Dress Therapy

Dear Dr. Darcy

I have cross-dressed for many years but now I can’t stop. Is it OK to cross-dress all the time? I have a lot of anxiety.

ANSWER

People deal with stress in many ways.  I overwork.  You cross-dress.  That said, neither of our coping mechanisms is a long-term solution, as I’m sure you know.

Anything can be spun into pathology, i.e., the ‘crazy’ category.  Ironically, those behaviors that would truly qualify as ‘crazy’ are typically things we do that are beyond our awareness, and because those behaviors are occurring outside of our awareness, we never ask if they qualify as us for a weekend stay in a padded room.  Bottom line:  Wearing dresses doesn’t make you nuts.

You know what you’re doing and you know why you’re doing it.  More importantly, it’s not hurting you or anyone else.  Cross-dressing, for the purpose that you engage in it, is a short-term solution to a longer-term problem.  If I were you, I’d want to fix the anxiety, which would free up your cross-dressing to be a pleasurable activity.  There’s no short cut around it.  Today it’s cross-dressing.  One day that won’t work anymore.  What will you use then?