It took me a very long time to admit to myself that I had always wanted to be a girl. Not just dress like one once in a while, but be one. This well before puberty.
That wasn't in the cards for me so I buried it as deeply as I possibly could and used sporadic episodes of dressing to relieve the pressure of dysphoria over many years until it no longer worked.
When I talk about identity this is what I am always talking about. Does it go beyond the skin deep nature of just clothing? That's what we need to figure out for ourselves.
What I ended up finding out over time was the clothes were just an augmentation tool for how I felt inside. When I dressed sporadically the emphasis was on the clothes because of the stop and start nature. The gender expression deprivation anxiety gets quenched for a moment.
ReplyDeleteBut then, when I started dressing all the time I started to see my feelings went way beyond clothes. Things became more obvious once I was "out" to myself so to speak.
-Christina
The challenge for you now will be to determine what your comfort level will be as there is nothing wrong with simply enjoying the dressing. However if you have any repressed identity issues that will come out over time which will make you realize that the clothes were serving as an expression side of something deeper. Take your time with this as it is not a race :)
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