Hate yourself?

Sometimes I just have such body image issues. I feel inadequate as a man, both too small and too weak, and dressed as a woman I just see a man in a dress. I used to get such a kick out of dressing and now...I don?t know.i guess it makes me not want to dress anymore, because what?s the point. Anyone else going through this? Is it just something that will pass or what?

I suppose it depends on what you are hoping get out of it.
I try not to take it too seriuosly.
Do you go for wig and make up aswell? or just the dress?

well im sure you did not come here to hate yourself.....probably the opposite, when i first thought to myself their she is i was dressed in jeans and heels, it was pivotal for me.

we all have bad days...if you saw my pinterest you would think diva, you would be right, but a 200 lb 6 ft diva, glamazon if you will.....i think im this petite little pricess but alas one walk past the mirror will wisk that vision away....but somewhere their is a petite little diva wishing she were taller, prettier, better looking body and or parts of her.....somewhere their is a 200 lb 6ft women wishing she was that petite person and how she feels like a glamazon.
we all stress about how we are perceived in the wild. it can ebb and flow but ive learned that in a whole most folks will like themselves eventually....

I've have only recently discovered (or maybe fully accepted) this feminine side, enough that I started dressing, with makeup and wig - whole deal.
But before I'd had a chance to see femme self in the mirror, I had already developed this fantasy image. The image was based (unrealistically!) on what I'll call "Cover-girls of Crossdressing". All those pretty young things with blogs or welogs, or whatever. (I'm 64 years old, BTW).

So somehow I was expecting that putting on makeup would magically turn back the clock 20 or so years. And a dress would take off that blob around the waist!

Boy was I shocked to see a 64 year old woman, with bad makeup, looking back at me!! I looked like all the old women I remember seeing as a child.

So yeah, I'm working through the reality things. Learning to accept myself for who I am, how I'm shaped etc etc.

Now it's not about looking like one of those pretty young things, but looking the best I can and accepting myself as I am.

Being a child of the 70's, here's some wisdom for us all:

"If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." Desiderata, Max Ehrmann.

I'm sorry you have body image issues. But the good news is that it seems every woman dislikes something about her body, so you're in good company.

I myself have a body that is in no way feminine. Frankly, I am the size and shape of a retired football lineman. I'm the wrong shape everywhere. That doesn't stop me from going out regularly as a dude in a dress. No wig, makeup or breastforms for me. I'm in no
way trying to look like a woman. But I sincerely believe that I look my best when I am wearing a well chosen dress or skirt outfit. And this is confirmed by the number of random women who stop me in the middle of the mall to tell me I look nice.

I believe you need to learn how to make YOUR body look good and then have the confidence to believe you're at your best. There is always a way to win AS YOU ARE and waiting until your body is perfected wastes a lot of good opportunities

I would think you aren't alone in your feelings.
Nobody is perfect and nobody has a perfect life so welcome to the club.
Maybe you need to learn to love yourself and stop feeling sorry for yourself.
The only person that can change your life is you.
Ask yourself the hard questions and see what your answers are.
Body image is something I deal with because I am fat and not thin like I was when I started dressing and going out.
Do I hate myself for it? No that would be silly.
I am decreasing my medication dosage so hopefully in the future I will be able to lose weight.

take it up a notch, small steps, but plan to do something you havent dressed, if you only dress in the house, it will get boring, dress and walk to the end of the garden path and back, think if i walk beyond that makeup is required, expand your expectations, and it will spring back into life, push the boundries, its exciting and revives that amazing feeling of why you dress

Ginger,
Sorry we don't know your age or marriage status , so we don't know if your dealing with a DADT situation and if kids are involved .

If you're young and unattached it's going to be easier to resolve your dilemma , the majority of us here know how much more difficult it can be in a marriage with a family to support .

So you're not happy in male mode you feel it's not you , that is a starting point . From your avatar your figure looks pretty good that's a great starting point to work on getting back in the groove . The other point we don't know is if you're still in the closet or been out in the RW . For me being in the closet would achieve very little now , who am I doing it for ? I have to deal with my dysphoria so being out comfortably in the RW has now given me a balance . If you have dysphoria it's possibly the way out for you . I needed some help from counselling again if you haven't been there it might give you the right road to take .

Most of us have good days and bad , when I have a bad one I still put on my makeup , get dressed and find something to do out in the RW , interacting with people always works for me even if it was only a trip to the supermarket .

My one hate now is having to do male mode , sometimes it can't be avoided .

Hi Ginger, I don’t know you very well but I can sympathize. I used to go through similar issues. The boy always seemed to show through my dressing and it was quite discouraging. But I kept learning and practicing, and one day things all came together and I was able to fully realize the woman within.

I think one problem a lot of us have is that we’re not happy just looking like women. Most of us want to look like ATTRACTIVE women and that’s considerably harder.

So it might pass, or you could be stuck in the doldrums until you can make some kind of progression

Ginger, I am 85 y/o and I do go out en femme when i want to. You first need to accept yourself as being a crossdresser. It's OK !! See Teresa's opening sentence, and tell us as much as you can about yourself. Your sisters, here, need to know you better if to offer ideas. BTW, I'm an Orange County girl, too, and there are many of us here. I'll offer personal help at your place of choosing, perhaps in drab, for coffee or dining. Send me a PM on what you'd like to do. I see that your wife knows you are a CDer. Is she accepting and supportive?

Well for me i don't look at myself all day long so it just makes me feel so happy when i dress and i have been doing it for 63 years and i have never been bored with it !!!

The only time I hated myself, i.e., my body, was when I was a teenager. I was six foot two and weighed only 138 pounds. My wife saw a picture of me when I was in high school and thought I had been deathly ill. Nope! I ate like a horse. I ate protein pills. Nothing worked. When I was in college I found a free period when there was no class in the Olympic size swimming pool. I still ate like a horse. I started to gain weight with all the food and the exercise. Within a couple of months my weight went to 175 pounds where it stayed for several decades with the exception of serving in Vietnam.

As a man who enjoys/needs to wear women's clothing it would be of advantage to be five foot seven. Being six foot makes me stick out like a sore thumb emulating a woman. I'm six foot and 195-200 pounds. With an aging face I make it a point to stay away from close up mirrors.

Ginger, I am 76. And, I was very unhappy with my fem looks at first!:doh:

However, over the last 20+ years I lost weight and learned how to use every trick in the book to look fem and pretty!:battingeyelashes:
And now I'm quite satisfied with my looks!:thumbsup:
Check my avatar!:daydreaming:

Simply judging from yours? I would suggest u tone down your breast size and get some good hip and butt pads. I think your figure could look much more fem! For anyone who's really serious about their female looks? There's so many tricks u can use to not just look fem, but look good!:battingeyelashes:

I don't hate myself, but I've never been happy with my body. Facial deformity, scars from surgery, missing an eye tooth, great big hulking figure, and sasquatch sized feet, there's a lot to be unhappy about, especially when I want to be svelt and pretty and wear cute girl clothes. Yet, there are plenty of women who, even the most beautiful of them, aren't completely happy with their bodies, either. So many actually envy drag queens, MTF TS, TG and crossdressers because we don't get cellulite!
So pretty much everyone has their own demons to chase away.
Wear what you want, because it makes you feel good wearing it. Same with make up, accessories, etc..
Enjoy life, and do whatever you have to do, to get yourself to that point. That's really all that matters.

So I have a wife and daughter but only dress in the privacy of my home. My wife tolerates some of it but doesn't want me to wear a wig or makeup. She doesn't want me to shave my facial hair either. So going out would be problematic for my marriage. I do have ongoing body image issues as a man and I guess as a faux woman too...ugh. What a pain. Sometimes I look in the mirror and love who I am and sometimes I hate who I am.

I stopped dressing for close to twenty years due to having children and lots of fun spending time with them.

Well 2-1/2 years ago the Pink-Fog came back!
So I doug out the old hidden boxes and got dressed, wow what a big disappointment, talk about a man in a dress!

I started watching older women and CD makeup tutorials on YouTube and now I'm fairly happy with my results.
Sometimes I feel I'm spending way to much doing this but for some crazy reason I can't talk my self out of it.

Ginger, thanks for reaching out. :thumbsup:

If anything, it shows others that it's not always all fun & games, that CD'ers *do* internally wrestle with a lot of things, which can negatively affect our lives.



Anyway, you're not alone in this. Quite a few us can & do go through some pretty rough periods. And even when we think we've got it all figured out, sometimes it can suddenly rear its ugly head yet again, simply out-of-the-blue, totally throwing us for a loop.


Do I wish I were "normal," at times? Of course! Wishing it could all go away, and never come back again.

However, that's not reality, at least for me. I already know, the hard way, that I'm "stuck" with this for the rest of my days here on this earth.


And yep, sometimes I feel I'm too femmy for a guy (looks, personality, interests, etc.) -- yet at the same time, also too masculine as a female.

Seemed like it was easier, at least on some levels, when I was years/decades younger. Still had to work at it, and still had things I wish I could change, but being younger, prettier, thinner, more feminine-looking? It was awesome! :battingeyelashes:

But, time -- and testosterone -- ravages on. It's just how my physical form was created... And HRT, which could "help" in some aspects, simply isn't for me. Besides, that can only tackle certain things, anyway, especially at my age.

Young kids these days, going on puberty-blockers, then perhaps estrogen, eventually? They may have a leg up on this. But even then, I'm sure many still aren't happy with certain things about themselves, either. So, there's that.



Anyway, there have been months, even *years*, where I didn't wear a single thing from the women's side. It just wasn't in me, at those times in my life. And really, why try to force it?

And I've purged plenty of times, as well. While I don't recommend it, it can have some positive effects, too -- you know, particularly when you'd most likely eventually get back into it again at some point. Almost like ending the previous chapter, and starting a new one, ya know?



Not sure where I'm going with all this at this point, but I will leave you with this... :)

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

I can relate but i am very big, huge feet, huge hands, six foot six, 260 lbs. Blue collar guy, but a;ways struggled with feminine side, was down on being male, rejected by women, envied women, and never had a steady girlfriend or wife. When i fantasize, i am the lady with a man, but only when dressed. I am only attracted to a rare type of GG/ I dress up as her, and like the creation i see in the mirror. But, part of me is ashamed that i do it.

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Ellbee Thank you so much for your post. Very much !

I'm sure most of us have a dislike for some aspect of our bodies just as so many women do.
When you want to look just right and something doesn't fit it's normal to become distressed a bit.

hello Ginger,
if I look in the mirror I see a fat man with a grey beard. I often get mistaken for someone else in December if I wear my red coat and red hat.
In my mind's eye I see whoever I want to be.
I dress because I want to. I dress because I can. I dress because it makes me happy. For me now there is no other point or aim in my dressing. Trying to understand why I dress just made my unhappy. Now I just dress...
luv J

Sorry to hear you're going through that, Ginger. I suppose it's bound to happen at some point to everyone that "blurs the line" somewhat. Women are constantly bombarded by media about how they SHOULD be looking in terms of their physique - and male crossdressers have to go the extra mile (and often more) just to get in that ballpark. And heck, now men are on the receiving end, with everyone in an ad/TV show/movie having a six pack, perfect hair and teeth, and completely waxed. (I remember years ago saying that I wish on a show like MTV's Real World, there should be a 250lb guy with a receding hairline and a hairy back wandering around in his boxers eating a burrito in the background.)

Anyway, so you hate how you look. How badly do you hate it, and what do you want to change? If you want to improve the masculine side, and are worried about being small/weak, then start exercising and hit the gym. Believe me, with enough commitment it doesn't take long to gain noticeable definition. Small is relative, and as I told any girl I was chatting to when I was a single guy "Ahh, we're all the same height on our backs!" The feminine side is going to be hard, since you're in a beard and are limited by spousal constraints. I'm in the same boat there with a beard and copious amounts of body hair, but accept that I'm "just a man in a dress."

We all look at ourselves supercritical. Take a break from dressing. Do something special for yourself. Get to some support groups or even a gym.....By working out, it relieves stressors...With cold weather coming start now. Then one day the urge will swell to a point and BAM then dress and relax.

Don't hate yourself whatever you do this will not help, we are all individuals all treading different paths to each other and for the most part happy on those paths, I would suggest you look at what you have now and work within those parameters, there is your wife's opinion which you have to respect, she is having to encapsulet that the hunk of a man she married now wants to dress as a woman, this could be difficult for her hence the no wig thing. Many are in DADT situations only able to dress when their partner/SO is out of the way.
Maybe this is the way to handle your life, understand that going out is not going to happen like it does for so many and adapt your feminine life to the daily life and find a happy medium.
I feel you are having a hard time with all of this, be patient, don't worry unduly and just take life a step at a time and see how things work out; but overall don't knock yourself over things.

For years I disliked me for needing to cross dress and there is no way back then I’d have referred to myself as a cross dresser or actually back in the days it would have been transvestite, but anyway I didn’t live comfortably with me, I loved to dress but hated myself afterwards and really stayed away from mirrors

Move forward to now, I have an okay male physique, physically fit and all that, I know I’ll never successfully pass as a woman but I really like my womanly self now, I look in the mirror when dressed and I love the way I look, it’s me and I’m really content with me

Yes, there are things I’d love to improve on but they don’t spoil any of what I have

My younger struggle was tough, but I’m through all that many years ago now, it definitely passed for me but I worked hard at accepting me for who I am