Well, I am back on Susan's place after a long time. In August 2010 I wrote this in the Crossdresser Talk section under the name michelle.ch. It's amazing what happened in the following months.
QuoteAbout two months ago a friend came to stay with me, and in one conversation he mentioned a friend of his from school who cross dressed. Suddenly something clicked inside me, and I became obsessed with the idea that I could do and wanted to do the same thing. Thinking back on it, I've had an admiration for beautiful woman's clothing for a long time, and it seemed like I have just made a switch from "that would look good on my girlfriend" to "that would look (and feel) good on me"! But I'm already 35 years old and this is the first time I've ever done it! Now I have got so much enjoyment just out of the thought of being able to do it, that I wish I had thought of it years ago!
From that time onwards I've felt a need to feminize myself that I'd never felt before. It feels like I have gone from thinking it was impossible to do it, to thinking it is possible, and very desirable. I shaved my legs, plucked my eyebrows and started looking after my skin. Just doing those things made me feel so good. I also started caring for my nails - I used to bite them, but the desire to have beautiful nails killed the habit overnight!
Then I took the opportunity to get some good advice on cosmetics from a make-up counter, bought some clothes. A supportive (actually downright encouraging!) friend took me shopping with her and lent me a wig, and last weekend I stayed at home and transformed myself completely for the first time ever! Dressing like a girl was the most unbelievably enjoyable experience. I felt amazing. I thought to myself "Where have you been all my life?"
Now that I have read more about others' experiences, I feel a bit strange. It seems that everyone except me has been doing this from quite a young age. I can certainly remember enjoying putting on tights and the ballet tutu when I was a kid, and having a thing for certain items of clothing as a teenager, like tight bike shorts or my mother's heels, but apart from this I haven't acted upon the interest for about 20 years. I've never been a particularly macho man, though, and have often been mistaken for a gay man because of it.
What I really want to do now is to go out in public as a woman, and I really want to do that before the end of the year.
Rather amusing to read now, as it took me less than two weeks to get out in public in a dress and wig, six months to be dressing everywhere but work, ten months to start hormones, and just over a year to change my name and go full time!
The dressing and going out in public were just the outer layers of the onion-like covers I had built up over my personality over the years, and finally one day I peeled off the last layer and realised that I had always been female inside, I had just had no idea. On that day everything clicked into place, and all the things I could never understand about myself, and that I had worried about for years suddenly made complete sense.
I suppose I will become the butt of that joke about a the difference between being a crossdresser and a transsexual as x number of years!
It's an amazingly fast transition, and it wasn't so long ago that I was walking around as a man, but it seems so distant and foreign now, as if I were sleepwalking for most of my life up until two years ago.
I don't regret a thing I have done, and I am so happy with my new life. I have supportive family and friends to thank for that too.
It's nice to see that there are still some familiar faces around. Some of them are looking noticeably more feminine than before!
Amazing. Heatwarming. Beautiful.
Nothing short. It gives me hope. So glad I read this. <3
I can't think of anything else to say, but congratulations and best of luck! :)
Love,
Karlee.x