The one thing that keeps coming back to me time after time is to keep true to myself, be strong and take NO shortcuts regardless of how easy it may be to do. People say honesty is the easiest thing in the world to be, but it’s not. Not at all. It’s hard at times and some consequences of your actions can have a devastating impact on your life as you know it. It's BRAVE to be honest and it takes guts! I had no idea what that meant for me, or for the journey that I was to embark on, but one thing is for sure - I’d rather blow myself out of the water and trust in the process than act upon outside influence. Because if I had taken that route, it would have had a massively detrimental effect on my journey and treatment.

Looking back on that time I was experiencing what every trans person goes through at the beginning of their adventure - huge waiting times for the initial 1 to 1 appointment at the Gender Clinic. With this knowledge, I decided to self-medicate with vials of testosterone. Red flag right there, however, you would need to be in my shoes to completely understand my decision. Thankfully the community that reached back to me told me that if I was self-medicating, my chances of being prescribed testosterone in the future would be zero. A sobering thought that halted me in my tracks. I owed it to myself to do this properly. After all, I am trying to change my life and I needed the appropriate professionals to aid me in doing so. Faced with this realisation, I went back to basic thinking and being as true to myself as possible. And knew I couldn’t begin this journey on lies, especially to the professionals that I would eventually be under the care of.