I was developing an online platform and part of that process was to ask questions. And questions about questions. What should I do next? What priorities do I have? Why am I doing this?

One of the reasons was that I felt that I could be myself there. Express myself emotionally, wear dresses and makeup and so on. And that's when I slowly started to face the fact that I couldn't also be me in the substrate or irl.

When I told my best friend about how it made me sad she immediately accepted me. That changed our friendship forever, and it became so much easier between us. Like some strong friction had been removed. There was always this strange limiting tension between us.

Ever since then every step has been a discovery that felt like striking gold. On holiday I was going out with makeup and nailpolish and people accepted me. Sure, there were some naysayers but my identity had taken root and going back into the shell just didn't make any sense any more. I honestly felt that I could take on anything, even death, because that's what it would feel like to play a role again and sacrifice myself.

I had planned to spend more time finding evidence. But it was all so obvious now. That's when I came out of the closet in my home town. Yeah I might have had to dodge a car or two but I'm finally alive!