Originally Posted by
DawnLabelle
This is similar to what I replied to Cathy with. Problem is that the way I see this, if I can figure out what that "something" is, I'd be at peace. I dont like the idea of my dressing being my way of compensating for some other issue that my concious psyche can't deal with. When I do that I mentally lump dressing into similar categories as alcoholism, or problems with any form of addiction, and I know that I shouldn't see it in such a negative light.
As a followup to Cathy's point, consider the following: The assignment of gender and its subsequent enforcement are completely non–consensual. Pat Califia in his book "Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism" speaks to this:
"...it's not supposed to be hard work to be accepted as a man or a woman; it's supposed to be a natural and effortless process. Few of us are even aware of the pervasive rewards and punishments that shape our gender identities – unless that process was not successful. I suspect much of the hatred and fear of transsexuals is based on the discomfort that others experience when forced to recall the pain of involuntary gender conditioning. It is easier to believe we never had a choice about something so fundamental than to process and accept the fact that the choice was taken away from us and ruthlessly suppressed."
We all have the potential to express a wide array of traits, but as a rule we are not allowed to do so. The problem with trying to locate a specific root cause is that there is not some single causal agent - the 'cause' is the environment as a whole in which we are raised. And because we can not easily separate ourselves from our environment, we do not recognize our 'problem' as a repression of a natural and normal state. Thus, we go in search of of other causes.
Consider the following (from Nietzsche - of course) :
The error of imaginary causes. – To start from the dream: on to a certain sensation, the result for example of a distant cannon-shot, a cause is subsequently foisted (often a whole little novel in which precisely the dreamer is the chief character). The sensation, meanwhile, continues to persist, as a kind of resonance: it waits, as it were, until the cause-creating drive permits it to step into the foreground – now no longer as a chance occurrence but as ‘meaning’. The cannon-shot enters in a causal way, in an apparent inversion of time. That which comes later, the motivation, is experienced first, often with a hundred details which pass like lightning, the shot follows. … What has happened? The ideas engendered by a certain condition have been misunderstood as the cause of that condition. – We do just the same thing, in fact, when we are awake. Most of our general feelings – every sort of restraint, pressure, tension, explosion in the play and counter-play of our organs, likewise and especially the condition of the nervus sympathicus – excite our cause creating drive: we want to have a reason for feeling as we do - for feeling well or for feeling ill. It never suffices us simply to establish the mere fact that we feel as we do: we acknowledge this fact – become conscious of it – only when we have furnished it with a motivation of some kind. – The memory, which in such a case becomes active without our being aware of it, calls up earlier states of a similar kind and the causal interpretations which have grown out of them – not their causality. To be sure, the belief that these ideas, the accompanying occurrences in the consciousness, were causes is also brought up by the memory. Thus there arises an habituation to a certain causal interpretation which in truth obstructs and even prohibits an investigation of the cause.
We look for a familiar, easy explanation to our situation, never considering that the tensions we experience might be due to forces exernal to ourselves.
If you want, have a look-see at Confusing Cause and Effect where I explore this a bit more.
I see much of myself in your search. Some advice I have is to keep an open mind and read everything by everyone - good and bad. You will find that some will resonate, some won't - but it all will contribute to your understanding. I've said this before - we only get through this through sharing our experiences.
Love & Stuff,
Donna