Heterosexual Crossdressers
In the SHM Community Forums, Lily was happy to impart her thoughts to one member who needed some ideas about heterosexual crossdressers in her community. She said:
Hi Katie!
I am happy to see you coming back and trying to get something out of this forum. Your post to that other CD woman was very generous.
I am no professional, but when I read that last post of yours, I wonder just how judgmental you are of yourself.
I only say this because If you feel like a professional would be "mucking up your feelings", you are probably hiding something.
Whatever it is, I assure you, it can't be anything all that heinous, unless you've been the leader of a satanic cult and chopped up babies for fun. Ok, maybe I just got dramatic there, but my point is a lot of us have fears that our issues are really bad and that looking at them is goinmg to make our lives worse.
When you go see a professional that's been doing psychotherapy for 20+ years, there not much you can tell them that's going to get them riled up – unless you pick a loser of a therapist, that is
Then again, you strike me as a quiet rebel, (hey- it takes one to know one so don't get defensive), and that usually means there's a fear of being controlled and a need for it, too. This may or may not relate to your sexual preferences, but in any case, I'm very much like you and hope I haven't stepped too far or scared you away. All I can say about choosing a therapist is to look at Jimmy's suggestions in the psychotherapy forum and good god, if you see a therapist and talk about the CD stuff you are into, for your own sake, pick a gay or lesbian therapist with experience in working with these issues. Straight people might just freak out because of their own unexamined issues, if you know what I mean. (I am lesbian, so I am biased about working with straight therapists who think they know it all, but haven't a clue about how much they don't know).
My therapist (yes, I've been in therapy, does it show??) had a caseload of CDs who would come in dressed up, and trannies and lezzies and whatever, so I know she was cool about it all. l tell you that the waiting room was a sight sometimes. I mostly felt compassion for
every one of us because I figured everyone was just looking for some inner peace, ya know?
Let me also say something about that thesis. When I did mine, many years ago, we had a very smart grad student who led our little support group. She started the first meeting by saying that she bet that most people in the room felt like they didn't know why they were there, why the faculty had chosen them and that they were afraid they'd bomb out and be a complete failure.
She said this very casually, and also said that's how she felt when she was starting. We all looked at each other, and you know what?? That's what we each were feeling too.
Pretty smart grad student. She had us pegged, and had the heart to try and comfort us all. She probably could see the terror in all our eyes and couldn't help herself from trying to calm us down.
Later in school I learned that when hot-shot corporate board members were polled in some big study, something like 80-90% of them said they thought they bomb out of their jobs. The researchers named it the 'impostor syndrome". You may want to look it up.
All I'm trying to say is that you are in good company. There's something about our culture or society or something that makes us strive to accomplish, but then makes us afraid of failing. It is so sad, and so unnecessary.
I wish you the best, and hope my yakking on hasn't upset you.
Spread the Word!
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