Transvestic Disorder

Hello all,

It's Day 35 of my recovery and for years I've been trying to overcome my addiction to pmo. If you were to go back into my profile, you'd find my history of escalation with normal pornography to transgender content and crossdressing.

This last bit has caused me a lot of distress and after confessing to my girlfriend in November, I abstained from looking at any porn related to the subject and from fantasizing to orgasm. I had a couple relapses starting in January and it all came to a head in March where my, now fiancee, was disturbed by the development that I was relapsing more and more.

This caused me to visit a psychiatrist to get at why I felt so lost with my own thoughts and to understand why I feel this compulsion to fantasize about crossdressing and autogynephilia (The paraphilic tendency of someone who is anatomically male to be sexually aroused by the thought of being a female).

My psychiatrist diagnosed me with transvestic disorder because this tendency to fantasize these things causes me distress. It's made me question not only my gender identity but also my sexuality. Which one alone can cause anxiety in someone, let alone both at the same time. When I say question, I know what I feel and what I want, but I do wonder why I get these thoughts and it makes me second-guess my feelings towards being a man and also my attraction to women.

In the end, I always settle into the fact that I am a heterosexual male who is sexually attracted to women and femininity. Something happened in my early development that had me associate sexual excitement and gratification to feminine clothing and appearance. This article spells it out nicely: http://www.tbuckner.com/TRANSVES.HTM

My psychiatrist insists that I accept this part of myself. I agree! However, I have two options to accept it:

1. Feed the fantasy and find sexual gratification through crossdressing and fantasizing even more. Maybe even share these escapades with my future wife.
2. Decide to accept that this is just something that comes to my mind, but not act on it for the sake of disciplining my actions.

Now, I choose the second not because I wish to condemn crossdressers or others who entertain these fantasies as less than myself. But I know that if I do entertain that behavior in myself, I will be using these actions for sexual gratification (and some other areas of life) in a similar way as a porn addict.

The real problem here for me is that I am addicted to MO via fantasy and crossdressing. This is in addition to having used porn heavily. So it's a real recipe for a tough recovery. I struggle with dealing with these thoughts that cause me distress however, i know that my core self isn't defined by this.

I know who I am and what I want and when I question those, i get extreme anxiety that makes me turn to PMO as a solution. It's a viscous circle that perpetuates the behavior and solidifies those rewards centers in my brain.

I admit that I think I will live with these thoughts for the rest of my life. However, I do think that they will subside and I will easily be able to push them aside when they do happen. I refuse to simply give-in and be a slave to my thoughts.

If anyone else suffers from this or something similar, I am here to help you and I hope you can help me.

Here are some resources that I have found useful in explaining this and dealing with it:

1. https://healingcd.wordpress.com/most-important-posts/
   
2. https://mycdrecovery.wordpress.com/
   
3. http://tsanon.blogspot.com/
   
4. http://www.tbuckner.com/TRANSVES.HTM
   
5. http://www.annelawrence.com/autogynephilia.html
6. http://transvesticfetishaddiction.blogspot.com/2012/08/porn-addiction-and-transvestic-fetish.html