Lost: One Past. Found: More Confusion.

[XDW Nathan-Natasha]

Who am I?
...
That's what I've been asking myself since I opened some old photo albums earlier this afternoon. What I found shook the foundations of heaven and earth for me.
...
How long has this - this cross-dressing - been going on?
...
Apparently a lot longer than I thought. Photographic evidence - suggestions in pictures...me wearing women's gloves in 1986, for example...suggests years earlier than I thought. Seeds have been there since the beginning.
...
But I think I have been cross-dressing off and on since I was 2. I have had the desire to cross-dress since I was 2. I had thought they started in second grade...but it started much earlier. I have been surpressing this side of me for 21 years. I'm only now, at 23, only beginning to explore it.
...
What have I lost? My memories (I don't remember what I felt at 2 and on 'till now about my cross-dressing, what I experienced, or why I surpressed it for so long)...my past (I feel like the past I accepted as truth yesterday didn't exist)...my chance to explore this earlier (I wish now that I would have realized these desires for what they were sooner and to have been able to pursue them)...and it's all been there from the beginning.
Why didn't I explore it then?
...
Has Natasha really been there...a part of me for so long?
All I can say when I consider it is: 'wow.' And: 'I don't know what to think.'

AND I HAVE told my fiance, aj_gg about this.
I've also told a close friend from the board...
But I'm still so confused. Why didn't I know...why didn't I see...that this has always been a big part of me...?

Sorry to be so confusing...I don't know how to think of this right now.

It's just that, to discover that I've been cross-dressing, or at least to remember having the desire to do so since I was 2 has been really hard for me to grasp. I hadn't realized - but I do remember now - that this has been a part of me since I was that young. I just can't believe it...but I do...I have to...I want to...and I NEED to.

This would mean that some of my memories related to cross-dressing(aquiring my first pair of women's gloves, wearing a dress my first time, etc.), are some of the earliest memories I have, PERIOD.

I guess I wanted to share this revelation with you all and hopefully get some insights and support from you all on the board here - in any way, shape, or form to help me to accept and understand this better. Thank you in advance.

[Kate Simmons]

One thing I found out that always rings true for me is that we are exactly who we are supposed to be Natasha. Nothing more--nothing less. It's what we do with that realization that makes all the difference. Sal

[XDW Nathan-Natasha]

Yeah...
And I'm glad I made this realization now. It's just, Sal, that it feels like a good chunk of my past has been re-written.
...
I just really wished I knew what to DO with this realization.

[Kate Simmons]

It's what being a co-creator is all about, Hon. Knowledge is power and puts us in charge of our own destiny. We have more to say about that than many may think. It can make us self directed and self empowered if we embrace it and look at it as a gift.

[sandra-leigh]

What have I lost? My memories (I don't remember what I felt at 2 and on 'till now about my cross-dressing, what I experienced, or why I surpressed it for so long)...my past (I feel like the past I accepted as truth yesterday didn't exist)

There's a condition that occurs in nearly everyone, called "Childhood Amnesia". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia

Infantile, or childhood amnesia is characterized by the relative absence of memory before 3 or 4 years of age.

So your absence of memories from when you were young is far more common than not.

My first visual memory is at about age 5, and I've forgotten (or at least would find it difficult to recall) most of my youth. My episodic recall is not strong even now -- my mind is information oriented, not event oriented. (If I ever get alzhimers and start remembering my childhood, it will surely be a big revelation to me!)

[AmberTG]

Speaking of remembering your childhood, I have selective memories that go back to before kindergarden, I must have been about 4, I suppose. I think I remember them because they were memorable, if you know what I mean. I remember activities, certain toys, airplane and train rides, stuff like that. I was born in 1955 so that goes back quite a ways. What I don't remember is most of the 1980s, not much was happening in my life then I guess. My memories of that time consist of specific things that happened, but not of life in general.
I don't remember any gender related incidents until puberty, if there was any of them, I just don't remember them.

[Sheri 4242]

I've often told people that I have been CDing since I was about 5 y.o -- BUT, actually it would be more accurate to say that I have been CDing from my earliest of memories. That sounds like what you are describing! In the socialization process, each of us has distinct memories back to a certain point. What transpired before that time is there, too, and is part of what shaped us, but our active memory doesn't kick in until a certain point. What you describe -- and what I describe -- I believe are part of the evidence that CDing is, to some greater or lesser degree, biology/genetics/physiology.

[kerrianna]

Natasha, I'm glad at 23 you have discovered there's something going on. I wish I had realized stuff back then. I wasn't unaware of dressing, although a lot of my childhood memories were kind of disconnected from later CDng, because it became shameful and secretive for me in my teens and on. But when I grabbed all the memories, from my earliest ones on, and looked at them under the same light a lot of things started making sense...and amazingly I felt like I had returned to the original motivation I had when I was 4 or 5: I want to be a girl. Just that acknowledgement has been liberating and freeing. Where I go from here is another thing. I'm just happy to be awake finally.

[Fab Karen]

"It's just that, to discover that I've been cross-dressing, or at least to remember having the desire to do so since I was 2 has been really hard for me to grasp. I hadn't realized - but I do remember now - that this has been a part of me since I was that young. I just can't believe it..."

The ego likes to look for dark clouds in silver lining- it believes some sort of suffering is the natural state of reality- "life is screwed/I'm screwed" are catch-phrases of the ego.
Also, the past is a memory, it doesn't exist in reality. Some people will say of course, but it's very easy to get lost in thoughts of the past, and not focus on the present. The more we focus on the present, the more alive we are.

[Sally24]

I don't think the lost memory or suppressed memory is all that unusual. My wife was told before we were even engaged, like 30 years ago. And we had dressed a little over 10 years ago. Still, 2 years ago when I started discussing doing more, she didn't remember that I had ever told her! How do you forget something like that? But I have talked to another CD about the same age and the same thing happened with his wife. She asked "Did you tell me about this?". So I think that memory is a funny thing. Your brain slides things into little boxes and if it doesn't want to know, just keeps that particular box closed.

Be glad that you're exploring it at a young age. You have all the choices right now. Just take your time and see where you want to go with this. There are more than 31 "flavors" of CDs and you can sample any or all of them. Enjoy!