Wondering how long members have gone without feeling like dressing?

[Star01]

OK, let me start out by admitting that I'm asking this question on a crossdressing forum so I obviously still feel a connection but I have not dressed fully for close to a year and a half. I have had a few opportunities during this past year due to lock down and by the end of the day was too tired and disinterested to dress.

I know this feeling never leaves but I think a combination of things this past year have taken the wind out of my sails. It's such an uphill battle to try to do anything and I think that combined with age and other worries have kind of wiped out my desire to dress. I'm still going to therapy trying to make sense of of things but the sessions are now about life in general. I got put on medication for anxiety a couple of weeks ago and that seems to be having an effect as well.

I'm not sure at what point my crossdresser card will be revoked but I'm thinking that could be next. But seriously, I have gone years thinking my dressing was behind me, most recently from around 2004 to 2012 before it came back. I think a lot of feeling this way really boils down to being so restricted that it has become an out of sight out of mind thing. I guess I should be happy because it removes a layer of complication from my life that is hard to manage.

[beccadeath]

Well, I don't think the card will ever be revoked...it's just one of those things that's going to live in you forever, at least that's how it feels for me.

I've been much more active lately, and I don't know why that is...but I suspect it's for a variety of reasons.

I do want to add this, I don't know if anxiety is common among crossdressers or if having anxiety turns crossdressing into a "trigger" but I feeeeeeel that in my bones. I do wonder how much being on a good anxiety medication might suppress some of the urges or at minimum the anxiety around it.

[kimdl93]

I would say that the longest hiatus I can recall was a period of about 15-18 months following separation and divorce from my second wife. We broke up over failing to come to a workable accommodation of my gender issues, and I tried for months following to convince her and myself that I was able to quit. It didn’t work. When she filed for divorce and subsequently began a new, serious relationship, I gave up on denial.

During that time, I don’t suppose I went for long without “feeling” like dressing, but I abstained.

[Alice Torn]

The desire has not really gone away, but the energy and work to do it and act out is not there much. And old age, and health issues, both mental and physical . I have not dressed in several months now. I am all alone, and no one to help if i get badly injured or ill, and i need to put reality ahead of dressing . End of life issues, the dangerous scary times we are now in, too. I wish the desire would just go away for good. It is a deep inner need i think i was born with. When is die, it will be gone. I choose not to act on it though, as it has increased my isolation and distance from all relationships with others.

[Jessica_NZ]

I have recently gone about 8yrs without wanting or needing to dress. I had alot going on in my life, which led to severe depression. But since I have gotten through this and come out the otherside, all my passions have come back - and dressing has come back in full force!

As others had said, I would say its more about what's going on in someone's life - I don't think it ever goes away, it's always there just maybe suppressed somehow.

[Kendra Sue]

When I get really stressed the. Pink fog comes
Rollin in

[MarinaTwelve200]

A couple weeks at most---But a couple years out of necessity and situation.

Its sorta like a drug---I can get my CD "FIX" and be OK for a week or so, and then the urge comes back. Then I wait for my next opportunity.
.

[jenabrooks]

I gone as long as 4 years and not one time did I have the desire and I though maybe I might have taken the blue pill instead of the red one. When it came back it came back hard and I couldn't shake it. This is who I am for life and I am peace with myself and love it. This is from my heart

[Diane426]

I can't think of a time I didn't think about it, mostly because it's been a part of me sence I was 5 or 6. If I'm not dressing I'm planning what I'm wearing next. I really believe that this is how my life is suppose to be from birth. I'm happy being a guy but way more as the fem side of me.

[Karren H]

Almost 20 years.... come to find out it was due to a medical condition! That is under control now.... where as my crossdressing is out of control! Lol.

[Pixie_94]

I don't remember much the last times, but currently almost 5 months or so, trying not to even think about it or trying to repress if any sort of urge appears.

[Lori Ann Westlake]

A good question, Star--and a with a lot of very varied answers, so I see!

I suspect it makes a difference what's motivating the crossdressing. If it's chiefly a matter of gender dysphoria, the needs can be very insistent, and if they're not fulfilled, extremely depressing. Yet with some people it seems that gender-related needs can in some circumstances go underground for long periods, even for years, or not emerge at all until later in life.

Speaking for myself, my crossdressing has been at least partly sexually motivated, and since my early teens when it started I can't say I've ever gone more than a few weeks at most without wanting to crossdress. With me it's not "relief from anxiety." Luckily I've never habitually suffered from anxiety, and unlike some, I'm comfortable in male mode. It's more like "I just can't resist the urge."

I will admit I haven't put as much effort into crossdressing in recent years as I got older, into wearing makeup every time and so forth. The old TV/TS Tapestry magazine that used to be published in the 80s and 90s once ran an article called "The Tired Transvestite," about how many of us get lazy as we get older. Sometimes it's enough for me to toss on a skirt and panties around the house, with an accessory or two, or a nightdress at night, and I feel "feminine enough."

Also while I have not been historically an "anxious" kind of person, I have had serious vision problems during the past year, and that has been worrying. I probably have felt less like dressing during that period. Unlike some, I dress for pleasure and enjoyment and not to relieve inner stress. It was the same with smoking, when I used to smoke--I gave that up sixteen years ago. Apart from the nicotine addiction itself I smoked for pleasure and not, as some people do, to relieve stress. So after the initial phase, I had no trouble giving it up permanently, since there are other pleasures in life, unlike those ex-smokers who are driven to find other ways of relieving stress and have a hard time quitting for good.

But crossdressing is different. The desire to dress does wax and wane somewhat as the weeks go by, but it's never left me for very long. I'm sure I would have a very hard time if I were obliged to give it up entirely. That's something I've never succeeded in doing, despite making game efforts in my earlier years. My resolve never lasted more than a few weeks at most, until I finally decided to "give up giving it up"!

[Samm]

The longest I've gone is a year. Which was the first year I met my (now) wife.
Any other time where I did not dress was during new relationships.... It always comes back.
Now, my dry spells are due to working two jobs. But are never longer than a week.

[JocelynJames]

At one point I went 10 years, but I was just very busy with a family and business and was in the closet anyways. Nowadays ,
I regularly go 7 months or so. I talk my self out of dressing quicker than I can talk myself into it.

[countrygirl]

6 months

[April Rose]

I've gone years without dressing. I don't think I've ever gone more than a week without thinking about it.

[Raychel]

I went almost 15 years. After I got married
and kids were growing up. Then it came back
and even stronger then before, on a few month rest
period now.

Maybe be a couple of months before I get a chance again
But definitely not turning in my card.

Time will come and Raychel will be back for sure

[sometimes_miss]

About ten years. Turned out, it wasn't gone, just subconsciously repressed because everything else in my life was going well at the time. Like a computer with nothing much going on, the repressed thoughts going on in the background never made it to consciousness. But start to overload it with other tasks, like dealing with losing a job, having to work a lower paying job full time, go to school full time, and deal with an irritable wife full time, and that background thought process will bring everything else to a halt, while it takes priority over all others.
After that ten year hiatus, the desire to crossdress arose to conscious prominence with a vengeance.

[Teri Ray]

Depends............... I started very young (7-8 years old) got married and started a family and went 25 years without dressing and then BAM the desire and opportunity struck me and I dressed on and off from then on. I have had periods where I can barely think of anything else besides dressing being planning or buying items to wear and then I can go for months being busy with life and never have the desire to dress, even when opportunity presents itself.

I have checked my CD handbook and found that as long as you keep a minimum of one pair of panties somewhere in your house you will not loose your CD card, provided you check on the panty location once a month.

[SaraLin]

Let me see... I guess that the longest I've gone without feeling like dressing was probably a day or two when there was just so much else going on on to distract me.

I think that the longest I've gone with doing ANY dressing would probably be about 4-5 years.

[Dena]

I always wear panties and sleep in a nightgown every night. I do like to lounge in lingerie on my days off. I bought a new wig
about two years ago. I have not dressed fully for a long time now, close to 20 years except for maybe 3 Halloween nights.
All my makeup is beyond expired.

[SissieScott]

I generally don't go too long in between, cause the longer I avoid it, the more intense it gets and becomes a NEED, not a desire. I also use it at times as stress relief. Being a man, society has a way of trying to tell you how to walk, talk, act, likes, dislikes....etc. etc. and the stress of work and society can get to you. Nothing spells relief like dressing does for me! Even better is when my wife initiates the dress up. She didn't lose a husband to my cross dressing.....she gained a *girlfriend*. She can have sex with her husband, or sex with a girlfriend without cheating or even leaving the house!

[MilenaSometimes190]

I'd say 5 months, but this time I didn't purge anything so I didn't have to rebuild my wardrobe again like last time

[Lana Mae]

I went 34years and 5+ months with only 5 times wearing panties and purging them due to a totally non-accepting wife! After her passing and a respectful time of mourning, I was out buying panties! Pink Fog like a tidal wave! Since then, the longest with no desire or not following through is 24-48 hours! But now I am a transwoman and am 24/7/365!
Hugs Lana Mae

[Angela Marie]

I once went almost 2 years without dressing, but he urge was always there. After I started dressing again I knew that something deeper was involved.. Now the pandemic has drastically cut down on my dressing, mostly because I don't like wearing a mask with my makeup. However there is a bright side. A few weeks ago I applied for a position; and when the question of sex was listed I chose the response, which I cannot quite remember, which basically said neither. I went to the interview with a nice pair of women's dress pants and a small purse. No make, wig, etc. I don't know if I got he job but going out for the first time presenting as a female so to speak was liberating; because I now feel I can acknowledge my feminine side openly. So long answer as I said I did stop for a while but no more.