How to break the the binge and purge cycle?

[Katy]

Over the years I have having fallen victim to both excesses.  I have gone on a shopping binge for clothing, makeup, etc. only to be filled with disgust at what I've done.  In the end my purchases have ended up in the rubbish bin.  Weeks or months later the cycle repeats itself.  How do I break the cycle?

Cheers,

Katy

[Sarah Louise]

Its a hard thing to break, I think we all have gone through that.  I know I did that in the past.  Last time it was good though, I purged all my old male cloths.

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

^^^ This.  That was my last purge too.

[Elspeth]

It's natural to want to shop. The best way to avoid too many binges is to recognize the pattern and stop purging. Eventually you may stop bingeing if only because you run out of closet and shelf space. Acknowledgement and acceptance tend to go a long way toward gaining any control you might want to have over shop therapy.  Granted, if you read enough articles in women's magazines you may come to recognize that shop therapy is very common, and cisgendered women also sometimes will choose to prune their wardrobe of the items they aren't likely to wear or use again. Finding friends you can hand off unwanted items to is also another way to acknowledge yourself, and reach greater comfort. I've yet to hear of anyone "curing" this tendency, short of changing how they choose to manage the outflow, to something more self-affirming and shame-reducing.

[gennee]

Katy, what is the reason that you binge? Do you feel guilty because you dress in women's clothing?
There's no need to feel that way. Society will dump its negativity on us because men aren't suppose
to be doing this. Once you discover the reason, move forward and say that you have the right to be
authentic and who you want to be. It's what between the ears that makes you comfortable with yourself.

[Genevieve Swann]

Maybe limiting ones budget or buying to limit the quantity of items per month or week will help with binge buying. For instance one new dress per month, etc. Purging? Just don't do it. It's far to expensive. Not to mention the emotional impact once you realize you can never rid yourself of your need to be yourself.  Limiting your buying may be difficult. If the shoe fits buy a pair in every color.

[vickilocke]

after 40 years of purging and buying feminine items, years of therapy, I finally accepted that Vicki was inside of me and then I stopped the cycle.

My only worry is that my children find my clother after I die.

[Katy]

Thank you for all your replies.  I should say that while I did recently go on a buying binge, the main problem is the purging.  Guilt and disgust causes me to repeatedly get rid of everything femme.  Then a few weeks or months the fire of desire begins to glow once again.  How does one achieve a level of guilt-free comfort with cross dressing?

[Marcia]

I think that everyone gets to the guilt-free comfort stage in different ways. I'm still not totally guilt-free yet ( ie. can wear some womens clothes in public but still haven't gotten to the point where I can wear make-up) but what has helped is setting aside one day a week to dress and keep dressing for a day. Eventually who the clothes were made for won't matter.
Not sure how your home life is to be able to do that.

[Emily Aster]

I started reminding myself every single day that no matter how cured I felt, I should never purge, so now when I get that urge, it goes into a bag in the closet instead of the trash bin. Then a few hours later it comes back out

[Sandra M. Lopes]

In my case, lack of money helped to break the cycle

More seriously, we all go through that, and I agree with Elspeth, this is not strictly related to crossdressing — genetic women do occasionally the same.

But you mention that your problem is mostly about the "guilt". Hmm. Let me ask you something: what happens with the clothes after the purge?

In my case, I always give them away to charity. That way, at least I know that they might be useful for someone else. Of course, some items are really just for CDs (breastforms, special corsets, pocketbras, and so forth). These I give away to CD friends, specially those who have just started, and still have no clue where to get those "special" items.

Generosity can turn "guilt" into "virtue"... at least it works for me!

[spacial]

Thank you for all your replies.  I should say that while I did recently go on a buying binge, the main problem is the purging.  Guilt and disgust causes me to repeatedly get rid of everything femme.  Then a few weeks or months the fire of desire begins to glow once again.  How does one achieve a level of guilt-free comfort with cross dressing?

I did somehting like this for a while, but mainly certain items. Underclothes. Even now it feels not particularly plesent to say it. I just feel seedy if you see what I mean.

Eventually I realised that I would get these things when I had made up my mind, I wanted so much to be caught. I wanted to be caught so I could say why I did it, then I could live and present as female all the time.

I would later get rid of them when it ocurred to me that, when I got caught, everyone would laugh at me, I'd be humiliated and perhaps attacked.

[Lyric]

How does one achieve a level of guilt-free comfort with cross dressing?

This will only happen after you finally fully accept yourself as who you are. Your binging and purging behavior suggests that you keep trying to alternately be yourself and  be the "normal person" you think society wants you to be. The dirty secret is that there are very few such real people around, even though it looks like most people are. The majority of people hide or oppress something about themselves in order to avoid risking humiliation or rejection.

There are a lot of downsides to being a crossdresser or transgendered or a gay person or most anything other than John Q. Ordinary Guy. But if it's who you are, it's who you are. You can never ignore the reality of who you are for very long. I went through this long ago, but once I came to terms with it, life became much better. You just have to create your own "new normal".

~ Lyric ~

[Sandra M. Lopes]

I have to agree with Lyric: "guilt" is a sense of shame we have of not being up to other people's expectations. In a sense, we try to align our own expectations with what others expect from us. When we're unable to do so, we feel some guilt for that.

I personally also stopped feeling any "guilt" about crossdressing once I realised that crossdressing is "normal" for me. Now the only "guilt" I feel is about not crossdressing as much as I wish

[Tanya]

you could shop online at shops that do free shipping and free returns. 

[Barbara Ella]

You are seeing the trend here.  It really boils down to self acceptance, and recognition of what is really at the core.  I started late in life (66), and had forums to help me to avoid the traditional guilts often developed in youth when you just can't talk to anyone about it.  This place will help, just stay in touch and talk about it.

Barbara