Actually, I was in deep denial throughout childhood, the teen years, and most of my 20s. Had I known what a crossdresser was, I would have denied (adamantly) being one.
And what little I could find on the subject helped cement the deal. According to scholarly articles of the times, we were all supposed to not do well in school, not be able to hold a real job, live on the edges of society, work as prostitutes who fooled men into thinking we were GGs on our periods! Sounds incredible, but this was the 50s and 60s, when Virginia Prince was getting arrested for female impersonation. Anyway, here I was, doing rather well in school, working as a computer programmer, definitely preferring women, etc. I just didn't fit the rest of the (writers') baggage. So I couldn't be a transvestite!
I didn't know what I was. I was aware that most other boys (all the ones I knew) had outgrown the fascination with women's underwear that we had had as preteens. I no longer found lingerie amusing--I found it highly arousing, especially when worn. Dresses were kind of off limits to my fantasy life. Since I was in such denial the last thing I wanted to do was to expand and build my fantasy life, and discover just what it was all about. I was afraid of it! Afraid to discover just how "sick" I might be. So I tried to suppress it. That didn't really work, but I did manage to avoid being creative about it, at least.
This all seems like the dark ages now. Does it to you, dear reader? Because it really was--a horrible, consuming fearful place where creativity was feared and stifled, self-discipline was wasted away suppressing and sexualizing this huge, fearful transgendered monster inside of me.
Today, I read the websites of transgendered youth with awe and wonder. They are so creative, so open, so animated! They are doing gothic styles, playing music, writing poetry, and drawing. They are out of the closet, taking hormones, getting surgeries, going to graduate school, etc. etc. Truly, they have become an inspiration to me to believe that the closet that I suffered in doesn't have to be normal or permanent.
I still fight the closet. It's my own personal demon. The closet with its values of shame, fear, and guilt. The tried-and-true patterns of self-repression, self-denial, and self-loathing. The anger, the frustration, and the doubt. They're all, especially on bad days, still with me, not quite with the strength of a mental illness, but definitely more than a memory. It's kind of like a drunken relative who won't go away no matter what you say or do?
I think being mom's mannequin was her way of reassuring herself that I hadn't grown into the crossdressing faggot she feared. She was toying with me, and we both knew it, though neither of us dared mention it. So I genuinely hated being her mannequin, because I knew that hating it was the only safe course, and because I could feel it starting to threaten to awake passions I kept tucked safely away, even from myself.
Yikes! This post is in Fun Stuff? This is the darkest thing I have ever written in my entire life! LOL.
To be out of the closet, you see, is simply the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. Life is truly enjoyable, for the first time in my life. And even though it has been several years now, it just keeps getting better and better!
And now you see why.
Luckily I got out with no damage to the dress, but I had to relax and mellow out first. 
