Model Nathan Westling, formerly known as Natalie, has come out as transgender.

The flame-haired Fashion Week fixture, who’s hit the runway for designers including Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton and fronted campaigns for the likes of Chanel and Miu Miu, revealed to CNN Style that he began taking testosterone approximately six months ago, and plans to get top surgery and return to fashion in the future.

“It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows in the beginning. My first two months of the transition were tough, and it wasn’t until I started to see physical changes that aligned with … my mental state that I finally woke up and (started) living,” Westling, 22, told the outlet. “I’m happy. I can’t even imagine going back to how I was before because it’s just darkness.”

Prior to beginning his transition, the model said he battled depression, anxiety and anger issues, and said that growing up in conservative Scottsdale, Arizona, made it difficult to discuss his gender dysphoria with others.

“I (have) this vivid memory of me being on the playground in preschool, talking to the girls and feeling completely out of place and not fitting into what they were thinking about, talking about, how their body language was or anything like that, and then having the same conversation with one of my guy friends and it completely clicking,” Westling recalled.

The model, who joins Andreja Pejic, Lea T and Teddy Quinlivan as one of the few out trans models working in the industry, added that the support he’s already received from past clients and magazines has been encouraging.

“It feels like I’ve been wearing like a mask my whole life,” he told CNN. “Once I removed that mask, it was like I was finally … I don’t know. I’m not wearing a skin that I don’t feel I am anymore. I’m not playing a persona; I’m not trying to be something I’m not anymore. I don’t feel like I’m stuck in this weird moment of having to be in-between.”