CDing etc as Addiction

[Anthony Simon]

In her "Here's Karin" thread Karin wrote:

Serious bit...
Earlier this week I turned in at work and was informed that one of our guys had suffered a heart attack the previous night and had sadly passed away. Age 51 and a shock to everyone. Very sad indeed. I wasn't close with this person, but did know them. As expected there was a sombre mood as a result and then the comments along the lines of ' life is too short' and 'we must live life to the full, cos when it's time it's over' resonate around the works. This got me thinking deeply. We could all do better in our lifestyles and such, and for me I guess my biggest risk is my HRT. I also have read many times that most transexuals who do HRT know the risks, and will take that risk anyway, as the alternatives to it are dire. I am amongst this number. A few thoughts later and I arrive at the conclusion, that despite knowing the fragility of life and wanting to live as long as I can, I couldn't possibly consider halting my HRT. If I were talking about alcohol, or heroin people would call this need an addiction right? So my question is for both transexuals and the wider cross dressing community..

Is the reason we have to do what we do, merely because we are addicted?

If it is, why doesn't cold turkey work? And if it isn't addiction, whats the difference?

It looks to me like answering this would burst the bounds of her original thread. So here's a new one.

IMO CDing has an addictive element - and, at times, I can find a temptation to hide in it. Just want to stay in it in order to block out the world - which seems to me like the way people use drugs. I also think there's an addictive element to the developmental side of it. Like the whole process of getting more and more into being a woman can be addictive and function as a drug in its own right. Like the journey to becoming a woman can create this series of new experiences which in themselves become addictive.

For some people, whatever their drug of choice, their problems can be so intractable, that they just can't go cold turkey. Like the reality is too unbearable.

The fact that you can't give up something doesn't however mean it's a drug. Like if you tried to give up breathing you'd die.

[Karin]

Edit, removed this bit

[Cassandra Lynn]

Thanx Anthony, here's my reply to Karin's original post....


Step #1 We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.

I, as a recovered alcoholic, can tell you that no truer words were ever spoken m'luv.
But the question as presented is rather incomparable to those of us with gender issues. i've spent alot of time thinking about this and seen it discussed many times on the boards and it just doesn't compare.

Firstly, throw any ingestible mind altering substances right out the window.
Trying to compare the addictions of alcohol/drugs (they are one by the way, but i won't bore you with that little nugget), to anything we in the gender variant community NEED to live life in a peaceful manner is completely and totally fruitless.

Depending on where one resides on the gender spectrum identifies the needs/wants of how you live your everyday life. The 'man in a dress' crossdresser types can prolly get along with alot less dressing than the more gender confluenced TG/CD who has finally accepted his or her self and now incorporates that into their daily life.

After one has accepted that they need to quit fighting who and what they are these needs tend to become a part of life.
For those who exist in dadt (don't ask, don't tell) relationships or are hiding themselves it does become rather unmanageable, the trying to sneak things here and there begins to look like questionable behavior.
But for me after spending nearly a month in a treatment center, out patient and attending AA meetings regularly our needs are just that.......what we need to be happy.

Addictive behavior even when it deals with things other than drugs, such as eating, gambling, sex/love (yes, you had better believe it my friends) brings up other behaviors and traits dealing with true addiction.

Now then, is what we do compulsive, obsessive?
I think so, in many ways yes, but leave the term addiction in the hands of those who have been there, and those in the medical community who treat them.

[Karin]

To which I answered...

I'm not being one to trivialize anybody's experiences with alcohol, drugs or anything else of course, but that first line

Step #1 We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.

That could quite easily be written for me with gender issues. I am undergoing HRT, and recently reduced doses and bump, I've had to nudge them back up a little cos it was just too depressing without it. The mones alters our bodies, as does drink or other drugs. I don't completely see the difference in a way. Surely the drug addict will say 'I need a fix' or else they feel bad. I need my HRT or else I feel bad. I need to express myself or else I'd scream etc. And I justify this how? I say?..you got it, I say I need it to function. I'm prepared to risk my life on it and all that. It's not just the HRT, I'd risk the surgery too if I had the cash, and I dress outside more and more risking 'family status' etc. My point is , everything is compromisable to get fixed. How is this different to addiction hon?

[Cassandra Lynn]

You are medicating to fix gender dysphoria, which is a recognized medical issue.

The hormones are the medicine, as long as your not abusing them, and by that i mean taking an amount which could cause an overdose then your merely fixing what ails you.

That half gallon of bourbon (and often more) i was drinking each day wasn't for medicinal purposes, no matter what my sick alcoholic brain tried to call it.

Now then, for the sake of argument (or debate perhaps), you might indeed be experiencing an exchange of dopamine in the brain just as any addict using a substance does, or any one with an eating addiction.
But it hardly is an addiction, i see it more as a life need, not unlike food and water.

[Karin]

So here's a question then...

How would someone know if what they were experiencing Was the "addiction" that Anthony explains, or treating gender dysphoria as cass explains? Are they not the same thing?

Or are we saying some people do it for 'poops and giggles' and get addicted, while others do it for GD and get addicted?

Me personally, I had to do it or else I'd have jumped off a cliff if that helps. I view my case as treating GD naturally, but take any CDer, couldn't they say that they were treating GD too by dressing?

[Ginny Jones]

Karin - reading your last entry it occurred to me that sometimes cding has a Euphoric quality that can be quite addictive. I've posted on this elsewhere, but if you come from a background of being isolated and you increasingly encounter acceptance (eg. by coming to this forum for example) - you are likely to do it some more! As with other addictive processes, you need to increase the dose in order to get the same hit! So under-dressing becomes, wearing forms, becomes going out in the car, becomes....

I agree with Anthony about there being an addictive element to this pursuit.

I've heard other Cders refer to going out en femme in very similar terms to parachutists or base jumpers! They see it as a rush! Clearly this has the potential to become an addictive process and as before, is quite likely to escalate.


Hugs Ginny xxx

[Latanya]

i dont know what to call it!
but there is something to cd'ing that is kind of addictive.
and i agree with karin although i dont want to transition i did experiment with the hormones and am having a tuff time staying of them. it fulfills some innate need. as i dress and i am in what u call integrated mode it kind of feeds on itself. the more i do it the easier it get, the more i enjoy it and the more i try to do more fem stuff.
it fills a need and as u get comfortable with that need it grows.
i do not consider myself a compulsive person. i really have no capacity to become abusive in what i do but dressing for me is addictive it has become a need, a crutch. i know the risks of hrt and especially self medicating. i have even felt some neg medical changes and yet i keep on trying to continue the hormones. so far after 6+ months i have gone off. but it is hard to resist reordering.

[Anita]

Anthony wrote:

I also think there's an addictive element to the developmental side of it. Like the whole process of getting more and more into being a woman can be addictive and function as a drug in its own right.

It's in the beginning when it has more of the characteristics of an addiction or a compulsion. The beginning is usually crossdressing, for everyone here. Those members who go on to have lives as women in the world, (whether full time or not) cross into what Cassandra wrote:

But it hardly is an addiction, i see it more as a life need, not unlike food and water.

Once you've begun living part or all of your life as a woman, it just becomes the everyday world you know.

Ginny wrote:

I agree with Anthony about there being an addictive element to this pursuit.

In the beginning for me there was an infatuation with this 'new self' that I'd discovered. It's like dating someone you've just met can have addictive aspects to it, but if you marry them, and it's 20 years later, you're not going to experience it as addiction anymore. You can still be close, and you need them, but it's everyday life now. You're always with them.

So there's a difference that I see. The need for the activity doesn't go away, or get less. But if you integrate the need into your life, as in transitioning to being a woman, or marrying someone, then you've "become" the need. And that's a big difference between activity addiction and drug/alcohol addiction. If you make alcohol an everyday thing, the effects of the addiction get worse. But if you make living as a woman an everyday thing, then the 'addiction' just turns into a better quality of life overall. Big difference in the long-term effects of these things. But in the short term, they do seem to have qualities in common.

[Latanya]

i am not sure for every one it is better quality of life. for some it creates huge conflicts and yet we still do it.
it can create difficulties with friends and family and yet we still do it
if we play with hormones it can affect ones health and yet we still do it
we get shunned by society and yet we still do it
so it may not be addictive but there is some a draw and compulsion to dress and for many of us continues to grow despite all we have to deal with

[Anita]

Latanya wrote:

i am not sure for every one it is better quality of life. for some it creates huge conflicts and yet we still do it.

I'm sorry that I glossed over this fact in order to make my point, Latanya. In my 12 years of going to support groups, I've seen my share of the ones who suffer from having transitioned. My own girlfriend has had a hard road of it in some aspects of her life; not all.

Karin wrote:

Me personally, I had to do it or else I'd have jumped off a cliff

Well, that's LeeAnne's view of it, too. "It was either transition or die," is how she puts it, and that was indeed the case, at the time.

The point being that the need here is so great that women still make the transition, even when they know that life may be harder on the other side of it. And Anya is saying that like alcohol or drugs, her health may be compromised by continuing what she's doing.

I don't know percentages at all, but I'd like to think that a good majority do improve their lives overall. This is not scientific research, but just in my own support group, I have met maybe 300 women over the 12 years. The ones who improved their lives are a definite majority in this sampling. Nearly all of them paid an emotional price to do it, but that is almost always the case--very rare that I've met gals who say, "Oh, I just did it, and everyone's cool with it." (But I have known some like that!)

I'd like to point out that there's an addictive quality to much of what we do in our activities. Playing basketball was once like that for me, and the pros in the NBA "become" their addiction. Playing music can be addictive. Listening to music can be, too--I'm not sure how I would have gotten through high school without music to keep me inspired.

[Latanya]

Latanya wrote:

i am not sure for every one it is better quality of life. for some it creates huge conflicts and yet we still do it.

I'm sorry that I glossed over this fact in order to make my point, Latanya. In my 12 years of going to support groups, I've seen my share of the ones who suffer from having transitioned. My own girlfriend has had a hard road of it in some aspects of her life; not all.

it not only conflicting for transitioners but for cd's and tg fluid inidviduals also
and yet we do it! whether it is with religion, or family and friends or just with society there is conflict. now i admit personally one might fell comfortable as a cd,etc. and even feel they have a better quality of life as male and female but we dont live in a vacuum and looking at the bigger picture it might not be better quality of life.
and u are right a lot of what we do becomes "addictive" like. i never saw myself as a compuslive personality but when it comes to this side of me i do. i continue to do it despite the threat of being outed, affrcting my relationships with my family and friends, and possibly doing damage to my health.

[Karin]

Hmm. My view is that my life is most certainly improved since I got out of my box. All this talk of conflict in the wider world makes me think tho. Again I can only speak for me, but I've spent two years to get to the 'out' to inner family, not out to outer family, and not confirmed out to work but everyone pretty much knows. Only just now, I've come back from shopping, fair bit of makeup etc, nobody even looks anymore. There's been ZERO conflict from the wider world. I expected there would be, but nope. My caution has been the only obstacle. After two years I'm only half way granted, I could easily have dashed to it much quicker but I've been going the slow and steady route. I view it as foundation work. No major whammies for those around me, no lying or covering up and hiding, and this is key.

For me I guess I'm addicted to life, but it has to be livable that goes without saying. With my original question I guess I was asking what's the difference in it being medicinal, or addiction. Hopefully those addicted to things may be 'cured' or moreso helped to find a way through life without satisfying their addictions. Who actually gets to decide if I can be 'reprogrammed' or not tho? First answer would be me maybe? I've tried that and it's not going away. I'm preparing to out proper in fact . But surely the heroin addict at the peak of addiction said they couldn't stop too?

[Latanya]

i understand u karin and so happy for u and ur progress. and how seamlessly it has been for u(the tg part).but for may it is not.
addictive is a strong word. and if feel to some extent it is different than alcohol or drugs. those are external addictions and to some extent a symptom and reaction to something going on in ones life or compulsive behavior.
but the whole spectrum of tg is more internal. it is something innate (not for all but for most) its an innate need that manifests itself as addictive but its instead filling an internal need.

[Karin]

Okay okay Anya, let me spell this out for ya

Me is a girl now. I'm cooking dinner here What do all those big words mean hon? I'm totally befuddled

It sounded really impressive tbh, I just don't understand a word of it buahahaha