I've kind of been feeling sorry for myself recently and most of my recent blog posts have been the 'Woe is me' kind of posts. Quite rightly so, from my point of view. However, I understand that they can be a little boring after a while to everyone else. It got me thinking about where I am in life, my transition and where I am going from here. I have to move forward or I will go insane.

I have had a rough 9 months since starting my hormone therapy. Through a combination of issues, events and my own ever overactive mind, I have become very lonely, sad, angry,
fat(ter), even suicidal at one point. I have even felt that my demeanour has regressed to a past life which also has got to me.  So, instead of moping about stuff and letting even the tiniest little things get to me, I have decided that I need to get back with the plan and change things up. Not just a little, but a lot. 

I have to remember why I am putting myself through all of this in the first place. Why? To be me. The real me. The me hidden for all of those years. I have to remember that I am going through puberty again, with all its angst, issues, highs, lows, loves, hates and physical issues. I am a teenager, disguised as an adult. Doing adult things. I should enjoy all of this as I didn't really have a proper teenage life the first time. I am finding the real me amongst all of this chaos - I now have to blossom into who I want to be.

My physical health has taken as much of a battering as my mental health recently. Comfort eating, combined with water retention and weight gain through the hormone therapy, have made me put on nearly 2 stone since June. I need to lose that weight and a bit more besides. My weakness is mainly chocolate and to some extent, white bread. I need to kick my chocolate fixation, like I did with my crisp fixation. I also need to change the way I eat and what I eat. I am in a rut food wise and my diet needs a radical overhaul.

To aid my mental health, I am getting to grips with my physical health. A clean up of my diet combined with a new exercise regime should hopefully kick start my weight loss. I need to get myself fit for all of the physical and mental changes still to happen and to make sure my body is fit for any surgery that I need. Get those endorphins moving and improve my mood.

One of my other aims is to watch less TV and read more books this year. Like a lot of people, I come in at night and instantly turn on the TV. I end up watching the same old rubbish that is repeated on all 5000 Freeview channels every 4 hours ad infinitum................. So more books, more radio, more music, more using the brain power I have left to improve my life and mental health.

I am not letting things get to me. I have to learn to ignore problem people in my life, problems which I can't do anything about and just let the little things go. My mental wellbeing is my most important task and will be for the foreseeable future. I am going to develop my coping strategies, how I present myself and try to reconnect with some people I have lost touch with. Some are, alas, beyond hope and reasoning.

There you have it. Not just new year, new me malarkey. I need to make changes to get through all of this grief, through puberty, through my own overactive mind, through the inevitable setbacks which will occur, the misgendering, the potential physical and verbal abuse and the torrent of negative press that occurs almost daily at the moment. I've made it this far. How I have, I've no idea!! Just smile and wave, smile and wave........................