Has CD'ing made you a better person?

[_Sarah_]

Well i was a closed CD since i was about 12 although at that time i did not really understand.

in order for you to really understand my question i that i should give some backgroud information about myself.

i first crossdressed when i was about 5 (once tricked my sister into forcing me to :-) )

although i was too young to understand it at the time and dismissed it. The urge didnt come again until about 8 but again i ignored it not understanding it.

when i was 10 i became really ill and ended up in a wheel chair for about three years barely able to walk.

When i was 12 i came across a TV show on the subject of CDing and found out that is what i was.

That was when i began closet cding.

at around 14 i started regaining some sense of health and as time passed it became increasing more difficult to keep my secret hidden.

When dressed i feel calm and relaxed although i used to feel guilty for some reason.

not long after i found out that someone i knew was Gay (wasnt hard to figure out). and i realised that it made no difference to our friendship.


ill admit that when i was younger i was against gay, lesbian, cd, transgendered etc

coming out to my mother was the hardest thing ever. would she reject me or accept me?

that night was the hardest ever. i realised i could not tell her. so i showed her my stash.

She accepted me and told me that she was 90% sure she knew anyway (dolt! could have had a fun couple years if i had told her sooner).


the next day we ended up at the shopping center (finally).


i decided that i would not tell the rest of my family.

i didnt need to.


I never bothered telling my father as i had disowned him years previously after he beat up my mother right in front of me, my brother and sister.


Acceptance in this part of england is pretty low so going out dressed was not going to happen. although i do sometime underdress.



one day i realised that my situation was not a curse its a gift. as i get to experience things from both perspectives and i believe it has made me a stronger, more confident and accepting person..


my question is this.
Do any of you feel that cding has made you a better person and more aware of what was happening around you?


Sorry for the long post. its one of the first on here.

Sarahx

[tricia_uktv]

So a short answer to a good question. Yes, in every form of life!

[KarenCDFL]

A resounding YES in every way.

[VirginiaX23]

I don't think it has made me a "better" person. What makes me a better person is that when I make mistakes, I own them and try not to make them again. Being a CD and accepting that part of myself has made me a happier person, though.

[Deborah Jane]

In many ways!!
Since finding acceptance of being a crossdresser i,m much happier and less aggressive!!

[danam]

Now that I am expressing myself as a CDer and not bundling up the desires, I am a much more relaxed and open person. I suppose the tension of NOT fulfilling my desires sortof kept me on edge and uptight, even though I wasn't conscious of it. Now that I am dressing up and having fun, the "feel-good" feelings are crossing over into other parts of my life. So its all good.

[Toni_Lynn]

I think it has, because I didn't turn out too bad if I might say so myself. But it is really not all crossdressing. It is a whole melange of experiences that have made me into the person I am today -- my alcoholism, my dropping out of college, my travels, etc.

I look at it this way. I cannot say that I would be where I am today, and have the good think that I have of not for the things I've experienced.

As I've said before, I consider my crossdressing to be a gift to bring me pleasure in a world filled with toil and trouble. The gift could have been being able to play the piano and make beautiful music. It could have have been painting. It turned out to be crossdressing.

My fears about it most certainly caused me to almost give up on finding a partner for life. But because I waited, I ended up with the best, my Debbie.

I look back on my life, and see it as a great rich garden, with crossdressing being one of the most vibrant and brightest flowers in it.

Huggles

Toni-Lynn

[deja true]

Dressing per se, actually made me a worse person. A secretive, unfriendly, stressed, paranoid personality.

But the acceptance of myself, and the shedding of the guilt made me a better, much better person. I believe that I'm truly a better person now than I would have been without the dressing history. For dressing and acceptance of myself also led to acceptance of all the other variations of the human psyche.

Had we grown up as 'vanilla' people, without the added pressure of a hidden, socially unacceptable passion, we may have ended up like the people who hate us now!

Dressing has been a little purgatory for me in my early years, but growing up to be that other kind, would have been hell!

[Angie G]

I would like to think it has I know I;m a happier more content person. And I think it has helped make me more tolerant and accepting of ohters. :hugs:
Angie

[danielle_from_cal]

I am pretty sure it has made me a better person. At least it has helped to make me a more understanding person when it comes to people that do not fit society's "norm". It has helped to make me more tolerant of people that are different than me. (Of course, in the direct sense, it has helped me look a lot better in photos too!)

[linnea]

I've been a crossdresser for so long that it is just part of the person I am. I believe that that is a basically good, open-minded, gentle, honest, loving, hard-working person who cares about others and herself.
I may show some of these traits differently when I present myself en femme from how I show them when I am en homme, but I like to think that they are the basics of me under any circumstances.

[suzanne]

I can't say CDing in itself makes me a better person. What has made me immeasurably better is my acceptance and embracement of my femininity, which is a bumpy journey for many people my age (late forties). I am now a whole person as opposed to the one dimensional caricature assigned to me by our present society.

[christinac]

I would have to say yes it has made me a better person and this web site has really helped me to open up and be more open and honest and it has also given me great encouragement to be who I am in heart.

[AmandaM]

Yes, my compassion is greater. I've suffered, and seen friends suffer. How can I not have compassion for those in pain?

[windycissy]

Mostly yes: my crossdressing has motivated me to keep my weight down, which I do by eating right and exercising a whole lot, so my physique is exceptionally fit...and I am sure I am much more empathetic towards the little hassles that women have to put up with in their lives. Most of all, I find an inner peace when I've transformed myself into a woman, like nothing else I've ever experienced. The only negative: I smoke when I'm dressed!

[Karren H]

Hmmmmmm How would I know.... If I hadn't crossdressed would I have been a worse person than I am today?? Yeah you can say all those things that being in touch with your fem side makes you this and that but at lease I.... have nothing to compare the current me to any other alternate reality me... lol Sounds like a good episode for Stargate SG-1? :)

[thwaiter]

I don't know if cding makes me a better person. But I do feel warm and comfortable when I wear feminine clothes and can appreciate why female like to wear some of their clothes. I hope this makes sense Sarah, and any one else who reads this.

[Annesah]

I don't think gender-bending has made me better; though I could stand a lot of improvement. I do think it's made me "more"..... especially, and most importantly, in my personal relationships with women. I have sisters everywhere!

[Kimmie]

20 years of fighting this, and Comming from a very conservative family I then finally came to terms with this. Life slowly just got better. I became more confident and comfortable within myself as a guy. Although I soooooooo love being a girl when I can be. I started paying more attention to my appearance, diet became more healthy.

I started to see things that I didnt notice before from a pink lense. Sensitity, compassion, a greater appreciation of beauty.I'm not ignoring the color red while driving.

However. Be warned about the pink haze will suck your wallet dry buying stuff for your femme self that you wont regularly use.

As I told my mom. I'm still the same guy, just better.

[Joanne f]

I would so like to go with everyone else and say Yes but i do not think that i can, when i think of all my bad moods, feeling down, fighting and arguing with people that i do not know to defend me and my family directly because of my cross dressing, how can i say that it has made me a better person.




joanne

[Melora]

I Try to be a better pearson, No matter What, Whether Dressed or not. This is not a matter to be Dressed or not., It is ARE YOU Just "A BETTER PERSON"?, No Matter What?
Just try to be a better person, no matter what you dress like. Isnt that what it is about?
Melora/Katie

[Emily Anderson]

See, television can be good for you! :)

Whether I would be different if I didn't CD is impossible to know really, because I am who I am.

[Lisa Rose]

Absolutely yes!! Not only has it allowed me to express my feminine side, it's opened up my heart and mind. My imagination and creativity has exploded because my inihibitions have run wild.

[Jenny Doolittle]

HI Sarah,

I too went through times of doubt growing up with the urge to be girly and feminine. I also had guilt when younger, and purged and made empty promise to myself that I would never dress again. Of course those promises were never kept.

It was after I had accepted who I was that I also found that my femimine side was a virtue. I have come to terms with who I am and really feel so much better about myself and my relationship with wife. I am slowly letting others know the real me and it is up to them how they perceve me. I will still love my family and hope they will love me, but as we all know, we cant force that, just hope for it.

Anyway, I feel that my femine personna definatly is a better side, one of understanding, sensativity, openiness to others, and much more loving then my male being. I feel all people have both a femine and masculine being inside them and we are lucky enough to recognize its existance and encourage our best quailities to rise to the top.

[Tomara]

I am a more understanding and less judgemental person since I have admitted to myself that I am a crossdresser and that there is nothing wrong with who I am . I`m also more relaxed when I am able to dress , something that I do more now than I ever have! So yes I do think I am a better person because of my crossdressing:hugs: Tomara

[rian]

In order to answer this question two situation rises : one if our story has been confessed aned was accepted , then it can make us of a better person , because we can be aware of it and open about it,where as if our story back fired then we can say it made me more misrable .
Second if we didnt confess the story , It will make me a person happy but afraid of being caught, which makes me unstable which means not a better person .....Any way I feel good about myself and I like it very much because I enjoy the time spending crossdressing .

[dazzed]

Short and sweet.Yes in every way!

[Celeste]

It has convinced me that I need to treat my body better both inside and out if I want to look good.I used to be quite abusive with my body,now I take the time to see if something is good or bad for my health,so yes I think it contributes all around to a more physically and emotionally stable me.

[Sweet Jane]

I don't know if being this way has made me a better person, because this is the only way I have ever been??..I don't have a parallel life to compare it with....Having gender duality though has made me what I am, and I don't think thats bad.

[Heather_Marie]

I would say absolutely it has I have learned so many thing as being as CD the world sort of opened up when I realized that was a big part of me. :)

[Carly D.]

I don't know if I'm a better person.. I think I understand what women go through to look so fantastic.. but as far as being better, I think I am more observant than most regular men are.. I always sided with the girls when I was in school..