How I began, Part 2: The Consequences

[PaulaK]

I managed to keep my early crossdressing a secret for about four months. Then one afternoon, my mother confronted me suddenly. Why were some of her things hidden in my room? I did not answer.

That was the last civil conversation we ever had on the matter. Thereafter, for about the next four years, it was war. She would deliver some threat, warning (veiled or specific),sarcasm, barb or insult to me, any time of day or night I happened to be around her. Call it a minimum of once an hour, for four years? It didn't stop me at all, of course. But it ruined my adolescence.

I kept on wearing her clothes, and also started collecting things she discarded, or I found in neighborhood trash bins. (I lived in a large city.) If she found anything I had acquired, she got rid of it.

At the time, like many of you, I thought that, not ONLY was I the ONLY male in the world who wanted to do such a sick thing, but the FIRST in human history.

Gradually though, I learned from newspaper articles of arrests of homosexuals in bars dressed as women. So these then, were the "queers", "homos" or "fairies" my mother sarcastically had "mentioned" to me. At the time, it was a known fact that crossdressing was something only "they" did. Even "Dear Abby" and "Ann Launders" said so. So how could I say that I had no sexual interest in men? (And still don't.)

My mother's greatest threat: "I have decided to tell your father tonight what you have been doing" turned out to be a bluff. After her death, my father casually mentioned that she HAD told him, but he had ignored it as "nonsense" and "just curiosity". That was pretty much how their relationship was then. My father had his own problems and both my parents drank.

I should mention that, during this time period, I was also attending an All-Boys elite High School, gearing us toward engineering careers. (Had to beat the Russians to the Moon, you know.) It stressed the subjects I was worst at, math and science, eventually at the college level. I was failing everything and on the verge of being expelled. At home, there was my mother and her acid tongue. I have no idea how I survived being sixteen. I literally felt I had my sanity cupped in my hands and it was slipping through my fingers.

Anyway, about the time I turned 17, the fires of adolescent testosterone had banked down and I became less obsessive about dressing. After I finally graduated High School (barely), I attended college briefly and then joined the Army. As you sisters who have been in the service know, there is simply NO privacy in the military. NONE. Plus I was soon in a combat unit in a war, and we had other things to worry about. My desire to crossdress did not go away, of course, with my GI haircut. But I learned to "do it in my head" which served me well enough. After my discharge, I chose a rather masculine profession, but resumed dressing in my spare time. And that is more or less it.

[Beauty]

Hi again Paula,

Wow.. that was a very powerful follow up. I am sorry about the loss of your mom Paula. I'm sure she's your biggest guardian angel now that she's home and sees that this side of you is actually beautiful and she was part of the reason you came in to this world.

In my home it was kind of like the Army. I couldn't hide anything from my mom in my room. No way.

I related about the stories, newpaper article and TV reports about sexuality. I remember once hearing Sir Elton John speak on the Tomorrow show and he talked about being bi-sexual. I said to myself. "Oh.. that must be me then." It took me another 25 years to realize. "Ohhhh you have to be attracted to men to be gay!" I'm such a dunce.

I too was challenged in Math. It wasn't because it was hard. It was because they taught it in an archaic way. If they just had more women math teachers I would have done well because the communication was always better with women and myself. (like A LOT of us here)

Thanks again for sharing yourself and your early stories with us. It means a lot ot so many of us. Right now I can only tell you how much it meant to me, but there are lurkers who feel the same way I do.

Beauty

[Marda]

Hi PaulaK
Thank you for the quick followup / expansion
Hopefully you feel better already for sharing with us ... out goes the bad air
Relax and get some good air in here ... you're with your new "Family" here

Love / Marda

[PaulaK]

Beauty, your screen name reflects your soul. "Thinking good thoughts" about you too sis!

Marda, we seem to have some things in common and we will chat in private.

It took me many years to come to terms, internally, about my mother. She did enormous damage to me psychologically in my formative years. I never hated her, but I feared her. She had been my best friend through childhood too, because of our social situation in the neighborhood, and my father's absence (always at work, in school or doing homework, using his GI Bill rights to better himself, all for nought in the end.) So her turning on me cut deep. She made me fear intimacy, not to trust women, and to conceal my own sexuality. But really, she was alone and isolated, even from my father, and just trying to do the best she could, in the terms of the era. I see that now.

Well, that was awhile back and we can't blame the past forever, can we?

[CJ]

Hi all,

Excellent follow-up, Paula! Thanks.

It's too bad that your relationship with your mom deteriorated to that extent. I'm glad to see that you seem to have nevertheless come out of your childhood strong for all that.

You're right, you know; we can't go on forever blaming the past for who we are. We can acknowledge its influence and then decide that it's up to each of us to determine what we want our future to look like.

Again, great post, girl!

Love,
CJ

[Rebecca]

Hi Paula,

It certainly is quite a follow up, and I can only agree with what others have said. One important thing is what CJ said, and that is to acknowledge the influence of the past and decide on the future. You are right, we cannot change the past, we can shape the future.
That is the stage I am at right now, being more than simply aware of the past, and being ruled by it.

How is life treating you nowadays ? I am interested to how you have weathered the bad times, mind, only post if you want to.

Thankyou for a very interesting story

Love
Rebecca xxx

[PaulaK]

Thank you all for your kind thoughts.

Well, I would not say I was stronger for the experience, I was damaged emotionally in a formative stage of my life. Part of why I posted this was as a cautionary tale. But parents now have greater understanding, even from the popular culture (Jerry Springer etc). I don't blame my mother. Even now I have no idea what she should have done. But all that is a long time ago. My life has gone on. I made enough of my own mistakes that dwarf anything that happened to me in childhood. How did it all work out? Well, about the same as any other human being. I have had ups and downs, some great successes, some dark periods, none connected with CDing. Considering what happened to many, I am still here. I have both pleasure and responcibilty in my life. I deal with it. I can't complain.

[Virginia]

Paula,
Well, its kinda a "been there done that" for a lot of us here. We either supressed or repressed this "gift" we have until it just could no longer be repressed. For those of us who have begun dealing with this and trying to understand where we came from and where we are and most of us looking forward to where it is taking us you join a very elite group of very intelligent folks here. We hope you will continue to participate and share with us.
Deborah