I don't want to tell my family to their faces about crossdressing. Because, in a sense, they already know.

When I was a teenager still living with my family, my mother found my collection of panties. She rounded up the family, had them block all exits from the room, and waved them in my face; with a smug kind of smirk. I don't really remember what happened next, although I think I hid in the toilet for a while. I might have cried. This wasn't the first time mother had searched my room and found something I though was private. She found the notebook I'd been writing poems in, and made me read some of them out in front of everyone. That seems more humiliating, I don't know why. I do know I never wrote poems or songs again, not even as clues in my Dungeons & Dragons games. And that's not all.

For years, family members would ask when I was going to get a girlfriend, or suggest that I might be gay. Part of that might come from having had a schoolfriend who later came out as gay. The real reason, and I do believe this to be true, is that the ratio of guys to girls playing D&D is about 50 to 1, and most of them weren't much to look at. So even if I could get my head out of fantasy novels to look around me, the half-elf bimbos in chain-mail bikinis were far more attractive.

When I did have a girlfriend, the relationship went very rocky for reasons of her own. I asked my mother if we could talk, as I needed to hear "she's not the one for you" or "this is what women and relationships are like" or something like that. Instead, smug smirk firmly in place, mother was all "oh, I've been expecting this for a long time" - as far as I can tell, she thought the day had come that I would admit to having slept with another boy (which I had, but that's not the point).

I spent years in the closet. I still don't want to see that smug look on my mother's face if this was out in the open.

Worse, while I do have bisexual and gay friends (of both sexes) who are open and accepting about sexuality, their idea of openness and acceptance seems to include juvenile smirking and sniggering at any sexual topic. Adult they may be; I don't consider them mature. And, based on an unrelated incident, I'm certain they would happliy confuse coming out in private with coming out in public, and tell everyone and the whole world before I'm ready to decide that for myself.

I wish I could simply disappear into another world, where I can be myself without having to deal with family.

Melissa
You describe a "solid upstanding family" - probably the worst kind. They go out of their way to belittle, abuse and ridicule everything and everyone. You mentioned maturity - you hit that right. Maturity is not in their makeup.
If possible your best actiion is to move as far away from them as you can. When I reached adulthood - I made it a point never live withing 500 miles of my family. I still communicated with them (on my terms) and I didn't get involved in their pettyness. Maybe I was just lucky. You need space to work out your own problems and not be denigrated.
hugs
Gracie

This was all about twenty years ago. The way I see it, two teenage boys did the typical teenage male thing of talking about sex, and then experimented a bit. We each went both ways. He later came out as gay. I moved onto other interests. Like reading 500-page fantasy novels at the rate of at 8-10 per week.

Most of my family live far away, and I see only a few of them irregularly. I think, mainly, I don't see how it is any of their business what I do with my private life, and don't see why I should be required to come out to them. Though I can see that, if I dress up more often, sooner or later something probably will slip out or get noticed. The irony is this: I've been told that my mother always wanted a daughter, and bought only girl's baby clothes. Maybe I just don't get on so well with my mother.

Thanks for reading.

Hi Melissa.
when you were a teenager? how old are you now?
Most people who start as crossdressers stay as crossdressers but some realise that there is more to it than that.
You need to get seen by a doctor/shrink/counsellor to try figure out what you really are and what the rest of your life may be,
But back to the incident about sleeping with another boy? As two gay guys or as him the gay guy and you the female with only a bottom to offer? Hard to know what you are really but you call yourself melissa...gays don't do that. You sound to be of the age of responsibility and so go do something about getting a real life with people who let you be who you really are whatever that may be.
rose