Where have we come from

[Melissa]

I read to the bottom.   So, it sounds like you enjoy wearing skirts.  Would living fulltime as female (no body modification) sound like something you would prefer.  Then you could wear skirts all the time.  Just some thoughts to kick around with your therapist.

Melissa

[Nero]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing, Alice.
Your picture looks great. You could very well pass as a woman.
Nero

[Robyn]

I can trace my beginnings back to wearing my mother's dress at age 9.  Almost got caught.  Submerged it totally until I began collecting lingerie at age 12. 

Purged when I headed off to the Naval Academy but began collecting again after graduation and marriage and divorce and remarriage.  I just thought I had a lingerie fetish, but eventually I began to fantasize about having breasts and losing Willy.

Once my last daughter was in college, I got an Internet account, became a spiritual healer, and, whammo, there was Robyn.

"I'll just be a crossdresser; you know, go out now and then."
"No."

"Well, just around the house."
"No."

"How about Halloween?"
"No."

"Well, then, I'll purge and stop wanting to wear women's clothes."
"I'll never trust you again."

Eventually, we separated and I moved west.  I was full time within 6 months and had SRS 2 years after that.   Postop 6 years next Tuesday.  Married to my FTM husband for almost 6 1/2 years.  Life is good.

One thing I noticed along the way is that once you go full time, it 'ain't the clothes' anymore.  Once you are living your true life 24/7/365, clothes are just a routine part of your life, be it jeans, a business suit, skirt and top for church, or a dressup event like formal dinner on a cruise.  By then, life is for living one's truth, and the emotional release coming from a dress or skirt is no longer needed.

Keep on keeping on, boyz and grlz.

Grandma Robyn

[Kate Thomas]

All this is much more than I started out to say but it is where I have come from.

Well I think I started with my older sister’s things when I was about 9 or 10.
I managed to collect some skirts & hose in my teen years. I don’t recall much activity in my twenties. I did have a girlfriend that I told about it in my late twenties. That faded away due to other reasons.
I got married in the late eighties and we had 3 children together.
When she was out of town I would dress after the kids were in well-tucked in. or if they were off at school.
I renewed an ongoing battle with long term depression and withdrew into myself
She started talking to the pastor
On one of her trips I noticed that she had taken her two negligees, it did seem odd as she very rarely wore them. (Guys can be so dumb)

Later I found out that she had setup a rondvu with our pastor in Anchorage. It never happened due to his daughter getting hurt on a bike. So he never left town.

Things were forgiven and I started on anti-depressants.  We never could re-kindle
And the depression just got worse.
We divorced
After years on various antidepressants I gave them up
She stayed in town until last October, moving off the island and taking the kids with her...to Fairbanks some 450 miles north

Well in late November I was having serious trouble shoveling snow. And went to get a stress test.  I did not last long and within twenty minuets of starting the test they had an air ambulance lined up to get me to the cartoligist in anchorage.

I had an angoplasty and a stint placed with a catheter, it took maybe an hour at the most. (Once I got there) the good news was that no damage was done to the heart.

I was back home within 36 hours.

Over Christmas I went north to Fairbanks to visit the kids and family.

My real journey started when I returned home and started on line shopping.
At some point I gave myself a feme name, Kate that name blew the doors off of my world
A sprit was released and my long-term depression lifted like never before. I soon found Susan’s and received a warm welcome.

People at work made comments on how much better was looking. 
I started regular exercise and have made good progress on the health front. The depression has returned but not with the same vice like grip that it once had.

The hard part is finding a good balance of the two spirits. Kate is barley six months old now, deep within my closet 
Things will never be the same I really don’t know where this is going; I just feel that I am making positive progress.
I would not have it any other way.

KateAlice
Liquid by Nature, Vapor in Fact

[Kate]

How has your perception of yourself changed over time?

Well, I've always known I wanted to be a girl - that much has remained static and stable throughout my entire life. The difference is that I became desperate to DO something about it around six months ago, about the time I joined this forum. Up until then, I was content to merely be miserable, lol, if that makes sense. But due to a confluence of circumstance and age, I suddenly seemed to be running out of time. "Maybe someday..." had arrived.

When I joined, I allowed myself a time of questioning - not whether I wanted to be female, but whether "wanting to be female" is the same as TSism, and whether TSism was a valid condition worth solving medically, or merely some fetish in need of psychological help.

Over that time, the *context* of how I feel about this has changed so much, that it's difficult to imagine I'm the same person I was back then. The RESULTS of that context shift have been unexpected:

For example, although my crossdressing attempts had been minimal and sporadic, they used to focus on creating a passable female image. These days... if anything, I might throw on a pair of women's jeans (more because they fit well than anything) and leave it at that. I don't feel a need to artificially create an image - I know I was chasing a ghost, deluding myself.

There also was a time when my readings convinced me that there must be some "hidden female persona" I needed to find and develop - the "woman" trapped in a man's body, as they say. These days, I'm content and happy to just be ME. I'll leave definitions for other people to decide. Strange as it sounds to most, I don't need to "be female inside" to justify needing to be physically female. That may sound trivial, but it ended a HUGE obsession with trying to "prove" that I have a "female soul" and so on. It's just meaningless to me now. I am what I am.

There was a time not many months ago when I sat shaking in my car, trying to gather the courage to talk to my therapist for the first time. Nowadays, it's just another ordinary thing to do. Nothing special. So I wanna be a girl... what's the big fuss?

There was a time not many months ago when the thoughts of transitioning seemed impossible... it was for OTHER people. Nowadays, that possibility is so close that it's scarying me half to death. HRT seems to be in the very near future.

All this is giving me hope... hope that someday I'll be able to post to this thread again, saying "there was a time when becoming female seemed like an impossible dream, a setup for torture and social ostracism... and now that I did it, it's really not that big a deal. Nobody really cares, and I hate myself for waiting so long."

[TheBattler]

Up until then, I was content to merely be miserable, lol, if that makes sense.

LOL. I am going through misery again for a while. My flat mate is leaving at the start of July and I am worried about things getting out of control so I am trying to fight it again.

Thanks for your reply Kate.

Alice

[Chaunte]

LOL. I am going through misery again for a while. My flat mate is leaving at the start of July and I am worried about things getting out of control so I am trying to fight it again.

Thanks for your reply Kate.

Alice

Alice,

Do I know being out of control!  I almost didn't change back when my family was returning from vacation.  (The kids had a different holiday schedule than mine.)  It took every bit of mental energy to pack my things away and secure the house.

I was miserable for a week before I was able to get wings-level again!  My students noticed it right away.

That was when I started to seriously consider the idea that I am transexual, not "simply" transgendered.

Chaunte

[tinkerbell]

There is a massive distinction between a CD and a TS. The paths do not cross.

Those CDs who 'turn into' TSes were in fact TS from the start. Don't worry about it.   Unless, of course, you cannot stand the skin you are in. If that is the case, then believe me transition is a godsend.  Speaking of transition it is not so bad really, or at least I have no complaints... save that it costs a lot.

I agree 100%.  Personally I think that there is so much confusion and definitions out there of that it means to be TS.  I would imagine that a CD is a person who enjoys dressing in the clothes of the opposite gender but does not want to change physically to that gender.  A TS, however,  is someone who may or may not crossdress (clothing is not the issue here), but indentifies as the gender opposite to their anatomy, and wants to have the body, the social roles of the gender they identify with; needless to say they also want to be accepted as that gender.


tinkerbell

[Louise]

There is a massive distinction between a CD and a TS. The paths do not cross.

Those CDs who 'turn into' TSes were in fact TS from the start. Don't worry about it.   Unless, of course, you cannot stand the skin you are in. If that is the case, then believe me transition is a godsend.  Speaking of transition it is not so bad really, or at least I have no complaints... save that it costs a lot.

I agree 100%.  Personally I think that there is so much confusion and definitions out there of that it means to be TS.  I would imagine that a CD is a person who enjoys dressing in the clothes of the opposite gender but does not want to change physically to that gender.  A TS, however,  is someone who may or may not crossdress (clothing is not the issue here), but indentifies as the gender opposite to their anatomy, and wants to have the body, the social roles of the gender they identify with; needless to say they also want to be accepted as that gender.


tinkerbell

I agree that the definitions are clear and that being CD and being TS are different.  But often what is not clear to an individual is who they are.  I self-identify as a CD and not as TS--I have no interest in transitioning, in HRT or surgery of any kind.  But I was not always that way.  When I was much younger I did not know whether I was CD or TS.  At the time I was not doing any overt crossdressing but was obsessed with transgender fantasies--generally of a TS nature.  Had you asked me what I was thirty years ago, I could not have given the same answer that I can give today.  In part, accepting myself as CD helped me to see that I was not TS.

[TheBattler]

In part, accepting myself as CD helped me to see that I was not TS.

Thats is exacty what I have found in the past few months. Now I accept I am a CD I now know that not everyone who is TG need to transistion. I am a very happy CD at the moment and hope I stay this way for life.

Alice

[Owen]

When I first came here I was confused and a little bit scared. A lot has happened since joining Susan's back in January. I have had everything from depression ( that I still have) to anxiety to anger self hate,  to denial to finally acceptance. It has been a rocky road in these past 10 months and I think I have come a long way. I stil have a long way to go yet with many obsticals and hurdles but I think I can overcome that. I have wanted to be female from an early age and had dressed in my sister's cloths whenever I could. I wanted to be with the girls more than boys. I liked being in the company of women in general mostly because I thought of them as much more intelligent and sensible than the guys. I never liked rough playing and hated being typcast as typical male. I spent most of my middle years doping most things male but would dress up in my private time when no one was around. I started shaving myself in my 30's but stopped for a few years and now I shave all the time. I let my hair grow longer and I am now considering electrolysis mostly for the face but later I might go for the legs arms chest and anywere else body hair is. Right now I am more or less comfortable with the way I am with my feelings of gender. I feel female and it gives me great comfort just to feel my feminine self. I'm not confident yet to go out enfemme. I'll need more time and pratice with makeup.



Owen

Love being female

[TheBattler]

When I first came here I was confused and a little bit scared. A lot has happened since joining Susan's back in January. I have had everything from depression ( that I still have) to anxiety to anger self hate,  to denial to finally acceptance. It has been a rocky road in these past 10 months and I think I have come a long way. I stil have a long way to go yet with many obsticals and hurdles but I think I can overcome that.

That all sounds like a very familir path. While I think I am now out of depression I still live with consequence of being depressed (ie taking medication). We have had a very similar emotional journey. I am glad I now accept I am a CD.

Alice