I'm a long-time fan of Susan's site, and I've finally joined up. Happy to be here!
Let me introduce myself with the following...
I'm a Chicago-area crossdresser/transvestite who has long struggled with my gender identity as well as various addictions, including those involving alcohol and sex. I've been through three rounds of therapy, none of which helped me much. May I please offer a suggestion to any others who may be struggling and feeling all alone, as I did?
My suggestion is to sit down and write down your life story, including your experiences (as many as may be relevant to your problems) and your feelings and thoughts about your experiences. That's what I did... 100,000 words worth. And it has been by far my best form of therapy ever... honest, healthy self-therapy.
That's how I realized that I'm just an occasional crossdresser, rather than a transsexual. But I also realized that I'm "bigendered" – that is, I'm both male and female, depending on whatever mood I'm in. I like my male half as much as my female half. And I further realized that, for me, crossdressing (which started out as a healthy form of self-expression) evolved into a form of addiction—a type of addiction that became associated with other addictions, such as excessive alcohol use, an impulsive addiction to call girls and strippers and sex with strangers in bars, and an irresponsible addiction to spending money.
All these things worked together to lead to a lot of mental anguish for me over the past couple years. But writing it all down finally helped me put it all into perspective and to understand it all better. And I've finally reached a resolution of sorts and a mental peace of sorts. (No. I did not throw out my girl clothes.)
Each of us is different. And each of us has to come to our own terms with our behaviors. Human beings are extremely complex creatures. None of us can possibly fit neatly into particular expert-designed categories listed in some psychology textbook. We each need to discover our own truths... what works best for us.
Each of us is an individual before we are a member of a group or a classification in a textbook.
