After taking two gap years for many mental health reasons, and with hope to progress my gender transition without feeling like my studies were suffering as they weren't the priority, I am back for my second year.
As for where my life is up to... after finding out I was taken off of the NHS Gender Identity Services wait-list in February 2022:
It took until May 2022 to be re-diagnosed as transgender (surprise surprise)
April 2023 to be given the go-ahead (again) for hormone therapy
May 2023 to be referred for chest reconstruction surgery, with a letter attached asking them to prioritize me due to the many faults on their behalf that meant I fell through the cracks
October 2023 to actually start my testosterone again as Leeds GIS did not send the letter over to my GP in April, and continued to not manage to send physical or digital copies despite repeatedly asking, that after 6 months my GP said they would accept m copy of the letter
February 2024 to first meet someone from my surgical team over zoom
August 2024 to have my pre-op tests
September 16th to finally have top surgery!
And so I am restarting the course one week after surgery! Ideally this wouldn't have been the case, as it means I'll spend the first few weeks of the course doped up on codeine, wearing huge horrible button downs from Primark and getting flannel baths of my top half as I can barely move - not the best start, and I feel like I've been playing catch up since.
In my two-year break I came to the conclusion I needed to move away from animation, at least for a while. Reflecting on my childhood became rather damaging to my mental health, as I was starting to deep-dive on a time in my life where events occured that led to complex PTSD, and I spent March - September of my first year in counselling to cope. Animation is definitely something I will come back to, but at a point in my life when I feel comfortable in reflecting on my childhood without it having a negative impact on my life now.
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