Yes, there's more...

So yesterday I said there is more going on....

So... this past sunday..... I purged.

I threw away all my girl gear.

Honestly, I've been thinking about it a long time. I knew that the day would come when my kids got old enough and would start snooping about the house and find my stash. I had been putting it off for a long time. Naturally, I procrastinated because I was still using this gear, and wanted to keep on using it.

Last month, when I started this little venture, I got more serious about throwing out the stuff. I wasn't using it.
But, I still didn't pull the trigger.
And my kids didn't force the issue either. Believe me, if they had found my stuff, they would not have been able to keep quiet about it.

No.
The trigger was my wife. Though she knew of my stash and where it was stored (how she found out is quite another story), she didn't ever bring up her knowledge of the stuff, nor did we talk about my little hobby. But she still was the trigger.

To put it succinctly, we've been having marital problems the last few weeks. (actually, from where I sit, the problems started shortly before me giving up CDing. Or at least that's when I admitted to myself that I was unhappy.) Anyway, whenever we talk about our issues, she always jumps to the conclusion that divorce is imminent. After our most recent skirmish, she went off on a trip with a relative of hers for the afternoon.

There was just something so odd about this trip that I became a little paranoid.
Why are they together today? Where are they going? It's very unusual.
This relative almost never goes out on the weekend, nor does she go anyplace without looking just so. And here she was in grubbies and no makeup.
Odd.

While my wife is very passive, her relative is NOT passive, and if my wife was the one really interested in divorce, it would be her relative that would go after me.

So, this made me paranoid. I'm vulnerable having this girl gear around.
That's when I pulled the trigger.

I was out of the house at the moment I made this decision. So I had to sneak back to the house so my kids wouldn't hear me, and take my stash to my car.
And I was able to do that successfully.
2 of those big household bins full of clothes, and heels and breast forms.
I was able to dump the stuff in a big dumpster (yes, I broke the law), and skate.

Looking back, it was a good decision.

In the last few weeks, I had been contemplating at least selling the breast forms, or donating them somehow. But I was so spooked that I just dumped them. Oh well.

In a big way I feel free.
Feels good, and a bit weird and unfamiliar.

Alex

Quick check-in

Hi there,
Looks like I'm picking up some readers from other blogs. Thanks.

Well, things are looking up and down at the moment.
Actually I'm not having a problem avoiding dressing or being a 'girl'.
I've pretty much gone cold turkey.

I've been a bit tempted here and there but it's nothing compared to what it used to be.

If you'll recall, my first clean day was Oct 31. So here is it Dec 5, and in Recovery terms, I would have my 30 day chip. Obviously I dont really physically have one. But the mental chip is enough.

I'll have more news soon about what's going on. Big doings, actually.

Suffice it for now that I have started seeing a shrink (I really dont know if she is a psychologist or psychiatrist). Some of our time is devoted to talking about cross dressing, but there is way more to me than that.

So, for now, dear reader, adieu.
Talk to you soon.
Alex

Checking in Nov 18, 2012

Hello dear reader(s),

Thought I'd check in.
It's been about 2 1/2 weeks since I started this blog.

I started out mostly on the adrenaline of will power and just gutting out any desire I might have to act out (hanging out in the chat room and dressing and masturbating, or merely hanging in the chat room and masturbating).

Now, I'm just so busy with other pursuits that I'm not really thinking too much about acting out. Oh, it crops up in my brain. Especially if I've had a stressful day, and then I have some alone time at home.

This blog, even just knowing I might have ONE reader, is helping.

I have been into the chat room once or twice since my last entry, and oddly.... I find it to be an effective preventative measure against acting out. I am not initiating many conversations. Just now and again. However, the last time I was there I was contacted by about 4 MALE admirers. Mind you, I went in with the handle, "PurgingSoon". And I think the guys there were trying to hit on me and talk me into being a girl. But I'm there in GUY mode, and steered the conversation away from anything that might be stimulating for either one of us, and back to a more clinical explanation of what I'm doing there.
It's an interesting exercise. I'm clearly there in guy more, and it forces me to project that in my presence.... meaning: more than just in name only.

Just a quick one today.

Alex

Enlightening Encounter

Part of my process to overcome cross-dressing is to help others as well. I know there have to be others out there in a similar situation who are looking for ways to feel better without acting out.

So, shortly after my post a few days ago I created an account and went on to one of the most well-known and popular web and chat site for Cross-dressers, and Transgender girls.

Look, here's my message: I'm an addicted cross-dresser. I'm likely a sex-addict too. (I have other problems too, but let's stay on message.) I'm looking for ways for me to feel better about myself, given the cards that were dealt to me. I'm in a male body. I like being male. And for me, although I have deeply entertained the idea of being female for kicks, I would never be a post-op trans-sexual. And I would never screw up my family unit just so I could ride off on some fantasy sexual romp.

For me, and I'm guessing a lot of other CDers like myself, I think this is a fetish. A strong fetish, no doubt. But for me, I have trained myself over the years to have a particular sexual response to a very specific set of stimuli. And this method of reaching a sexual peak is getting in the way of other things in life. Other, more important things that need addressing.

As I said, I went to this chat room, and basically took my message there. I'm not looking to change anyone if they are happy with the way they are. I'm merely looking for others like me that question the trans lifestyle. Maybe we can connect in some way and help each other. And do it in a way that is non-faith-based.

My foray into that chat room was very interesting. By the vocal (sic) response of a minority of people, you'd have thought I was a cop walking into a crack den. "How dare you try to convert us!" "What kind of attention-whore are you that you need to come back here and try to make friends?"

I should have expected that kind of reaction. I'm sure it was very similar to a reformer walking into a crowded bar.

The funniest part was when I logged off, and went right back into the room with my female persona. They were still trashing Alex: "Dipshit" "What was the point of him coming in here?"

And here's the point. I want to help others as well as myself. I thought the best way to get my message to anyone who is in a similar situation to mine was to go where the crossdressers and transgender girls are. The Lion's Den. I came out a little beaten up, but no worse for wear.

And I get that that is THEIR turf. No surprise there. And I can see where they might take offense at the idea that some there might be ADDICTED because that is what I consider to be my own story. I get that too. But they also misunderstand if they think that all the 'girls' there are there for the same reasons.
Many just told me to quit and move on. If it were that easy to quit a bad habit, then there would be no smokers, or alcoholics, or drug addicts, or..... fill in the blank here.

But here's my take-away from the experience:
The number of vocal people were few. And I realize my message is unpopular there. But what I was struck by was how ugly it got. Not by me, but by the 'girls' and guys there. (for those of you not in the know, there are a significant number of males who frequent these chat rooms. They are called 'Admirers'.) Now I know GGs (real women) can have ugly attitudes, but for a group of people who are trying the darndest to emulate females and their behaviors, what was missing was kindness, or even curiosity about why I might be there, other than their derisive attitude toward me.

I do plan on going back to that chat room and if nothing else, make my presence known. I've spoken with one of the chat room admins and been warned that if I try actively proselytizing my message that I will be booted. So I will merely be in the room, and chatting in general periodically. My profile there has my message. So it can be seen, and if somebody asks me about this in private, I can.

But quite honestly I don't mind the ugliness. Makes it that much easier for me to change and reinforce my emotional view of the social aspect of cross-dressing.

How I started Cross-dressing (maybe even why) Part 2

..... continued from Part 1:

I had never masturbated before. I didn't know what to expect.

What I did know was that I liked seeing girls wear hosiery.
And I knew that Mom wore this stuff, so SHE must like it. She liked looking nice. I knew Dad appreciated mom looking nice.

Mom was a girly girl. She always wore dresses, skirts, and decidedly feminine looking slacks. Her hair was always "just so". Every other saturday she was at the hairdresser's. Dad and I made a little fun of her about that. On a Saturday morning I might walk into the kitchen where Dad was, and ask where mom was. He'd say, "She's going to 'try it again'." Meaning: She hasn't achieved Hair-perfection, by her own standards. Eventually she even came to use that phrase. I suppose she got the joke after a while.

I think I realized hosiery was sexy when I was probably about 6. Mom took me early saturday mornings to be in a child's bowling league. Maybe the moms bowled too. I don't remember that part. Anyway, one of the other moms was driving, and Mom and I were in the back seat. I was on the driver's side in the back seat. Mom was on the hump. I think there was another kid on her right. For some reason I slid down to the floor in front of my seat. (Remember, this was a time when seatbelts were still considered mere accessories.) Knowing me, when we came to a stop, the inertia slid me forward a little, and I thought it was funny just to slide all the way too the floor. Yeah. That sounds like me. I'm pretty sure Mom didn't even bat an eye at me down there. She could be a talker, and kept yammering on with the driving mom. Mom was wearing a skirt (to the knees), heels and nylons. Real nylons! Even though pantyhose was invented and popularized in the 60's, it didn't really catch on until the mid-70's. It doesn't surprise me now that she was still wearing garter-held nylons into the early/mid 70's. Mom was a bit of a late-adopter.
Anyway, while down there on the floor, somehow my face and hands touched her leg. I felt this strange material on her. It felt good. Her leg felt warm. I don't remember many more details, but I seem to want to recall that I might have held or hugged her leg as though it was a valued teddy bear. I mean, that was my mom. Mom was in general a pretty good hugger when I was a child. She was soft, and warm and cuddly. And now there was this new dimension that I hadn't experienced before. My recollection is that there was a part of me that did realize that there was some thing taboo or naughty about that feeling. Of course I couldn't intellectualize it or verbalize it. But there was something there that caught me differently.

So now, I'm trying on clothing that only MOM wears. I KNEW this was taboo. And it was exciting. I knew it had something to do with sex. I mean, I knew what a boner was, and knew that it felt good in a way to HAVE a boner. I had the sex-education class in 6th grade where they explained (vaguely, sort of) the mechanics of sex. And that was 2 years before. And I knew at 14 that some time soon I'd be doing things with girls. But I was EXTREMELY shy about girls, preferring to be a class clown.

At the moment, I just knew this was exciting and fun. But obviously didn't know the ramifications of my actions. Even in the months after this initial experience, I did think about it. Wondering even then if I could quit.

Now I look back on that first time and wonder more about Mom. (A lesbian friend who never knew about my girly activities once said to me while we discussed how lesbians come to BE lesbians said, "It's all about Mom." I wonder if that true for most of us cross-dressers, and other transgender types.) I wonder if it was just about the sexual thrill of wearing her clothing, or if there was something more there.

Mom wore the pants in the family, so to speak. She did the disciplinary yelling, for the most part. She handled the family money. She did the cooking, the cleaning, the sewing, the shopping. And she had a full-time job too. Dad mowed the lawn, and had a job. But for some reason when he got home from work, he would take a nap on the couch after dinner. Then go to bed. Mom might help me with homework, but mostly she was cleaning up after dinner, and maybe doing the bills or some other chore.
She could be feisty. Fierce, even. She would stick up for me and fight for me whether I was right or wrong. Dad was more reasoned about things, but most of the time he took her side too. But Mom was definitely a Mama Lioness protecting her cub.

So what I wonder about is whether part of my first dressing experience was also about experiencing Mom's power. Think about it. Mom wore garments of finer material that had a special feel about them that only SHE wore (of the 3 of us). They made her prettier. In fact, they made every woman I saw on TV prettier. And 60's and 70's tv was filled with some pretty clear imagery of how men were attracted to pretty girls. This was not lost on me of course. Females had some sort of power. Near as I could tell, they had this because of how they appeared..... how they looked, smelled, felt, and how they dressed, and how they held themselves, and behaved. Maybe my trying on of Mom's pantyhose was about feeling the power she had.

And why not? What power did I have? Or more importantly, what power did I think I had? I was just about to go into high school. I liked girls very much, but found them incredibly intimidating. At least the girls that "I" liked were intimidating. It was easier to hang with my buddies. When I did talk with girls, I just talked to them as though WE were buddies.  I was never THAT smooth guy who knew how to talk to girls in that sexual way. It always seemed so phony, and contrived. So, for now, let's just leave it at... I felt comparatively powerless regarding females.

So yes, there's a money shot (of sorts) here....  I laid there on my parent's bed wearing mom's hose, and waited. Something should happen, right?
After a few minutes it did. Some white goo came out of me. And then my body involuntarily squeezed my butt and pelvic muscles that squeezed my prostate and pushed more goo out. Yes, it felt good. But afterwards, I realized that I made a mess of mom's hose, and I better clean that stuff up right now. I think I rinsed them out in the sink and threw them in the dryer.

Little did I know that that one little experiment would turn into years of addiction. It's adversely affected not only me, but my relationships with girlfriends, wife, and children.

There is much more to my story, and my thoughts about this.

Ironically, as I write this, there is a book between my arms on my desk that has nothing to do with sex addiction. It's about dieting. (yes, I need to drop 10 or 60 lbs.) And I just happened to read this passage that does work for dealing with this addiction as well:

When you get married, does the religious figure or justice of the peace ask, "Do you swear to give the person a try?" When people tell me they will give it a try, I say "Don't bother. you have already decided to fail." It takes more than a try to quit addictions: it takes a commitment.

Today makes 8 full days without acting out.

How I started Cross-dressing (maybe even why) Part 1

If you speak with enough 'girls', we all pretty much started out the same way. We tried on mom's clothes, or maybe a sister made us into a girl by dressing us up in her clothes as her sister. That story is familiar to most of us. Somehow we got access to girl clothing and tried it out. And WOW, it felt different. Good somehow..... maybe it was a clear good feeling.... maybe it took a few times to really GET IT.

That's how it worked for me. I was a latch key kid in the suburbs. My parents always worked. I was left in the hands of sitters/daycare until the age of 12. Even before then I preferred to just hang at home, ditching the neighborhood lady that was supposed to watch me. That wasn't so much about cross-dressing as much as I learned to enjoy my own company early on. (only child syndrome?)

Actually I didn't discover mom's things until I was 14. I remember the scenario vividly.
Summertime. August. New school year hadn't started yet. Warm Afternoon. I was headed to the shower. Of the two bathrooms, only mom and dad's bathroom had a shower. Towel and washcloth in hand, I was walking through their bedroom and for some reason I paused and poked around in mom and dad's drawers. (Kids do that, you know) Dad's drawers were boring: clean handkerchiefs, underwear, socks, a couple of mementos from the past. Mom's really weren't that much better: bras, panties, girdles... boring.

One of her drawers, however, was a little more interesting: old pantyhose. Clean, laundered, but used pantyhose. Most, if not all, with runs in them. This was the drawer where mom's pantyhose went to die. Knowing mom, she couldn't part with the money she spent on those things by throwing them away, just because they had just a run in the legs. Mom was crafty. She sewed, and knitted and crocheted for my whole life. My guess is that her plan was to save this old hose until she had some project she could use them on. Mom was that way. She wasn't a hoarder they way you see on TV these days, but she definitely hoarded certain things. Let's just say that when it came to craft materials, when we were cleaning out the house after she passed..... there was enough craft stuff to supply at least 10 other crafty grannies.

Anyway, so I looked through this drawer of doomed hose, and thought maybe I would try a pair on. Even at that time I knew not to try any pair that were in her hamper or discarded on the floor. Clearly these were on the active list. I knew that If I damaged those in any way, there might be questions hurled in my direction.

This was a good decision not to use the 'actives'. Once I chose a pair from the drawer and decided to try them on, I found out something very quickly. You can't just put hose on the way you might put on socks the way little boys do. Jamming your foot into a sock, and just pulling the sock up works great on thick sock material. Not so much for delicate nylon/spandex combinations. So I made my first runner. Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! After a few minutes, I calmed down. Try again. Slowly. Ok. got both legs up. Pulled the panty part all the way up. Yes, over the raging teenage boner I had going on. In fact, I managed to tuck my boner down one leg of the hose.

Now what?

I didn't know. I didn't know what to do with myself.

Quick Observation

After I made my first blog entry, I realized what day it was. And the irony was not lost on me that Halloween is known as the cross-dressers holiday. What other day do guys have a reason to be dressed like a woman in public and not take any real flak for it?