Today we’d like to introduce you to Tierra Veney.
Tierra, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Kaia Kordai, LLC, was created on behalf of my daughter, who suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury in 2017, which caused a progression of various mental challenges. She is diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder or Multiple Personality Disorder as well as Bipolar Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. To give a brief background, my daughter tripped and hit her head on 9/7/17; I took her to CHOA (Children’s Hospital of ATL) because she was having double vision, dizziness, loss of memory, and balance. CHOA did an CT scan and ruled it as a concussion.
The very next day, she started acting like a baby and we went to her pediatrician, who had her admitted to CHOA for testing. We stayed at CHOA the entire weekend where they did an MRI, EEG, and blood work; everything came back normal but she also started writing with her left hand and continued to have these episodes where she would get dizzy and then start acting like a baby. These episodes she was experiencing was her switching personalities. She continued acting like a baby but also had moments of aggression. She also started seeing imaginary friends to where she could not tell the difference b/w reality and her imagination. As of today, her diagnoses are very valid although Dissociative Identity Disorder is a controversial diagnosis and often only seen in very extreme abusive situations. Trauma is trauma and no one can say how your brain perceived how traumatic an event was to you. Just because someone thinks something wasn’t traumatic enough, does not mean that it wasnt severely traumatic to YOU. Everyone is different! Within my personal background, I am a Domestic Violence survivor and have battled depression since early childhood unknowingly. I wanted to create something that brought awareness to childhood mental illness, especially within the Black community. So, I created our clothing line Kaia Kordai to do just that.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No, it has not been smooth. It’s been hard!! We are still dealing with her challenges everyday, all day. The biggest struggle is finding a Black Counselor that has the appropriate experience with Dissociative Identity Disorder. As well as just finding a counselor in general. Because the disorder is so rare in children, most of the specialist only works with teens and adults. My daughter was eight years old when her personalities started to emerge. Although she was experiencing hallucinations prior to her head injury, I never knew because I didn’t know she was describing a hallucination. She would say she was seeing kids at school that was talking about her. But would say that her friends wouldn’t know who she was talking about to ask who the kids were. She also experienced horrible migraines for 2 or three months prior to the head injury. Today, she struggles to stay present. She is constantly switching personalities throughout the day which is draining for both of us.
We’d love to hear more about Kaia Kordai.
I created Kaia Kordai, a clothing line that promotes diversity and inclusion. It represents all girls, no matter what mental challenges, disorders, or diseases they have. Those individuals will be able to see a part of themselves in the images and find encouragement knowing that beauty is not defined by looks, but their soul and energy instead. No one is perfect and this clothing line touches on a variety of subjects like mental illness, domestic violence, alopecia, skin tone, hair texture, vitiligo, self-esteem, and more. It teaches about our differences that are unknown to many and shows that your outer appearance does not always reflect your truth. Our target group are kids and teens but I do have items for infants and women.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success for me is being able to change lives, whether sharing our stories to help someone else. As well as spark interest for Black women and men to go into specialty areas within psychology, they are needed!! I definitely want Kaia Kordai to take off successfully but I also want longevity.
Contact Info:
- Website: KaiaKordai.com
- Email: KaiaKordaillc@gmail.com
- Instagram: @KaiaKordai
Image Credit:
Artist: Emilia @emzdrawings
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