Every character I have ever written contains a piece of me in them. My main characters, in particular, reflect parts of myself I have or am trying to work through. Aria is no different. I first started working on Aria’s story after a loss. The grief Aria experiences through her story is a reflection of my own at the time. Her grief is often taken to a more extreme place, though. She struggles to trust. She struggles to form new relationships or even maintain old ones. She can come across as callous and uncaring, but she’s just afraid of experiencing the same pain.
As I was dealing with my own grief, I poured my feelings into Aria. In some ways I gave her a more extreme loss, in order to really process my own. She allowed me to exaggerate my emotions when I needed to. When I was sad, Aria was catatonic. When I was angry, Aria was livid. While I would never run through the house breaking things, Aria could. And when I let my emotions spill onto the page, create Aria from them, I would feel better. But obviously this is not the healthiest way to deal with intense emotions. So when I started going to therapy, I felt it was appropriate that Aria did as well.