Back in the jug agane

How do you explain to someone what the problem is when they have made it clear to you that the very subject that lies at the heart of your mood swings is a topic that off limits?  Something that might be alluded to occasionally - often with a put down comment that make you want to retreat further back in your shell – but that can and will never openly discussed between you.

The thing I can’t get my head around is that L has been there, come out the other side, and now lives as the person she wants to be. Far from understanding, accepting or tolerating my need to dress, she finds constant opportunities to belittle it as something kinky and ‘pervy’.

 “There are also transsexuals who dislike transvestites as well as homosexuals. Intolerance can be found in strange quarters.” 

Harry Benjamin. The Transsexual Phenomenon.

 

 Saddening, but absolutely true. As cross dressers, we are sometimes seen as the pond-life end of the scale not only by mundane women and men, but also by some transwomen who, having struggled to arrive on the far shore, can be more militant in their intolerance and dislike of ‘mere’ TVs than born-that-way women.

Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies.

This definitely seems to be the situation I find myself in. L knows about my need to dress – has known all along in fact, since we first met – but has always rebuffed and deflected any attempt to discuss it openly. She certainly doesn’t want to be involved in or confronted with it, or meet Susie.

I should be grateful I suppose that at least I’m spared the problem of coming out to her, and as long as I’m reasonably discreet, I don’t have to find hidden corners of the house to hide Susie’s clothes in secret.  Which is starting to be a problem as I tend to shop as a displacement activity when I'm denied the opportunity to dress, and she probably now has many clothes as my male self (and far more shoes) and running out of places to put them.

Drop a dress size through stress

Not that I recommend it.

I weighed myself for the first time in ages last night and discovered I had lost 2½  kg and am now back down to 61 kg and a 28½  inch waist, measurements I’ve not seen since 30 years ago.

 I’m not sure whether I should be pleased or alarmed. Susie is thrilled that this means she can just squeeze back into a size 10 (as long as she doesn’t breathe out), but for my bloke side, this puts me, at 6ft 1, firmly into the underweight category. I should be worried, but the problem of trying to be two different people, each with a different set of body perceptions and expectations, means that I experience a certain amount of body dysmorphia from both sides. Too tall and angular for Susie, too underweight and scrawny for my male side.

It might due to the fact that it’s summer, and I’m eating less and opting for salad meals instead of bread, rice and pasta. But I do know that my eating habits have been all over the place in the last few weeks and some of that is down to mood swings and depression – and a lot of that is to due with the comedown on not being able to spend any time as Susie since that glorious three days in July when she finally came of her shell.