"Adulthood"

 If you haven't read the first post, probably start there...

Now we find ourselves in the year 2001. I was 18 and have gone through a purge cycle about a year ago. This is probably the longest time I have gone without collecting and wearing again. In my faith tradition at the time, 19 year old males go on a 2 year "mission" where they dedicate their lives to the church and spread its message. You may have seen some in your area. They typically go door to door, or preach on street corners. They wear white suits and ties with black name tags and give out free bibles and books of mormon. But that is not all they do. They live a strictly scheduled life full of scripture study and service to the community they are sent to. Before they can start their mission they need to prove they are worthy to represent the church. So I was 100% on board to show God I had what it takes to serve him in this capacity. I knew that missions change lives. And If I served faithfully, God would make me normal and finally take this trial away from me. And more importantly, I would go through the temple as a precursor to the mission. With respect to those who find the temple sacred, I will not be specific, but I will just say that I was taught that going through, I would make promises to God and "he" would bless me with extra strength over temptation.  And though I wasn't gay, It was taught that Gay men who lived worthy of the temple blessings would not be gay anymore. So I assumed it would apply to my "situation" (at the time I still thought I was the only one with this and didn't have words for it). Sadly the temple provided no relief. So I figured I just needed to show my faith more and serve an honorable mission. About a year into my mission (3 years without dressing) the dysphoria hit harder than ever before. Granted, it never went away, but it got super intense. I assumed this was just a trial of my faith and I pushed through! I got off the mission after serving my full 2 years, conflicted why God didn't take this away from me. I must not have had enough faith, or been good enough or worked hard enough. So I doubled down.

After a mission, young men are heavily encouraged to get married as quickly as possible. Enter my current wife, who I met months before going on a mission, and who waited for me! So we dated for 3 months after I got back, followed by a 4 month engagement and we were married!  I quickly learned that after a "release" my dysphoria was way more manageable! It still never went away, but lessened in intensity.  So I was convinced it must just be a sexual thing. And that is where my story ends. Im just a sexual deviant with weird kinks.... The end!

You still reading? Ok, fine... though it did take the edge off, the dysphoria was still there, and built back up. And so did my collection. This time I had a wife to borrow from (sorry babe). And grown ass man money to go to the store with to buy my own stuff. And a wedding ring I could flash and prove it was defiantly for someone else... not for me for sure.  And better yet, the anonymous internet to purchase from! Enter the collecting and purging shame cycle again.

The cognitive dissidence was also very strong with me.  I still held the same view of my church that Being Gay was a choice and a sin. And Gods plan for the family was a husband, with one wife now and multiple wives after I die. Still not gay, but find it ironic that the parallels were so beyond my comprehension. At some point I learned about transgendered people. But somehow that was not me. I would never transition, I just have a wierd kink... I met my first real life Gay person at the ripe old age of 29 (not counting the ones I wrote off as sinners on my mission). I discovered that his struggles were very similar to mine and re-thought lots of things I thought were true. I still didnt see myself as trans or anything. I was still running with the sexual deviant thing in my head. It would be too embracing to embrace anything feminine in myself publicly. In fact, I would WAY over react whenever my wife would paint my toddler sons nails because his sisters had theirs done and he wanted his done. 😢 I did become an LGBTQIA+ ally though, and mentally left my religion and sunk into a depression that expressed itself in anger for the better part of a decade. Those were dark days that I have a LOT of regret about. 

During the depressive years I experimented with alcohol and marijuana. I did not care for the alcohol, but noticed that marijuana silenced the dysphoria and it made me happy! So I got myself a medical card as soon as I could and used weed sparingly when the dysphoria got too intense. I also partook occasionally in social situations. But didn't want to be high all the time and especially not in front of the kiddos. So over all ended up with a lot of expired gummies. 😕 I have since found a happy medium where I partake twice a month or so with a reasonable dose to take away the edge if it gets too overwhelming/depressing.