Venting frustration with the "closet".

[Ellaine]

Reading a number of TG forums, one commonly sees great joy resulting from small personal advances, and great sadness as personal relationships are tested to breaking point, and still others who have it all in balance and enjoy their own level of socialising and getting out. But real pain is so often unexpressed.
I am at last, telling myself after 20odd yrs that I no longer accept the guilt and refuse to be boxed in by shame or non-acceptance. How I translate this into action is a process I am dealing with now, but it has been such a long hard road keeping my family at ease and myself caged. The effect on me has been disasterous. The recognised phases of guilt, self-loathing, and depression, culminated in me becoming mentally ill and cutting myself off from friends and society in general. The whole experience, looking back has been so very painful and so gradual. To come to terms with myself after all this time is a great relief, yet I still am not sure where I am headed with this new attitude. The next few days and weeks is yet another phase starting, but I know I was not far from being suicidal.
I have this picture now, of many men being in the same or similar unstated pain and desperation that I felt, putting on a brave face for the family but slowly, invisibly drying up inside.
Having put this into words, am I right in thinking there hundreds of men keeping it all together and dying just a tiny bit each day? Was my state so rare? How can we know? The thought that there are many like I was, is a terrible state of affairs and I now wonder if I can't somehow, do something, I don't know what, but help to break this illogical and brutal oppresion that so many hidden sufferers are feeling.

Helen Boyds' "My Husband Betty" has a section toward the end, which explains how "crossdressers" have alienated themselves from other groups, like gays, BDSM fetishists and even women. This has opened my eyes somewhat and I agree with a lot of her analasys.

My own suffering, was of course as a result of my own acceptance of social and family pressure and the depression feeds on itself if not addressed, so many of you will just scoff and say I let it happen. Well yes I did. Fair comment. But now I wish so much, I could help others in the same boat.
I wonder if we do anywhere near enough as an illogically "unacceptable" group. Surely we do our Grandchildren a diservice, "protecting" them from reality.

I'm just posting this as a heartfelt rant. It may not mean much, but I just had to air it.

[Sweet Marie]

I don't have any great thought on this as I feel I would not do it justice. I do feel you are going in the right direction; that is, laying it all out in this forum for others to read and offer their own stories and advice. I for one applaud you.

For me; the one part of CDing that has been so hurtfull to me as a person and still is, is the isolation. I am retired and able to dress en femme and go out of the house everyday if I wish. The week ends are my wife's. We do talk about it to one another and sometimes we do things together with me as Marie but I feel like I owe her the husband(man) she married. Fair is fair.

I could go on and on but I am sure there are much wiser people in this forum that will respond. Take care.

Marie

[Eugenie]

Hi Elaine,

I have very similar feelings about all I had to do through out my life to let the rest of the family outside my feminine side.

I'm just a little older than you, I turned 60 this month and I've been x-dressing from age 11 or 12 at the latest, I can't even remember.

However I remember vividly all the painful times when I was trying to x-dress and couldn't do it.

The fact that my wife was informed by me very soon after our wedding somewhat eased my life but since she never wanted to accept it, just tollerate it, that has left me pretty unsatisfied.

It is only a few years ago that I've finaly made peace with that side of me and decided to live it more freely. I now participate to forums like this one and that is a great help. I've met several other "sisters". I've come out to a few friends. I've reorganised my clothes in a separate closet just so my wife isn't forced to face my feminity every time she opens the cupboard wher I had them together with my drab clothes... I agree that was not very delicate from my part.

I have a faint feeling that my wife is starting to understand a little bit of my other personality.

If I have a chance to visit the UK I'll try to contact you if that's ok.
:hugs:
Eugenie

[Annaliese]

What you have put in words is how I have felt for years untell my wife found out, that was the day, I left my cage, that I had put my self in for all those year. We had a lot to go through but little by little she became more accepting and I became a nicer person to be around. If you ask my wife now she would have wanted to know from the first, those first years would have been much more enjoyable. She would also say that if she would have know at the first she would have never married me. So it is a catch 22.

I think this address 90% of us if not more.

Thank you for this post.

Anna

[Kate Simmons]

It doesn't happen overnight Ellaine. It took me 40 + years to get where I am. It's not easy by any means. These days, I'm Ericka by default meaning that when everything else fails, Ericka is always there for me and always will be it seems. Not a separate entity per se but an all encompassing one that takes care of everything. Ericka Kay

[Sejd]

Dear Ellaine
It is an important thread you wrote, at least for me. When I Look at the pictures of my oldest sons wedding this March I look like an old man who was on his last leg. After We came back from the wedding (it was in Australia) I began to go to therapi, and was helped to embrace my transvestite soul which I had held in for over twenty some years. I shaved off my beard, I began dressing up again, my wife supported me one hundred procent. I am like a new person, alive again and I look ten years younger. Keeping ones CD person hidden is a sure way to kill yourself.
thanks for the post Ellaine
Sejd:love:

[Satrana]

Was my state so rare? How can we know?

Ellaine

At least you are one step ahead of most CDs who are so deep in their closets that they will not even join a CD forum. The day you joined here and opened up to your feelings, was the day you left your closet.

There is the old saying "To help others you must first help yourself". Bringing out your CD side helps you become a better person and in turn you can have healthier relationships. Staying in the closet is life imprisonment with no hope of personal growth.

Never let yourself or others stop you from being the real you!:hugs:

[AmberTG]

It would seem that so many of us have this experience in common! I started seeing a therapist in April 2006 for some depression issues, that came about at my annual physical at the V.A. hospital, when the doctor asked me if I had any depression (the V.A.'s been doing that lately) I said yes and she asked me if I'd like to talk to someone about it. I said yes, why not, it can't hurt anything.
OH what a can of worms that opened! I always thought I had adult ADD, found out it was clinical depression, from hiding my CD and TG issues for so many years. (I'm 51 now) Going through that process of digging these things out and talking about them was quite emotional, but it has helped me SO much, I'm a lot more mellow now and comfortable with myself. I have been able to really come to terms with myself now. A strange thing, the therapist asked me at one session if I ever had thoughts of suicide, I said yes, doesn't everybody? Well apparantely, well adjusted people don't. I was supprised at just how messed up I was. I'm so glad that I got help, and I'm so glad I found this website to be able to talk to others like me who can relate to me and not just condemn me like my x used to do.
Amber

[sandra-leigh]

found out it was clinical depression [...]A strange thing, the therapist asked me at one session if I ever had thoughts of suicide, I said yes, doesn't everybody? Well apparantely, well adjusted people don't.

"Well adjusted" is a somewhat loaded term.

Clinical depression can (often) have medical causes. If your neural pathways are working sufficiently differently than they should, then "well adjusted" relative to that can be rather different than "well adjusted" relative to someone without a similar medical problem.

For example, when my nervous system was in sensory overload, the appropriate non-medical adjustment was to reduce stimulae by staying inside amongst the familiar: no amount of logic or emotional analysis would suffice to overcome the fact that my body couldn't take the stress of going even just to the corner grocer, let alone facing the barrage of sensations necessary to travel to work. Working from home, isolated in my shell, was well-adjusted under the circumstances.
But not being able to go anywhere is emotionally draining. And one thing about clinical depression is that it drains hope and planning abilities: the mental pathways fail down to the point where you know you are miserable and you know you aren't getting any better and although you might have the abstract thought that you could be better, you cannot picture yourself as better or picture the steps to get there. "Well adjusted" to the medical situation can be very different than for normal people.

[Ellaine]

Talking about the down sides, is so non-PC.
Nobody wants to hear it. I'm sure others have done as I have, and posted jolly, trite posts, when really I could do with a smiling friend or two, to chat and relax with. It doesn't matter whether our femme (or any other)presentation is about sex, or sexuality or gender, we all are vulnerable to judgement and pressure to conform to very narrow ideals of what is normal and acceptable. Yet we ourselves, the "TG community" are still busy judging each other. "I'm not gay", "she's not Transexual", "he's just a fetishist".

As a young man, I was lucky to have experienced my "rebel" years as a "hippie". I still carry many of the humanitarian values of that time. Then came the "New Romantics". Today I am heartened by the "Goth" movement. All young people saying "I'm different, you can't put me in one of your boxes."
And yet, they can only feel right and proud to be what they are, if there are other rebels of similar mind they can share and socialise with openly. In the main, all of these groups have been accepting of crossdressers, and many TG folk have launched their development from those beginnings. Yet we grow on to distance ourselves from other demonised minorities, rather than fight to legitimise our diversity for all individuals. In fact, "normal" only seems desireable, where we need the approval of someone who has a power over us.

Damn our weakness! As we mature, we seem unable to co-operate as a society of mutually respecting individuals.


Well I can't change the world, as much as I'd love to. Tekla West puts it so well when she says....


Find people, who if they are not like you, will at least accept you for who you are. Find a gay-straight alliance, or a LGBT group, or a support group. Be who you are, be strong in that Every good thing in real life comes from that single starting point.
To save your life, you must first live it. It must be yours, in real life, in real time TO save. There is a lot of help here. A lot of support. There is also a lot of pain, anger and bitterness. Learn from that too. As it turns out, some people's lifes work is simply to serve as a bad example to others. Take those lessons to heart also.

Find yourself, then find people who like that. Too many try to find people they like and then try to make those folks like them. It does not work. People who accept you in real life will in the long run be better friends, be better people, then those who you drag kicking and screaming (or grumbling, we have a lot of that here) along. Don't settle for people who "accept" who you are, when you can find those who would 'celebrate' what you are instead. It makes for a much better party for sure.

True, fine words Tekla..thanks.
I need some courage, I need some tactics and I'll need some help. All very achievable.
But it won't stop me wanting to crack some of the prejudice for others in future.

I hope others will vent their pain and frustration on these boards. Partners too need to be able to blast away the moment, without fear of "defensive" criticism from well meaning casual browsers. Let it rip, tell it like it is whether it's the moment, or the years.
It has helped me a lot.
I'll always owe these boards something.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

ellaine..

its not hundreds of men barely keeping it together.....its tens or hundreds of thousands at least!!!

if you look through my posts from last year i layed it out on the line as well andi applaud you for what you posted.

i lost my wife, i lost 2 years of my life to a miserable depression but i am coming out of it and recently have been having the time of my life dressing and going out dressed... so i would say life is a rollercoaster and our problems today and yesterday and even tomorrow are all parts of the same thing..

there are surely good things in your life too and those must be part of the picture..

i look at my kids and they love me, i get to dress when i want, my wife left me, i dont see my kids everyday...BUT!!! i appreciate and enjoy my time with them so much more!!!!!..ups and downs...they are all part of it...and its not just true for crossdressers!!...its true for every one of us who has unfullfilled wants and desires..

now you have to be honest with YOURSELF and decide for YOURSELF what the right balance is and understand your choices will impact OTHERS and YOU as well..

i wish you all the best as you work thru this
anyway..take care and thnx for the thoughtful and honest post

michele

[Marla S]

Yet we grow on to distance ourselves from other demonised minorities, rather than fight to legitimise our diversity for all individuals. In fact, "normal" only seems desireable, where we need the approval of someone who has a power over us.
That's the paradox nature of CDing (at least to a major part). We seem to ask for legitimation of diversity, but our goal is to fit in the traditional binary gender system, thereby often being even more stereotypical than society actually is.
Switching between a "male self" and a "female self" is no diversity. It's just the old system we like to believe that we would fight on a general level, but on the personal level we actually cement it.

[Audrey34]

For the most part I'm quite comfortable staying in the closet. But sometimes (when I was attending Fetish Con in Florida) I saw several cd's and suddenly I was aching to be with them. I wanted to get dressed up and walk around the hotel lobbies and laugh and have fun too. But the fear (and guilt) overcame me. My other goal is to eventually join my local Tri-Ess chapter but I'm still scared of being seen (even if there are other cd's in the room). There is some hope though. I posted several pix of myself as Audrey (considering using one as my avatar) in the groups' photo threads. Well, the sky hasn't fallen on me yet so I'm just going to take it one step at a time.
-Audrey

[fionasboots]

I'm thinking about the amount of time I've wasted not being me. I guess alot of people have done the same and have only been able to fully explore this part of themselves later in life due to their own issues or outside influences such as family and friends or just society in general.

I think you are right that something should be done, I don't know what it is either!

Really you only get one life (IMHO) and if something like CDing gives you some pleasure in that life I think you should enjoy it as much as you can and not be held back!

Of course that's easy to say but so so hard to do.

But maybe your thread just helped a tiny tiny bit and that's important. Thank you.

[Michelle Ellis]

Venting frustration with my closet, it used to be a safe comfortable place, now it's like a chamber of torture with no way out. I know what needs done, but like Fionasboots just said, easy to say and hard (so hard) to do.

Ellaine you say 'this heartfelt rant may not mean much' but it means everything to me, in fact it seems to be the only subject I find worthy of thought anymore and it's driving me crazy. Like you say the depression feeds on itself, building pressure over the years, regret for what I might have done early in life, regret for what I still haven't done at 30 something, and fear for what I may never be able to do.

Well if I go much further here I'll be ranting...

M

[Joy Carter]

Another one here Ellaine as you know. But do feel better about this old gurl so the only way is up now. :hugs:

[Charleen]

Yeah, I suffered in silence for years, and was depressed for most of my life. Hiding and/or supressing my CDing caused alot of that I realise now. Now that I'm widowed, (My heart goes out to you Michelle), I can do what I want for the most part. My son moved away to start his own life as well. So after work, and my days off, I'm totally femme without worry for the first time in my 55 years. I guess considering the circumstances that have allowed me to do this now, I'm lucky. I have also found out, that the old thrill dressing is gone. Replaced by a feeling of "This is the way I should be". i am not only comfortable in my own skin, but in my clothes. I feel that I am becoming whole if that makes sense.
We have to go through what we have to go through to get where we're supposed to be. Some sooner, some later. I'm jealous of the young 'uns on this baord as they have years that were denied to me, but you know what? It's O.K. I now have my chance, and I can not play What Ifs, just enjoy my new found freedom.
Love and xxxx, Lily

[Satrana]

What we all display is classic victimhood mentality. We let our own fears build a cage around ourselves so preventing ourselves from venturing outside. We feel helpless to change the situation and want somebody else to take charge and give us our freedom delivered on a silver platter. We want others to be fully aware of our suffering and make adjustments to their lives to ensure that we no longer feel discriminated against.

We can sit around looking at others to blame for the circumstances we find ourselves in or we can begin asking ourselves what we can do to change our lives. We all possess the ability to change our lives but like the lion in Oz, we believe we lack the courage to do so. Not true.

You need to realize that you have a responsibility to look after your own needs and happiness as well as those of your family and friends. Your needs are of equal importance to anyone elses'. This is a message that feminists have been saying for decades to women who routinely subjugate their own needs and happiness to that of their family. Dont feel guilty that you are looking after yourself, because if you don't then nobody else will.

[Joy Carter]

A song said "Must we Live Our Lives In Chaines When We Have The Key" :straightface:

[Ellaine]

I think you are right that something should be done, I don't know what it is either!

Really you only get one life (IMHO) and if something like CDing gives you some pleasure in that life I think you should enjoy it as much as you can and not be held back!.

Hi Fiona...

It occurs to me that forums are springing up all the time...many are just reinforcing the sexual side without any real support aspect. These may be causing some CD's to avoid the initial effort of getting to supportive groups meetings. Time spent on less constructive forums is a poor substitute for personal contact and social interaction, and I'm sure new memberships of such support groups is suffering.

As I read your post Fiona the words "one life" struck me as a pretty good tag to attach to positive publicity at some stage, and I expect I'll be doing some kind of support work in the forseeable future. It's early days for me, to say the least, but my Councellor has ambitions to work on something like a support group. She intends to learn from me and told me that there certainly is the need locally. I am very much open to the idea. My wife is also tentatively in favour.

So I hope any readers who know the pain and distress, will add to this thread and show that it's not all fun and games. It can destroy lives, partnerships and families. But hopefully, it doesn't have to always be that way.

[Kate Simmons]

That's the paradox nature of CDing (at least to a major part). We seem to ask for legitimation of diversity, but our goal is to fit in the traditional binary gender system, thereby often being even more stereotypical than society actually is.
Switching between a "male self" and a "female self" is no diversity. It's just the old system we like to believe that we would fight on a general level, but on the personal level we actually cement it.I kinda have to agree with you on that Marla. That's why Ericka is trying to "fine tune" this whole thing to become my own person. :happy: Ericka Kay

[Angie G]

Ellaine it good you are do better in your life some time we are to hard on ourselfs and its not easy to stop hurting we soe time have to let some thing go.:hugs:
Angie