It's the most transitioning time of the year...

I really don't know what is happening at the moment but I am embracing it. Lots of things that were really freaking me out before just aren't anymore. I can identify what it is sometimes that makes me feel uncomfortable but for the most part I can't be bothered to allow certain things to weigh me down and affect me in the ways they used to.

It doesn't mean that I don't care, but on the contrary I feel less vulnerable and less afraid of the world and people - well to a fair degree.

I always have a few thoughts bubbling away inside of me, but fortunately I feel that I can handle it. I am starting to prefer thinking that I can do something rather than I can't do something. If I am not so good at something then I intend to improve if its something I really want to be good at or to not feel intimidated by.

At the same time I also know it's important to know myself and my own personal boundaries. I thrive on having that sort of structure as that to me provides me with some safety. Especially with transition, I am feeling more and more that my environment is prone to shift and change quite suddenly and dramatically in some respects. For that reason I need to feel a strong sense of security from within.

My body in the last few months has really changed and I am pleased with that.  I did need to lose more weight and I want to continue to shift weight and change my body shape as much as possible as I don't want to return to how I used to be.  I also know that I struggle with my personal image sometimes too and as long as I can wear smaller clothes and feel that when I  am thinner I feel more attractive. I am now the smallest I have ever been but I do know that I keep thinking sometimes that I could do with more weight coming off but then I think a lot of people think like that.

I'm starting to get weirdly excited that in January I will turn 27. The older I get the happier I get it seems. I hate feeling closer to my youth.  I think about some of my feelings I had in my early 20s and I cringe, massively cringe! But at the same time that is what made me who I am today.

It has been nice to think about that time recently and not feel angry or cry but left me thinking about how much I have moved on and grown from that stage in my life. I felt very unhappy a lot of the time and didn't seem to know how or want to be happy which isn't a nice thing to really accept but it's true. There were also a few periods that I didn't think I would still be alive now. For a long time I did hate being alive, and in some respects the main thing I struggled with was finding what I felt was my 'place' here in the world.

This isn't intended to sound dramatic, it's just a fact. Not a pleasant fact, but it is what it is.

It makes sense to me, but obviously I am not sure how it translates to others. 

For a number of years I have had clinical depression. I've had highs and lows and tried a variety of things to treat it.  The things that I can say have worked for me (as I do see it as a very individual thing as to what works for people to feel better) has been feeling listened to and understood. Also having space and counselling to identify why it is certain things triggered certain negativities within me helped a lot.

For a number of years feeling I was in the wrong body has definitely flagged a few esteem issues.  For a long time I knew I hated having breasts, and I knew I felt increasingly freaked out at the prospect of being seen and identified as a female. At the same time I didn't think myself a bloke but a man. In hindsight I can see why I felt confused in some respects! Just thinking back to one or two things I too feel really confused.

Still the feelings that I wasn't female over the last few years have felt like an alarm ringing louder and louder. I still don't fully know exactly how far I will transition but again that is my business and I don't have to justify my decisions to anyone.

Nor should anyone else have to either. If it is found to be confusing to some people then I am happy to explain what I want to explain but one thing is for sure following something I witnessed recently and that is I don't owe any explanation to anyone, nor should anyone else.

As far as I am concerned and bothered about is people knowing me by my preferred name and preferred pronoun. Anything else I disclose is my choice and not someone's right.

At the moment I am pleased to say that I don't feel sad or depressed, and if I do have the odd moment of feeling something unpleasant I have found myself talking about it more or neutralising it by thinking about where it's coming from and why it's there. I feel in some ways if light is put on it, it dissolves.  Depression and negative feelings like that like to hide in the shadows and pull you down a dark alley.

I have grown tired of feeling upset or sad and for that reason if I feel these feelings surfacing I have started fighting it off. It's not always easy but at the same time it has to be done. I don't like feeling how I used to and feeling that I am being reminded in some respects of how I used to feel either.

Slowly but surely I am starting to feel more free in myself and that I am safe. I need to feel that and that desire to protect myself and my environment as otherwise people are capable of disturbing that, particularly as there are some folk that like to push things and I won't tolerate it.  Not anymore.

There are thoughts and feelings that are getting louder now to me but at the same time I know when the time will be right in order to action them. As well as how to gather more content for my website, how to make it successful, how to become more muscly, how to have a decent lifestyle and also when will I win the lottery.

All in all my thoughts and ideals are a mixture of perfectly realistic goals and things that are nearly impossible but at the same time they inspire hope so that is something. Be it realistic or pie in the sky it's there.