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?"

Sundays were not my favorite day

When I was little, I was acutely aware of conversation.

Each conversation was a mine field and I navigated them with so much grace you almost wouldn't know that I had come close to losing limbs a few times.

There was abuse in my household. It was no where near like the stories you hear where girls wear coats to cover up the bruises, or the ones where they want to tell people but can't. I thought this was how families were. I learned much later about the terms and the treatment, but we were gaslighted, monitored, made to dance for amusement and then abandoned. It didn't look that way from the inside though. Maybe I thought that my parents should be a little more lax about the state of my room, maybe I thought that sometimes this shouldn't happen, but overall I thought it was normal. Spankings, the yelling, the throwing away, the pain and the tears all felt like part of a normal household.

Example:

Every Sunday I would go to church with my mother and sister. I didn't go for a belief in the religion, as at the time I still wasn't sure what I believed in. I kept an open mind and went because I could sing. They'd let me sing as much as I wanted as long as it was in these books. I even got to play instruments, sing, dance, act, and perform as long as it was with their message. I ate it up. It didn't matter what i sang, just that I did. Singing is the core of my soul and the one thing that without I would be lost. Every Sunday I did this. It was my own religion. Through the notes, through the harmonies, the descants, the instrumental lines, that picardy third, they were my church and my steeple. I was chosen for solos and descants as much as they'd let me. I'd have to endure the other quieter times of preaching, the stories that I couldn't quite add up, the characters that I couldn't relate to, the feeling of being lesser somehow for not understanding and FEELING this deity move through me. It was freeing and exhilarating, but it was also discouraging and frightening. It felt so very right and wrong at the same time, and it felt that was my fault somehow.

The church service and choir practice lasted no more than 2 hours. When it ended and we piled into the van I was always a whirlwind of emotion. We would drive the short distance home and come home to lunch, which was usually mac and cheese and hot dogs. Mom and dad sat at their computer desks in the living room off the side of the house. My sister and I sat in the dining room and ate by ourselves rarely talking. We knew what was coming, and we knew it well. Even if we stayed quiet there was little escape.

As I walked back to my room, I saw the paper on the door. The top half was text, bottom half pictures, and it was taped to my closed door. As I read through it, it was outlined how unacceptable the state of my room had been. I was a pretty typical kid with my piles and stuff but there were no mice, ants, or spiders so I thought I was pretty okay. The paper went on to explain the clinical cleanliness that should have been upheld and the steps I should take to make it so. The pictures at the bottom were of my room, and the contents therein. You wouldn't know this however, by opening the door. There was nothing on the floor, dresser cleaned off, some shelves emptied. These things were deemed the "messiest". These things were collected and thrown  away. These things were clothes, keepsakes, stuffed animals, books, anything and everything. If it wasn't deemed organized enough, it was gone. Sometimes I was told that we needed to put some things into storage, so I should pack up some of my things in garbage bags and he would keep them in storage for me.

I didn't find out until years later when I went looking, that he immediately threw those away.

I dreaded this moment. This moment where my weekend was condensed and resulted in nothing but cleaning. I would have to clean the place top to bottom. I would be yelled at, ridiculed, and told that although I was cleaning it was taking me too long, I was doing it wrong, I didn't understand, why couldn't I just listen the first time?

I was a kid. I was a kid that was depressed even though I didn't know what depression was. I thought this was normal. I thought locking yourself in your room in the dark and not being able to move because you felt like you were held down by the darkness was something that everyone did. I thought wanting to spend my time in the closet instead of the living room was a kid thing.

I learned quickly when to speak and when to be silent. I learned when I was insulted to be silent. I learned that when someone was angry with you you were to be afraid, but also complacent. I learned when to say "Yessir" and when to say "No sir" and when neither of those was appropriate to answer with. I grew angry and it festered. I went from depressed and complacent, to angry but silent. I learned to curse and how I could still feel in control and remind myself how to act if I dug my nails into my palms. I learned that as long as the retorts stayed in my head and my eyes stayed neutral that I could skirt the worst of it. I learned that rubber spatulas were the worst, closely followed by wooden. I learned that closet doors can splinter when they are punched and I learned that even after covering it up there was still a perfect representation of what happened. I learned that when you're in the middle of  a hurricane you don't always see the effects of the storm.

Let me make this very clear to you, I was only ever spanked. My household wasn't a war zone, and my family did love me. We are all taught what is "normal", and this is what we all thought it was. There is more to abuse than bruises, and more to life than black and white. It's all over now, and I wouldn't have it any other way, but now I'm coming to terms with what happened. I hope me sharing my story makes one person not alone.

Acknowledgement is the first step

I hurt.

All the time.

A lot.

If you have read the earlier post you know that. The pain isn't just physical. The guilt, the torture, the ptsd, the depression, the anxiety, it all makes it worse or adds to it in a way I can't fully describe. During a low point I told a friend it was like "chinese water torture and gaslighting at the same time". It's like feeling that drop hit you, but every time you feel it someone goes "That's not real, you're making it up. It's not a fun mental place to be.

That said, the emotions weigh on me very hard. I don't remember when it started, but it must have been a few years back. Before when my emotions got out of control I would curl up and let the tension pull me apart until I was exhausted and then I'd make myself forget it. When I was mad I'd curl my hands up until my nails dug into my palms reminding me not to say something that would make it worse. "Yes sir" was the only thing that should come out of my mouth. It evolved somewhere. One day I was pushed to an edge where I told my friend that the bottle of bleach under the sink would make a nice cocktail. That day, through the tears and the agony, I unknowingly put my nails to my temples and dragged them down until it burned. The tears seared with salt rolling over the irritated skin. I did it again. Suddenly I started calming. It wasn't enough but it was something. Staring in a mirror I realized I was starting to look as "falling apart at the seams" on the outside as I did on the inside. I had angry red tracks leaving a plaid pattern from my forehead to my collarbone. It felt right.

After that, the escalation kept going. I'll say this now, a blade never touched my skin. I promised myself and my family (unbeknownst to them) that I would never do that. I'd never leave the permanent marks of my suffering. Arms, legs, face, chest, hands, anything I could reach became the target. The crazy radio in my head no longer said "This helps, people will see you now" and it began to say "You deserve this, do you feel better now?" "I bet they really regret this after they see how broken and pathetic you are". The voice went from relieved to spiteful.

Now it's habit. When I cry my nail rubs back and forth on my thumb knuckle. When I feel helpless they dig into my palms. When I'm angry or feeling invisible you'll notice the small red marks on my neck. It's a habit...and an addiction. Now I want it, because I know after it something is better. Be it the chemicals, or the habit of releasing and forgetting afterwards, I want to be on the other side. I don't use blades, I don't use fire, I don't use any of those things, but that somehow in my mind made it okay.

Hi, my name is Aya and I'm 24 years old.
I have Fibro, Depression, and Anxiety.
I'm addicted to pain to drown my emotions.
I am aware now. I can help myself through this.

A day through my pain.

Here goes.

This is going to be very hard for me, because I was taught that good strong little girls didn't talk about this. We don't think about our own pain because someone else has it worse...has less. We don't talk about it because we have a roof, food, good jobs, good pets, family, friends, and even games.

I've been thinking about writing this for years. Every month I think about what to say and every month I tell myself not to do it. That's it, I'm doing it.

Hello, I go by the name Aya, and I'm 24 years old now. As I am writing this it is halloween. Halloween just happens to be my favorite holiday of the year, but this year my celebration consists of  playing a Halloween event on a computer game, after taking vicodin and muscle relaxers. This isn't what I wanted, but you don't know how it feels...

I wake up in the morning either acutely aware of lots of pain, or blissfully unaware of it. I spend a few minutes letting myself either wallow but stay calm, or breathe deeply before the pain sets in. I take a look around. There is laundry all over the floor, along with litter my cats have kicked out of their box. On the dresser on the other side of the room is a pile of clothing and towels I didn't have the energy to put away. It is at this point the depression and the guilt punch me in the gut. I may be laying down but I nearly double over with the force of everything I can't do.

My cats wake up and move around from where they were laying on my feet, twisting my ankle at an odd angle and making my knee throb. As I slide them off, I look down at myself. I'm covered in a synthetic down comforter and a double layered fleece blanket even though it is making me sweat because my feet were frozen solid last night and I have a hard time sleeping without the weight. Even when I was little I would layer 3-6 blankets on top of me and turn the thermostat all the way down in order to sleep.

Breathe in, Breathe out.

Now that I'm finally awake and I've put the guilt in the back of my mind until I can deal with it better, I take note of a few things. The meds I take make my mouth dry. My mouth isn't dry like "Oh I just breathed a few too many times through my mouth", my tongue is nearly glued to the roof of my mouth and my teeth. I gently pull my tongue off and stretch my jaw which is locked almost shut at this hour of the morning. It is at this point of stretching my jaw and yawning that I remember that ever since I got braces I have dragon breath in the mornings, so I close my mouth even though the only person around is my sleeping other half.

Now comes the cataloging. It starts with a headache that I have eloquently described as being hid upside the head with a sledge hammer, which is connected to the pain in my neck making it hard for me to turn my head due to the tension. My ribs constantly feel like there is a steel band tightening around them making it harder to breathe with every breath I take. Ever since that trip to wildwaves, where I went down a whole waterslide on the back of my neck and my knees I have had extreme tension down my spine and into my shoulders. I roll my shoulders and stretch my arms and legs, taking note that my pinky is spasming wildly and that my hips pop 4 times before I relax again. After popping, the tension in my back relieves slightly, but I'm now more aware that the inside of my hip feels like it has been impaled. As I breathe and keep moving downwards, the muscles on the insides of my thighs are cramping and spasming and it's nearly blinding when I have to convince them to do something. Finally my ankle feels sprained and the balls of my feet are bruised from when I walked the other day.

Breathe in, breathe out.

It take a few times hitting the snooze button (or accidentally sleeping through the alarm) before I can start really moving. I roll onto my side and use the momentum to slowly roll myself off the bed into a kneeling position, push off, and stand up. As the bones and the muscles settle down into my standing position more things pop and ache. I consider what I have the energy for this morning.

Shower? Nope.
Make lunch? Nope.
Nice shoes? Nope.
Breakfast? Maybe, if it's poptarts.

Start walking. One foot in front of the other. I grab my work pants, of which I have one because shopping is hard and money is tight. I put on a tank top, a bra, underwear, and my pants. Thus my day has begun. I stuff something edible in my mouth, put pellets in my bunny's food bowl, pet my cat, pull on my hiking boots, and quickly whip on my sweater on the way out the door. It's a 2 block walk to the bus stop but it feels more like a cross country trek. By the time I'm there I'm having symptoms of what feels like a heart attack, but it's just a migraine that causes pain and numbness, and esophageal spasms that feel like my heart fluttering. Just like that I'm on the bus to work. The ride makes me a little nauseous, and the turns hurt my hips but overall this is probably the easiest part of my day.

Once I get to work it's another car ride to the correct building, and then I finally sit down in my chair. An office chair. Sitting in these chairs hurts my butt, pinches my sciatica, and as it sinks, makes the rest of my legs hurt. Between the sun blaring into my eyes making my headache worse, and all of the pains from this morning having not faded, I start to get tired and cranky. I paste on the award winning smile I was taught to make by my parents when I was little, the one that if I didn't paste it on I'd get a hard time, and probably a spanking for being ungrateful. Throughout the day I spend my bandwidth calculating how much I can breathe in before my ribs hurt, how far apart I can take my steps before my hips give out, which angle do I put my feet in to keep my shoulder from hurting, how can I smile without the muscles in my face cramping? It takes every ounce of self control and energy to put up the brave, confident, and undisturbed front that the people around me see when inside I'm a hurricane of pain, emotion, and exhaustion.

Let's jump to lunch time. Lunch with fibro is not easy at all. I can not have soda, as it will mess up my intestines so much I will nearly pass out in the bathroom stall. Food is hard, because it has to be enough so that I'm not hungry in 5 minutes due to having to fight through the pain, but not so much as to make me feel queasy, otherwise I will throw up. I can not eat hashbrowns, oranges, tatertots, and quite a few other foods due to their different textures. I found this out the hard way by throwing up in a grocery store trash can. My lunch is usually a sandwich and water.

Breathe in, breathe out...fast forward.

Here we are. We made it through the work day! Only had to gasp for breath twice, and I only took one dose of 6 ibuprofen today. Accomplishments? Upon reaching the front door the guilt hits me again even harder. The kitchen has dishes everywhere, my bunny has pooped all over by the front door, the clothes and food are everywhere, our house looks like a hurricane went through it. I tried to clean this past weekend but I only made it about a quarter of the way before It felt like I had been put through a taffy machine and my knees gave out. I definitely can't do anything more than feet my kittens now before I collapse on my recliner and try not to instantly fall asleep or cry with the weight of everything. I've made it, but I've failed another day. I didn't walk to the bus stop. I took an uber instead of the bus. I didn't make my lunch. I didn't cut up the radishes for my bunny. I could have held that conversation better if I hadn't been trying not to cry from pain...

Here I sit in my recliner, playing some game where my character gets to do backflips, runs through crazy enchanted lands, sword fights, dances, and does all of this without having to deal with my problems. They're not afraid of passive aggression, not in pain from breathing, not scared of talking to people. I escape into this world as a character that doesn't know what not wanting to wake up tomorrow feels like. After that I order a pizza since I can't stand, take my now 3 different medications, sometimes more, and lay down. The meds take about 30 minutes to kick in, and once they do they knock me out...cold. I don't wake up for anything easily, and if I take a muscle relaxer or a benadryl I can be out for days. When I sleep I'm used to the nightmares of people I know dying, me losing my job, everyone I know leaving me, all those fun anxiety dreams. I wake up the next morning after 10 hours of sleep (the minimum I have to get to function) more exhausted than when I went to sleep, and start another day just like the last.

This cycle continues until the pain gets too much and I get something to help for a little while from my doctor, and then I start again. This is my day to day. The pain doesn't subside, I rarely "feel better", and I don't know how to express to people how I'm feeling or what's wrong because I have to fight with so much every day... This is pretty much an average day for me.

I know this all seems super over the top, super depressing, and overall just exaggerated. But I promise you that this is how I am, and I hope that you can read this and learn a little bit more about me. So there we are. This is 8 hours of off and on typing, and probably about 8 years in the making. I've finally done it, now I hope you can accept me.