Hello my name is not Aya

Hello my name is Aya...

No that's not quite right.

My legal name is Kaitlyn. I went by Kaitlyn or Kaydee until after I graduated high school. If you've read my other posts, you will notice that I was a kid that went through some rough times, and I didn't always handle them well.

Enter Aya, her full name is Ayancia Elizabeth Fera. It took a while for her to morph into her full form, but I eventually found her amidst all the pain. Aya is an elf. She's 6 foot tall, long blonde hair, adept at combat, and has powers of the telekinetic and telepathic variety. Aya is constantly changing and shares many of the problems I do, just on a magnified capacity. She is a guard to the Queen of the elves and spends most of her time making sure security is tight and monitoring her people telepathically.

I created Aya. She became my role model, my hero, and my friend. Every night I would lie awake in bed and go through the events of the day, translate them to Aya's world, and see how she handled them. I would use this imaginary figure, who was everything I wanted to be, to deal with the problems that I couldn't. As a kid I was depressed, anxious, abused, and socially sheltered, so it was rare I knew a good way to handle a situation. Aya is strong, informed, attractive, and deals with these situations like they're nothing. After a while of doing this her story started to flesh out and I wrote about her daily. She became my life, my obsession.

My father died during my junior year of high school. I was devastated as I'd never really felt loss like that. My world, and my family were thrown into absolute turmoil. I dated, I loved, I lost, I graduated, I moved, I moved back, I felt guilty, I felt incomprehensible pain, we fought, and finally...we lived.

I eventually started to see the weight that was placed on me from my childhood, and from him. It was at this time that Aya started popping up in my thoughts. I found that she probably would have handled things pretty close to how I did, but she would have held her head up and made her own decisions instead of thinking she was "forced" to. I started using her again. I used her during the day now. I called upon her for strength. I called upon her when I felt lost or afraid. Suddenly she became even more ingrained into my life. When I imagined her in my shoes, I'd be the one in control. The moment I heard the name "Aya" my head lifted, and my shoulders rolled back. It's subconscious, but she became the strength in me, the one I never knew I had. It felt...comfortable. Suddenly someone being mad at me didn't really tear me apart because as Aya, I would just handle it as a part of my busy day. There were bigger things to deal with, and someone being mad was an easy fix.

A few years later I began working in some pretty bad places. I was screamed at, locked in rooms with mad people, had things thrown at me, threatened with death, and just overall torn apart again. It was at this point that I went one step farther. One day I introduced myself as Aya, and upon hearing someone call me that name I realized something...I could be her. I would use this tool as a part of me. To this day I go by the name Aya because it's a reminder to me. It's a reminder of what I've done, what I've lost, what I've endured, and more importantly, the fact that I can handle today because last night I saved the queen and reorganized the barracks. I can be this inspirational warrior that is able to handle things with ease and doesn't need anyone to be anything for her because she doesn't need others to shoulder the things she can handle on her own.

What if we found one person who did things the way we want to be, and then we became that? What if we saw a reaction someone had and adapted it? What if we took all of this one step further and turned ourselves into something we admire? Think about it, and if you adapt it and it works for you, share it with someone else. It might just save someone's life, or help someone who needs that one extra boost.

My name is Aya and I'm sorry I'm disabled.

My name is Aya and I am disabled.

I can name 5-6 conditions that I can pinpoint that I suffer from, with genetic predisposition as well.

I suffer from Fibromyalgia which is a chronic pain disorder that can not only ruin you physically, but it also comes with brain fog and quite a few other symptoms that overlap with my other symptoms. I suffer from Depression and Anxiety. It affects my ability to socialize, my ability to keep myself alive. It likes to convince me I'm not worth the food that I eat leading to strange eating disorders and patterns. It likes to convince me that no one likes me which makes me start to stress over every thing I have done. The stress makes the muscles tense, which aggravates the fibro. I suffer from PTSD which amplifies these symptoms and can cause panic attacks and strange reactions to situations. I am somewhere on the mild side of the spectrum causing me to have problems hearing words, looking people in the eye, and conversing properly. I get easily overloaded by sounds, sights, and feelings and often have trouble with conversations or clothing due to this. I suffer from a condition related to Fibro called Costochondritis. This is an inflammation of the cartilage in the ribs. This causes trouble breathing, insane rib pain spikes, back problems, trouble wearing proper clothing, and trouble moving in general. These are the most prevalent and problematic conditions that I can pinpoint for myself.

What do I do about this you ask?

Ibuprofen- My regular dose is somewhere around 1800mg. I refuse to do more because I also use...

Alcohol-Nothing is better for short term pain relief than a few shots and a nap.

Medical Marijuana- causes memory lapses and space moments but is most effective in convincing my brain that I'm not in pain. Does not however treat the inflammation and sometimes my body reacts poorly to the mj making the pain worse after.

Prozac- Can't live with it, can't live without it. It keeps me afloat.

Occasional steroids, muscle relaxers, and pain dampeners- Because something has to work eventually.

Gabapentin.

Gabapentin is used for seizures and changes the way connections are formed in the brain. It can also be used for pain.

Gabapentin, while fixing some of the pain creates other issues. Migraines, memory and cohesiveness lapses, mini seizures, and difficulty concentrating/thinking.

Independently, these things...while frustrating, I am learning a balance for them.

But...

Now add in society.

I forget birthdays.
I call out of work a lot.
I forget plans.
I cancel plans.
I sit in bed for days.
I stop eating.
I burden my friend and family.
I have a weird diet.
I have a scary amount of medication

People don't know what to do with me, but they do know that I'm frustrating, flaky, and occasionally quite a jerk.

For anyone reading this who knows me-

I'm sorry.

If it makes you feel better, I feel like that too. I hate myself and what I have to do to function. I want to work 40 hours at a great company, while going back to school and interning in vet tech. I want to go out every weekend and see everyone I know and be able to spend a day at a theme park. I want. I want. I want...

I want to sleep 8 hours and feel rested. I want to not have to go to bed 11 hours before I have to get up. I want to stand up and not pop in 15 places. I want to breathe in. I want...

I'm sorry.

But know, that I'm trapped in this hell too. It's not that I don't think your birthday is important, it's that I have to keep track of so much pain, medical doses, and then fight through the disability fog and the side effects, and even THEN...there's a chance I don't remember something vital. I forgot to buy toilet paper for a week.

Toilet paper.

Think about that.

So, in short, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm a miserable, horrible, disorganized, poor friend and family member. I'm sorry that I'm a cocktail of stupid disorders and horrible chemicals. I'm sorry that to solve one problem I have to create more, and I'm sorry...I'm sorry for the impact my health has had on your life.

I hope, that one day, there can be understanding. I know that's hard, and not something I can ask for when I am asking for so much else but...please...know that whatever you feel towards me I feel towards myself too...and it's multiplied by every person I hurt.

Horror

Hi! My name is Aya, and I don't like horror movies.

I've seen 2 horror movies in my life, and the most recent one I spent hours afterwards staring out the window into the dark on the off chance I could see my murderer before they got me. This is the effect they have on me. People close enough to me now know that I don't handle anything like that well. My friend tried to show me a video about something but all I remember is that it was a complex mental concept that got a little gruesome and had a background similar to a twilight zone feel. I left. I walked out. I was so scared I was shaking and nauseous. Those friends have since learned and have helped me through many things.

I tell you this because I finally figured out why.

In my household I was trained to do many things.

I was trained to remember EVERY event because you never know when those could come back in conversation and be turned against you. I remembered every conversation word for word and only said the prepackaged responses that "good little girls" said. "Yes sir". I remembered every word because every word could be a trigger, an indicator, an instigator. I remember every conversation and every word that scared me because anything could lead to anything. Something as simple as not taking the silverware out of the dishwasher could end with me getting my face pounded with the hard plastic eyes of my favorite stuffed animals. When I grabbed some cardboard tubes before they went in the recycling it was found out and I had a rubber spatula to the butt more than a few times.

Anything could lead to something bad.

If I didn't eat all of my dinner that night (due to sensory issues, not being a picky child) I'd get it for breakfast. Didn't eat it then? Lunch. If I still hadn't eaten it no dinner. If I went to the bathroom afterwards and vomited I was bulimic. I went to counseling for throwing up after a few dinners only to find out years later it was KFC cake that made me sick. I didn't eat much because I had to make sure I was paying attention to everything and that stress kept me wound up.

When I say I'm scared something is going to murder me, it's a legitimate fear that was instilled in me in a young age. ANYTHING could lead to ANYTHING. No matter how small

Ever wondered what it would feel like to fly?

I haven't eaten today.

It's 2pm.

I'm not sure I want to.



For those of you who know anything about psychology and depression, you know this is how it starts. Eating disorders, self harm, all the things they warn you about. It started a while back. Raking my nails across the soft skin of my neck when I felt threatened, digging my nails into the fleshy parts of my hands and legs just to focus on something. I even wrote multiple posts on it trying to find a way to...bring it up with myself. I wanted to start the conversation with my demons and tell them that this stage was over. I wanted to tell them to shrivel up and go away because I have other things to do now.

That's not how it works.

That's not how any of this works.

Depression, self harm, eating disorders, anxiety, Fibro...they don't go away because you will them to. The chemicals are there and you lit up your first "relief-arette". Once you touch that precipice, even if you tell yourself you'll never walk off, it's firmly engrained into your mind. No matter how many times you tell everyone you're okay, that little voice in your mind goes "But you could walk off".

It's not something that stops. That voice, though it may quiet, it will always be there. Waiting. Waiting for that one day that brings you back to that edge, back to that cliff. That is the day it will walk up beside you and go

"Fancy meeting you here. Ever wondered what it would feel like to fly?"