Finnformation – My Journey

Welcome! Thanks for stopping by, let’s get to know each other. Here is a little about me and my journey so far.

My name is Finlay but I go by Finn. I am an alcoholic and addict in recovery and have been clean and sober since 2010. I am also transgender, which means that although I was assigned female at birth, I am in fact male.

I came out as transgender in 2012 and began my medical transition in 2013. The medical side of my transition completed in 2018, but the social aspect of transition is, and likely always will be, ongoing.

I have been sharing my story since 2011, in video format on YouTube and in writing on various blogging platforms. While this was once a hobby, I came to realize that sharing in this way is my calling in life. I decided to change my career focus and began to turn writing, creating, and speaking into a freelance career. Since then, I have been involved in many exciting projects.

The origins of my sharing

I initially began sharing my struggles with mental health back in the day when ‘MySpace’ was the place to be. I was fed up of all the stigma around mental health, I was sick of feeling ashamed. Therefore, I began to put my experiences online and found it to be very cathartic. Having written journals from an early age, this took life writing a step further, in being able to share my experience with others in the same position.

Deciding to make my life public

Later, when I came out as transgender, I decided to take the same approach and share openly on the process of going through gender transition. This time, I choose YouTube as the platform. There was a large community of transgender people on YouTube to whom I was really grateful, as it was in their sharing that I found myself. I wanted to contribute to this collective voice. Also, in wanting to document my changes a visual diary made logical sense.

An unexpected outcome

I did not set out nor expect to get a large following on my YouTube channel. Neither did I plan to share as candidly as I now do. However, I fell in love with this method of sharing, and as I began to relax and get better at making videos, I began sharing everything. In sharing my transition, it made sense to in turn explain how I had discovered myself to be trans via the process of recovering from addiction and mental health challenges.  I now share pretty much everything of my life online!

The Benefits of Vulnerability

While there are times where sharing so transparently can make me feel incredibly vulnerable, the rewards make it very worthwhile. I’ve come to think of the people who follow me as my family, ‘The FinnFam’ has given me so much encouragement and support. They have related to my story and trusted me with their own. Because of this, I have grown in confidence and self-belief.  I love sharing in this way, and I love all the opportunities that have sprung from doing so.

Putting The Pieces Together

My writing took a back step for a while. Now sharing my feelings in video form, I struggled to know what to write. This changed when I began the surgical part of my transition. Sharing surgical outcome photos on Youtube felt far too intimate so I created a surgery diary blog to compliment my videos, whilst still experimenting with other types of writing. (Unfortunately, this blog was later removed due to its adult nature. However, I later turned those early blog posts into a book, which is due to be released early 2020 )

Finding My Way

Eventually, after going back and forth between writing and video for some time, I found a way to join the two together, and this website was born. I moved many of my surgery blogs over here and began to add other types of writing.

I began to understand that my overarching message was about overcoming the past and rewriting the future. Therefore my gender transition was part of that recovery, rather than the central theme. I began to use this blog to complement my YouTube videos, creating more detailed and informative posts about transition, mental health, and recovery. 

Launching My Own Small Business

In 2018 I had an epiphany and realized that I wanted to make sharing my story my full-time work. I began to turn my writing and speaking into a small business. I am always looking for new avenues, to share my message and to find ways to support other people to recover their lives, and rewrite their stories.

My Mission Statement

The reason why I do all this, my mission statement if you will,  is to provide inspiration and support for other people who want to make changes in their lives. I once was unable to imagine a future where I could feel at peace in myself, and create a life I was proud of, yet here I am.  The gratitude I have for my life is what drives me to want to pay it forward. All I ever want to do is help other people to find their own path to happiness.

Although I talk about mental health and wellbeing from the perspective of a transgender man, I feel the topics I cover are universal. Whatever our particular challenges, we all want to be able to manage these in a way that allows us to find meaning and purpose in life, and to be all we can be.

If you are looking for a way to overcome the past and build a better future, I hope that what you find here helps you on that mission. Please do visit my welcome page, to see the various ways I may be able to help you on your path to happiness

I look forward to getting to know you!