but if the urge rose I started picturing the dressing and realized that the urge is more of a reflex of years of dressing rather then actual desire. I purged almost everything except a bra and a penty to not purge everything. I thought that if I purge everyithing than the urge will be more irresistible.

Now one and a half month later the way I see my CDing, that it is part of me, and always will be, and I accept that, but I'm getting more frustration and stress out of it than actual joy and happines, so I countinue my journy without it, if I can (mybe I can't, time will tell).

I want to clarify again that I'm not saying that anyone can stop and should stop it. I'm just saying that as everything else in the world it's personal thing, and there can be a set af curcumstances where one can stop it and still be happy and fulfilled. The question is how much you want to stop and how strongly is it hardwired into you.

I just wanted to have a story like this here because anyone who wants to stop all he/she can read is "you can't". And although I know that it's only because wverywone tries to be helpful and caring maybe there should be discussion about stopping too if someone truly wants to stop.

Tomi

[Paulie Birmingham]

Congratulations. I have always believed people can quit if they want to. It may be extremely difficult for some people.

[susanmichelle]

My opinion is just how much dressing is in your life. I?ve never done it for sexual reasons my reason is the comfort and sensual feelings I get say from shaved legs and stockings. When my legs were shaved the first time I had to continue as the growing out of the hair absolutely drove me nuts. Even now after 39 years of dressing and shaving it still drives me bonkers with the stubble pricking me everywhere. Guess I actually went a bit overboard as I have no hair on my body except for my head and eyebrows. So the feeling of shaving every two to three days keeps any discomfort I get from stubble down to a minimum. Along with perfume, body oils or lotions and the silky hosiery plus the soft and silky clothing that stimulates the senses.

I assume it?s more like alcohol or smoking it?s an addiction. And I?m definitely addicted to dressing and the sensitivity I get from it.

If you can quit I say more power to you. When it got to me so bad and was causing me problems with my last wife or rather that was her saying that was it. I told her the very first day about my dressing and she stated there wasn?t any problems with it. She even told her kids about it. They said they were ok with it and nothing more was said. Btw she?s now on her 5th divorce so I believe it?s more than the dressing as the others didn?t do it. I wish you all the luck if you do quit and your life is better for it. I?ve gone through all the purges guilt and shame thinking I was sick and so on but I assume the only thing I have to worry about is when it comes to the time to meet my maker and what judgment is given to me then.

When I went to see a shrink for almost a year. They ended up telling me there really wasn?t a cure for it. If I was okay with my life wasn?t suicidal or depressed from it then just live with it. At first I was skeptical but did what was best for me. I believe I would have gotten depressed if I would have quit. I wasn?t hurting anyone else if I was it was me I was hurting.

[Karren H]

Congratulations.... now keep that going for another 58 years... I know I couldn't stop for the last 62 years...

PS: In 58 years i probably won't be here to hear if you made it or not.... lol

[Krisi]

Crossdressing is something you do so if you want or need to stop, just stop doing it. In the morning when you get up, instead of putting on a bra and panties, put on a Tee shirt and briefs. Instead of a skirt and blouse, put on trousers and a shirt.

It's a matter of will power and of course, your desire to stop has to be stronger than your desire to dress.

I quit smoking about 40 years ago and I quit drinking more than ten years ago. If I had a need to quit dressing, I could quit dressing. Although I typically dress five days a week or more, I have no problem not dressing when we travel away from home.

You have to learn to control your urges, not let them control you.

[Sandi Beech]

Hi Tomi,

Good topic even though people probably think it has been covered before. If I had to guess, the number one reason someone may want to curtail dressing is because of the friction it can cause with one?s spouse. That was my case about 23 years ago. I was starting to get ultimatums from my wife and that was just about pantyhose, shaving, suntanning etc.
So I needed to back off or have serious problems.

The main thing which worked for me was to take up another obsession in the way of hobbies I was interested in. It did allow me to focus on other things and kept me out of trouble for a number of years. Even so the desire was still there. It was just suppressed to a manageable level.

Of course, fast forward 20 years, and my dressing came back to a level I had never attained before. So in my case it is possible to suppress it if I really want to. The trouble is, it is just too much fun for me to quit.

Sandi

[LilSissyStevie]

Another way to reduce the anxiety is to say "Hmmm, it's a fetish. So what? Where's that petticoat?"

[Kirsty2907]

Hi Tomi

Don?t want to rain on your parade ☔️

Think the jury?s out on this one still..

One thing I?ve learnt on this site is that the CD label is wide and varied in this department..

Some are full time, full on, others not so much

I?ve been at it for probably close to around 30 years, and in that time through availability, life, non desire, stopping have regularly gone months with no activity.

But here I am 30 years down the line and still what I?d call as a recreational CD.

Good luck if it?s truly stopping you aim for, but as I say jury is out as to if you have stopped.

If you?ve only been at it 4 years maybe a good chance at stopping as maybe not part of your ingrained DNA yet, but just over a month is like coming up for air.

I?m like you insofar as interested in stopping stories as think that?s what I want, so keep me posted...

[docrobbysherry]

Tomi, I think you may be treading in waters that r over your head. Many here r NOT CD's. For Trans dressing as not an option they can just easily give up. Because it's part of being the female they feel they r!
But, I'm not a trans. So, I relate to your compulsion, fetish, and sexual needs to dress.:o

Let me explain something u don't understand yet. U r very young! U r going to be a completely different person at 35 than u r now. Read your post above when u reach that age. I'll be surprised if u don't chuckle at the naivety of your words!:heehee:

[CynthiaD]

Yes, I can stop cold anytime I want to. I know I can put it out of my mind and not think about it.

But I don’t want to, and I can’t imagine anything I would want less.

It took me a long time to accept crossdressing as a normal part of my life. Once I did, a whole new world opened up to me. I don’t crossdress for thrills, but when I’m presenting as female, I have this intense feeling of "correctness." That something that once was broken is now fixed. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Why would I want to turn my back on that? My female clothing is now just my regular clothes, and I like it that way.

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi Tomi :hugs:, I believe that Crossdressing is like the Mafia , You just can't Quit! >Orchid**O:daydreaming:O**

[Teresa]

Tomi,
Whenever this question arises very few mention gender dysphoria . You admit that at the moment it's possibly more a fetish thing , so dressing usually means sex.

Some of us may have been through that at one time but when that dies down the need to dress hasn't that is when we have to consider something stroger is driving the need . Attempting to stop and possibly purging clothes proves not to be the answer it only make matters worse . That is the point when you know you have dysphoria and possibly need professional help in finding some answers .

Stopping for some is impossible the suppression of dysphoria is mentally destructive . Not stopping isn't a weakness it's being honest with yourself you are trans so you have to find ways to live with that need .

[Lori Ann Westlake]

This reminds me of that saying: "Giving up smoking is easy! I've done it dozens of times."

I did give up smoking for maybe five years a long time ago, then took it up again. Finally I gave it up for good sixteen years ago, and haven't smoked since. As for CDing though, I've given that up a few times--or rather, tried to--a very long time ago. Finally I just gave up giving it up.

Even quitting smoking presents different problems for different people. I hardly ever thought about smoking since I gave it up. My wife had more trouble. She gave up smoking ten years ago, but she said she still can't help thinking about cigarettes. I guess it depends how much of the addiction is physiological and retrainable, and how much is psychological and persistent.

Since people crossdress for a variety of motives, and often a different mix of those motives, some people will have a harder struggle than others to give it up. In particular anyone with significant gender dysphoria and/or actual discomfort with male clothing is going to be constantly under stress. When CDing is more sexually motivated, I dare say the task will be easier. But even "sexual" motivation can be a complex mix in itself: part fetishism, part something else, with nonsexual elements thrown in as well. I've found that what made "giving it up" hard was not feelings of anxiety, just irresistible temptation to repeat the thrilling experience.

I dare say keeping the bra and panty was a good idea. Perhaps if you threw everything away, you'd be facing an empty future, a desert without crossdressing for the rest of your life, and that would seem too daunting a challenge to embark on. You'd be tempted to throw up your hands. With a few items around, you can always tell yourself "I can still dress if I want to," which makes it easier, "but I don't have to dress today. Or this week..."

So good luck with your efforts if this is what works for you. I hope you'll continue to let us know how you're progressing--or not progressing, as the case may be.

[Tomi]

Hi All,

Thank you for all your answers.

I tried to stress it but maybe I wasn't clear enough which case I'm sorry. I know that there are many types of CDers and I know that for many or most of them it's not a choice, either because of gender dysphoria or because CDing is so huge part of their identity. I'm not trying to convince them to stop CDing, in fact I'm not trying to convince anybody :) Hell, maybe I can't stop it, I don't know.

The reason I post this thread is that I know that there is a group of CDers who wants to stop (just like myself), not because they repress it or because their wife makes them, simply because they not happy being a Cder but the urge is strong and need some guiding. And if they google "how to stop CDing" to get help or to read about other stories to not feel alone all they find is "you can't stop it's always gonna come back". And maybe to a person with gender dysphoria it's harmful to stop but maybe it's also harmful to tell someone "you can't stop, stop trying" if his true desire is to stop. I hope I'm making sense :)

All I want is to have a few "here are some advice/stories if you want to stop" type of posts among all the "stop trying, just accept yourself" posts which are all great honestly and I'm happy that there is a community which encouragees accepting.

Maybe I'm young, maybe I'm naive and 1 week from now I'm gonna tell you that you are right. But right now I believe that we are conscious human beings with free will, and the desire to CD is not written in stone just like any desire we have. And if someone want he can overcome it. And if that is true maybe not all of us wants to hear the "you can't stop it" phrase when asking for help. And maybe it's only that it's 1 time out of 100 or less, but if that is the case, there should be 1 post for every 100 post for that type of CDer too.

Is it nonsense? :)

[BLUE ORCHID]

Everyone controls their own Destiny, Good luck with your choices >Orchid**!:daydreaming:!**

[April Rose]

Tomi, it is most certainly NOT nonsense. We are all different, that is for sure. I think that the one thing you can say about the people in the transgender spectrum is that there are no two of us alike. In some cases the only thing we have in common is the cross dressing. I know one former crossdresser/activist who still was attending trans social events , but who never dressed any more , because at 84 she had just lost the desire.
In my case, though I have been attracted to feminine clothes, for my entire life, I have stopped dressing several times for long periods of time. The longest, almost three years. I had reasons to do so, and they were valid ones. If you think that cross dressing is causing you more discomfort than it is relieving, then by all means you are logically justified in doing so. Especially if it is interfering with your relationship.

When I stopped for the longest period of time, I did so with the help of a psychologist. I spent plenty of time and thought on preparing myself to do so. Consequently, when I decided I needed to start again, I didn't see it as a failure of will or as being overcome.

There is an analogy to the smoking thing here, though it is not exact. This is more an obsession/compulsion than a physical addiction like smoking. I too, have quit smoking lots of times. But, you know what? Eventually, years ago, I quit for good.

I think you are on the right track with the meditation. Hobbies, sports, or other activities that you really enjoy can help as well.

The idea of sites like these, I think, is that we should help each other. Some times that requires stopping to think so that we don't become an echo chamber for our enthusiasms. Your posting this question is a real contribution, in that it will encourage some real thinking, outside the familiar well worn paths.

[jenabrooks]

Look out for Pink Fog it will always be up ahead. If you still have a bra and anything else you may have hidden from us wink wink, You are still crossdressing just not as much.

[Star01]

My only comment is that anything I said in the past about quitting and stopping should be taken with a grain of salt. I am not unaccepting about my crossdressing, everyone else in my circle is unaccepting. I will never not be a crossdresser, I am simply temporarily out of action for reasons beyond my control. I will be 70 this fall so buckle up dear, it?s a long and winding road.

[Stephanie47]

IMHO, a short hiatus from cross dressing proves nothing. There are many factors governing our lives. I also believe there is body chemistry/hormonal influences/psychological factors which govern responses. When I was in the army (Nam infantry) I had absolutely zero interest in cross dressing, and, basically women were a distant memory. My priority was living. If I got a clean pair of fatigue pants every three months I was happy. Footwear rotted off your feet. I got married and thought cross dressing was a distant memory. They resurfaced for whatever reason. I suspect while in the military my body was flooded with male hormones which overrode anything else. Out of the military with a low stress job and a beautiful wife I suspect there was a return of female influences in my chemistry. Just speculation like anything else. When my wife was diagnosed with three negative breast cancer in 2016 the furthest thing in my mind was donning women's clothing. My time was spent being a supportive male husband and protector. Again, pure speculation, but I suspect there was hormonal action.

Short self imposed denial is easy to accomplish. It's the long term denial that is an achievement. But, further, I have to ask at "what cost" does one subject himself?

[Star01]

Stephanie_47, I can relate to the service experience, Early 70?s, flight deck of a carrier working in catapults launching planes. Focus was important to avoid getting hurt or worse on the flight deck. Intakes, jet exhaust, afterburners, spinning propellers, we had to keep our heads on a swivel. No women on board ships in those days, if someone got caught dressed in woman?s clothes they would probably get booted out with a section 8.

[Teresa]

The need to stop is often driven by guilt and shame , when I discovered I was born transgendered I accepted there was nothing I could do to change that so I had to learn to stop feeling guilty and ashamed . Obviously if you have a wife /partner who doesn't approve it also adds to those feelings .

At your age I had so much going on with my life the need to dress was more on the back burner , I snatched moments when I could , as I grew older the feeling became stronger instead of gradually fading away .

Thinking you can stop is one thing achieving it is very different and usually it will come bouncing back just when you think it's gone away . People have various triggers which are sometimes very hard to explain but they will always be there and catch you out .

[Paulie Birmingham]

If you want to quit, delete your account and dont come back.

[Teresa]

Paulie,
That's a silly thing to say , for starters you can't delete your account and secondly not being on the forum won't stop people dressing otherwise why do people join in the first place ?

[GretchenM]

Tomi, much of what you say is true of some people who have or desire to crossdress. And we are all different and follow different paths. The science though says something different for most of us. Certainly for some it is a fetish while it is an absolute need for others. There is a well defined pattern that nearly all of us follow in the course of our lives. There are variations along the way and some are able to not comply with inner feelings and needs that are not just simple desires and interests like a hobby. For the vast majority the behavior has a good deal of an intermittent aspect. And determining whether something is a fetish or not is a difficult process because the boundaries between fetish-habit-need are very fuzzy and best left to the professionals.

As Teresa points out, anyone can stop at any time but if the behavior is a need dysphoria of some degree will arise at some point. The dysphoria is really an important aspect, almost critical. If you feel dysphoric something is not consistent and your brain is creating that discomfort to tell you that you have a flat tire that needs to be changed. All of that occurs in the subconscious brain and the vast array of neural networks that have basic patterns undoubtedly set by some kind of genetic influence. As behavioral geneticists point out, all behavior is rooted in genetics - it is just a question of how much genetics vs. environmental influence there is.

And then there is the most fundamental question of all. Our personalities and sense of self follow definite patterns - it is not just choices. I think you generally get that part. Thus, the question arises as to why, usually between the age of 5 and 10 years old, do so many of us have this powerful drive to put on girl clothes? Psychologists and psychiatrists are in general agreement that the desire that drives some to do that is clearly not just curiosity or a sexual thing. Why do some children show well defined gender reversal as young as 2 years old even before they have developed a defined concept of gender at around 3 years old? Two year old boys who refuse to play with boy toys and are uncomfortable when they have to wear certain clothes. This is likely an emerging identity that is the reverse of what one would expect based on their sex. There are things going on in the subconscious that are not even reaching the child's consciousness.

I don't really want to play the "age card," but after 75 3/4 years I have had periods, as long as 8 years, where I had no desire to express my female-like traits and characteristics in the form of clothing. But those female-like aspects were always present even when I tried to suppress them only to create a severe dysphoria in the process.

The psychologists have found that is a normal pattern with people who have a certain configuration to their identity, their sense of self, or as the neuroscientists call it, your personal Theory of Mind. For me, the dressing is simply expressing something that is there no matter what clothes I wear or even if I am buck naked. For most of us it is that way even though we might think it is just a desire to crossdress. It is well known that our subconscious often plays some dirty tricks on our conscious mind. Best example is the idea of "conscious decisions." Your consciousness has no ability to make decisions; it only interprets sensory input and implements the decisions that are made in the other 99% of your brain where consciousness does not exist. It doesn't even determine whether something is logical or not - that is done elsewhere and the result is sent to the consciousness to inform it of the results of millions and millions of calculations done without your knowledge or you even sensing they are occurring. Your consciousness writes the articles that are published in your personal newspaper. It is probably just communicating what the reporters learned - but it is the reporters (the subconscious) that do the hard work.

I will be the first to congratulate you if, after 20 years, you no longer have this need and in that time the feelings never touched you. But the chances are that you do have some degree of gender reversal. It may be small; it may be large and is just growing now. But I would bet good money that it is there. Otherwise, why would you have tried it in the first place and found it satisfied something in you that was important to your sense of self?

There is nothing wrong with that. We are all different and nobody is more or less different than anyone else. The average tends to set the normal, but the average is about the most useless statistic there is. Much more important is the variance which defines the diversity and in humans the variance approaches infinity. We are all different and therefore we are all equal. Love who you are, but who you are is a journey of discovery in itself. It is always changing, but it changes according to a vague, highly generalized genetic pattern that keeps the changes within certain boundaries that fit our species. It is like a rubber band or a sheet of latex. It can take many shapes but it does have limits.

Keep up the creative thinking. Your posts are very good.

[Aunt Kelly]

Have you considered that there is more to the picture than you are willing to admit? No one could make the diagnosis from forum posts, but the symptoms you describe could be related to gender dysphoria.

[Cheryl T]

I could stop if I wanted to.
It's just that I don't want to. I feel more at peace with myself this way, more in touch with all my emotions.

Yes, I could stop. I would miss it greatly and I don't know what effect it would have on me, but I could stop if the situation was right.
For now, excuse me, I have just epilated and I need to apply lotion before I dress.

[kimdl93]

....I quit smoking about 40 years ago and I quit drinking more than ten years ago. If I had a need to quit dressing, I could quit dressing. Although I typically dress five days a week or more, I have no problem not dressing when we travel away from home.

You have to learn to control your urges, not let them control you.

When i read this, I thought of John Prine’s song “When I Get to Heaven”, where he says (as a former smoker and cancer survivor) ”I’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s 9 miles long” For those of us who once smoked and quit, that desire can linger...may never fully go away.

I suppose its the same for some cross dressers.

[SaraLin]

I'm trying to figure out how to say what I'm thinking without sounding all "lecture-y". Here goes...


I think that the idea of making any decision or "attempt" to stop is laying an artificial "want" on top of the real one.
If someone didn't want to do it, they just wouldn't. It's just that simple. Without the "want", there would be no "doing" - right?

The real reason it's so hard to quit is that what people really want, is to keep going. There might be a whole boat load of reasons why they "should" or "have to" stop - and it might be possible to quit. The problem is that there will always be that yearning, that "itch you can't scratch". Can it be resisted? Will it fade away with time? Maybe for some. Probably not, for many others.

Where YOU stand is for you to decide. How strong is that yearning? How badly to you want to "scratch the itch" and put something on? How do you feel about yourself before/during/after?

Whatever path you choose, I'm sure we all wish you nothing but happiness and success.

[Michelle1955]

My 2 cents, the word / definition of transgender came about to cover basically all of us. CDing definition is wearing cloths of the opposite sex. By default in the public eyes we are all CD’ers.

But their are a lot of people that the thoughts of being a girl started back at very early childhood, for me my 1st pair of panties was at 5 years old+/-, and thoughts before that maybe back to 3 years old but fuzzy memory.

So it was not sexual, as a teenager was extremely hard on me. My brain was saying female and my body was male.
Once my wife asked me about my bras and mad a statement if I was having some fun, I said no.

Cloths are cloths, panties / shareware daily, bras are my next level to satisfy my brain needs at times.
Outer clothing also helps the need.

Do I need to be fully dressed to satisfy my brain NO, do I need female clothing on daily by all means YES.

I’m transgender, and could check off multiple sub headings on the list.
By some definitions I’m heterosexual been married nearly 42 years, but been female for over 60 years according to my brain wiring. So guess I could consider myself a lesbian in some ways. But society would go bonkers.

I am me, I live my life that I was dealt the best I can. I wear the cloths I like.
I have compassion with the young kids that have the same issue I had, some parents accept /some do not. I would have loved to go to school as a young girl. But that is an issues now, back then I would have been in a hospital locked away ‘ burn at the stake.

All of us are somewhat different in our pat, we are individuals.

[Nadine Spirit]

Hmmmm...... in my 20s I was sure that what I had was a sexual fetish. I quit it at some point in my late 20s. Though I can't really say I quit it, so I suppose I thought I quit it, lol. About 20 years later I quit CDing again, this time for keeps, as I decided to change teams and thus their is no longer anything cross about my dressing, lol. I too used to talk about free will. I still believe in free will. I still believe that we are all free to choose. I just realized I was tired of choosing to make myself miserable.

Too you OP, and anyone else wishing to quit, I wish you my very best in your endeavor!

[Star01]

I realize in a moment of clarity a few days ago after commenting about purging and quitting. If I think that I want to purge and quit and the first thing I do is announce it to my friends on a crossdressing forum was I really serious about doing either?

The way Insee it I would have to purge, quit dressing and stop visiting all the websites and purge twenty some years of my photos. After further review I have gotten that crazy idea out of my mind. I am in a restrictive DADT but even some dressing is better than none at all. I will always be a crossdresser so I have already moved on from that idea and will deal with the obstacles.

[sometimes_miss]

I kind of compare the desire to crossdress, with the desire to scratch a frequent itch. Sure, you do your best to ignore it, and if perhaps have other things occupying your mind enough of the time, can keep it out of your mind, but when you add more stressors into the calculation, something has got to give, and for me, it's crossdressing. I went for about 10 years, during which the desire very rarely raised in my mind for more than a couple of seconds, and then was gone as soon as it arose.
But when everything else in my life came crashing down, the desire to crossdress returned very intensely, to the point where thoughts of dressing interfered with my daily activities and even my work.
After discovery, and divorce, and my life settled down. I was able to quit for many months at a time, but with always the slight desire to do it.
In the end, I decided that there was really no reason to suppress it; and indulged my desires to dress up. Why? Because I knew that there was really no reason to punish myself, putting up with that 'itch' and not scratching it, relieving the irritation it induced into my life.
So I dress up, and the 'itch' is gone. But I always know that if I got involved with a woman, and life got too stressful, I'd be back in the same situation as I was in with my ex wife, and eventually that relationship would crash and burn, too.
So I remain single. I will date, but carefully introduce TG topics, to see how my date feels about it, including how she'd feel about dating a TG person.
So far, no luck. Turns out the percentage of women who are turned off by thinking of a guy as feminine, is almost all of them.

[Leslie Mary S]

Tomi, even keeping one item and you are leaving the door to come back.

The last time i stopped dressing was for about 8 years. I'm still here and still dress.

[Tomi]

Hi All,

Thank you for all your answers, the encouraging ones and the critical ones too. And it was good to read about your personal stories in the matter. I try too be not dilusional or repressive or hard on myself so I guess I see how it goes, right know I feel good about myself even though the urge rises from time to time. I certainly don't want to be miserable so if down do road it turns out that stopping does more harm then good, I guess I keep Cding.

Star01, I hear you but therecould be more then one reason to post a thread. My reason was that it bugged me a little that I saw little to none conversation about "stopping without feeling miseralbe". And I just wanted to put another one on the internet so if someone who was intrested in the topic could find opinions different form the general consensus. I believe that discussion and debate pushes forward the society and that is what i was trying to do here :)

Leslie Mary S, maybe you are right, it was an idea of mine based on my experiences with myself. I think if I threw out everything than the urge would be bigger. It sort of like with people who are taking pills aganst panick attacks. They do carry around the medicine but almost never took it because the sheer existence of the medicine calms them down.

[kimdl93]

This has been an interesting thread. Its good to be reminded that one size seldom fits all.

I am inclined to roughly paraphrase Mark Twain, might say its easy to quit....I have done it many times. In truth my every quitting attempt has been painful at the outset, and ended in relapse. Perhaps that is because I always approach cross dressing as an addictive behavior.

[Star01]

sometimes_miss, I like your analogy about scratching an itch. Some of us have tiny mosquito bites and others have a full blown case of itchy rash.

[Beverley Sims]

Stopping requires a lot of will power.

It seems won't power is a lot stronger in the majority of cases.

[Tomi]

Hi All,

I thought I give an update of my progress to anyone who is intrested in it.

I stopped CDing 3 months now. The urge is less powerfull and more distant everyday. Right now I have a relatively strong urge in every 2 weeks which lasts a couple of minutes, but fades quickly. And the other thing is when the urge rises it's not so much about the whole CDing as an experience anymore, rather it's about a specific item which misses at the moment.

A couple things that helped me get here that I want to share with you I believe that I needed ALL of them to stop CDing organically and not feeling miserable about it. Without either of those thing I would have relapsed by know. Which is OK by the way, but more on that later.

First I meditate everyday once or twice. That way I can refelect on my urge and not repressing it. If it rises during meditation, I just stay with it and let it pass, that way I experience it's not concrete nature, which means it always comes and goes, just like bad weather.

Second I have hobbies that channel my intellectual/creative energy so I have less oportunity to think about CDing.

I purged gradually. I always purged the items that no longer missed so much and kept only the core items. And if my relationship changed to another item, I purged it too. So I purged everything in two months. Right now I only miss my bra and my wig if I'm missing it at all.

And last, I know that if I fail, it's ok to go back. My wife accepts me and supports me, just right now it's better for our relationship if I'm not doing it. So the thought of 'stopping forever' isn't there which would mean it's harder to stop.

+1: I know that my CD urge is not so deeply in me as many of you so I'm sure that helped stopping too. I only started CDing three years ago, and I have 2-3 experience from younger age which could be related to this. So it's more of a "fetish to experience my defenitely real but not so big feminine side".

The interesting thing I noticed which is wirth mentioning, that my sex life with my wife is far better and more intimite, because I don't channel a large part of my sexual energy to a side activity.

Again I want to stress that I don't say everyone should do it, I just want to have this sort of experience in the forum too. Mybe I'm not the only one with this set of circumstances and I wanted to have this sort if discussion, which maybe can help or encourage others who want the same thing as me.

Cheers,
Tomi

[JulieC]

Hi Tomi! First and foremost I wanted to say I really appreciate you staying here and keeping us updated! That leads into my first thought...

There's a potential that this forum has massive confirmation bias. If (if) there are people who have been able to successfully stop being CDer, they're almost certainly not here anymore. So, we have a forum of people who either never thought of quitting (I think that's very, very few of us, if any at all) or people who tried to quit and couldn't. So, the responses here will be from people who didn't try to quit or failed. However, I and I know others here have searched around the net and tried to find success stories of people who stopping CDing. That's a virtual desert. Contrast those two points of information, and to me that speaks volumes about the ability of people to stop CDing.

I think it's dangerous to view crossdressing as an addiction. Addictions can be mastered and produce healthy, long term benefits in so doing. Psychological repression yields the opposite effects. I am not a trained psychotherapist, but I seriously doubt any psychotherapist would advise attempting to repress who we are. Addiction isn't who a person is; it's a physical and mentally learned behavior. We're not born addicts.

It's true that being a CDer isn't an A/B thing, either you are and thus spend 10000% of your time CDing or thinking about it, or you are not. I am a crossdresser, but I also don't feel the need to dress frequently. I can go weeks or months without it and be ok. I can't go years. So, for some like me or people who have it even less, it might be possible to repress it for years at a time and think you're ok. Ultimately, repressing CDing doesn't mean you've changed. It just means you've stopped expressing it. For me, the longest I went was a couple of years when I was actively trying to repress it. I'd purged, swore up and down to myself that I wasn't going to do it anymore, and more. It didn't work. Fast forward two years and I found myself in pantyhose. The impact this had on me was mentally intense. It was a virtual explosion inside my mental, spiritual self. I recognized then that whatever I was, it was not a person who could repress CDing, and doing so was going to be unhealthy.

Maybe there are others who could go 10, 15, 20 years without crossdressing and think they are fine. But, at what cost? Others have noted here before that the lack of CDing changes their behavior, their outlook, and their interactions with others. There are some wives that have been mentioned on this forum that actively encourage their husbands to crossdress when their husbands become edgy and irritable. Maybe it seems like it's helping to repress, but maybe it's causing negative reactions as well that you might think are not associated...but are. Self confirmation bias. Having a strong desire to stop doesn't change who you are. Further, you also have to consider just where that desire to stop is coming from. Internal only? Doubtful. Little boys are raised with enormous pressure to conform to what it means to be a guy. Non-conformance is bad, penalized, beaten either physically or emotionally or both, and more. Self loathing among crossdressers it not uncommon. Where does that self loathing come from? Outside. If there was no social construct against CDing, nobody would try to stop. Think about that.

Is it a fetish or it is crossdressing? Again I'm no psycho therapist, but if you're desire to crossdress is at least sometimes not associated with sexual desires, it's unlikely it's a fetish. I had thoughts that way too, that it was a fetish. For me, a central element of crossdressing is pantyhose. The first time I ever crossdressed (before the age of 10) was in my mother's pantyhose. I've always been sexually attracted to women in pantyhose. My wife indulges this with me. But, I don't need pantyhose in the bedroom to function, and don't think about it as a need. It's something enjoyed. I mentioned above about the time I went two years without crossdressing and then put on pantyhose. That was in a completely non-sexual setting. It had nothing to do with being a fetish. It might do to carefully assess for yourself whether it is a fetish or crossdressing. Interestingly, it could be both. It's not neither. Just because you've stopped it as a fetish doesn't mean it's not crossdressing. But, if it's at least some crossdressing, then trying to address this is a fetish could be as dangerous as pouring water on a grease fire.

Yes, we do have free will. Yet, we are also who we are because of our genes. I can put in colored contacts and change the visual appearance of my eyes. It doesn't change my eye color inside. I can put on men's clothes and give the visual appearance that I am a guy. It doesn't change the reality of my being a crossdresser. Having free will and the ability to repress CDing for months, years, even decades doesn't mean you're not a CDer if crossdressing is your nature. You should be aware that some studies have been done on the structure of the brains of transgender people. There's a lot of science that yet needs to be done on this, as its only just beginning to become vogue for science to get into this, and thus research dollars being available. However, the science points to TG brains having structures of the opposite sex of that they were born with. So, if you are a crossdresser as opposed to having a fetish, there's a fair chance your brain is wired this way, no matter how much meditation or repression happens.

One of the forum members above noted their experiences on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Another noted their experiences being in Vietnam. It would never be the case that we would see women in dresses, heels, hose, and makeup in such situations. Our inner selves don't identify such situations as being those in which we would find ourselves in such attire. That doesn't make us less female. A woman isn't less of a woman because she's walking across a flight deck in a flight suit, nor is she more of a woman walking in heels and a business suit on the way to an interview. How crossdressers express themselves is no less complex of a picture. I am not less of a woman because I look down and see sneakers on my feet, and I am not more of a woman because I look down and see pretty red heels on my feet. I am who I am. But, if I spend too long not seeing those heels on my feet, my expression of self becomes too tightly tied to being a man, and that isn't who I am. Denying my own identity is unhealthy. There are many women who never wear feminine attire. But, they aren't any less a woman for doing so. For women doing that, their identity can still be solid; they always know they are a woman as they are presented with that evidence every time they take their clothes off. For crossdressers who never wear feminine attire, there is never any confirmation of their identity, and the psychological pressure of that will eventually mount.

I wish you the best of luck. I really do. I also hope you continue to post here and tell us of your journey. I would pass on a couple of bits of advice; if you're not sharing this journey with your wife, you should be. Two, if you're not sharing this journey with a psychiatrist who is skilled in transgender topics, you are venturing out into a completely unknown world armed with....nothing. A psychiatrist trained in TG topics can help you navigate this, and would never try to convince you to be TG. Doing so without such support is very likely to lead to serious problems down the road.

[Paulie Birmingham]

Congratulations. Enjoy life.

[Leslie Mary S]

Tomi
Remember this. On the beach (your life) the waves (your urges / desires to cross dress) normally are small to median in size, the amount of wind blowing (events around you) determines how big those waves are. Every so often something happens (Major life events) earthquake, storm at sea, etc things that we do not realize are happening and could cause a very large wave.
You can put in breakwaters and dams to settle down the wave action even to mirror smooth, but that big wave may breach/destroy your controls of your protected beach.

Now back to my closet.

[Tomi]

JulieC, thank you fro your long response. I'm not gonna argue because I agree with most of it. Right now it makes sense for me to not doing it. I went over pros and cons, and the pros have won so I'm not doing it, but the minute I feel it's doing more harm then good, I just go back. It's the good thing about meditation. I reflect on the nature of my thoughts and desires all the time and right now I think that my CDing is just a type of expression of my feminity and I used this expression for 4 years and I now try a different path, thats all. During meditation I feel that the urge comes and goes and the anti-concrete nature of it helps me to see it differently than before. But it can be very well the case that down do road something happens and I go back to CDing.

I'm getting triggers all the time. But again because of meditation I can realize the trigger before it results in uncontrollable urge. I catch it in the act so to speak.

And of course I'm together with my wife in this. She knows about everything and if oneday I go to her that I'm sorry I have to CD again, I know she will understand it. And yes the drive to stop is just partly mine, it's her desire too, but that doesn't mean that she's controlling or that she doesn't love me for who I am. We don't do a lot of things in relationship that we would do single. And as long as I feel that CDing is not represents some poart of me that I can't express in other way then I will do it again.

As the title of the post says, my goal is not to stop it no matter what. I want to stop it "without anxiety and stress". And the method I'm using right now seems to work. But we'll see...

[Alex!]

Interesting discussion. For me, crossdressing is not a behavior related to gender dysphoria. Like many men, I suspect, the act is the result of heterosexual interest in girls/women combined with fumbling exploration during puberty. Put another way, I can recall developing a sexual interest in girls, but that to explore this at a young age meant breaking taboos and rules (I was a kid after all - access to porn was virtually impossible). As I became an older teen, it was clear girls took no interest in me so even the possibility of sex was unlikely. So, having access to relatively rare frilly female things meant I could explore this aspect of the opposite sex privately. This form of exploration effectively "locked in" what one might call a fetish. As we know well, the sexual urge is powerful, and this can be expressed in a strong urge to crossdress. As I get older, the sexual component remains but the act has become more refined - I now consider crossdressing an art form (I don't aim to pass as a women; rather, I aim to pass with dignity, i.e., "He looks good in a dress!"). In some cases, apparently, crossdressing can reveal something deeper, or it can otherwise add form to feelings that one is in the wrong body gender-wise. I think in those instances the crossdressing was inspired by a different set of circumstances not related to sexual exploration. I cannot speak to that in any detail as I have no personal experience.

Another clue that crossdressing is not a behavior related to gender dysphoria in my case is that I do not feel at ease or otherwise comfortable dressed as a woman in public. I can get by, to be sure, and there remains a thrill in doing so, but I am not comfortable. I feel like a fraud, on edge, and paranoid. As an introvert, I am already going way outside my comfort zone dressing in female clothing.