Bio

My name is Vhaidara (also known as Vi), and I’ve spent a good part of my life with my head in the clouds. I’ve always been a dreamer who wants to help the world become a better place, however hostile things seem to that idea. I’ve dealt with depression through most of my life, and have tended to struggle when I don’t feel like I’m making a difference. At first I wanted to enter the field of video game development at Becker College, and help the world by bringing smiles to others the way the games I played as a kid made me smile. But that fell apart due to (at the time) undiagnosed depression and disillusionment.

After that, I spent several years focusing more on myself. I moved across the country, from Dayton, OH to Boston, MA and lived with my aunt and uncle for a couple of years. While there, I worked a handful of smaller jobs while working out regularly and attending therapy to deal with the depression that had driven me out of my first college experience. I even started going back to school at ITT Tech, though about 6 months after I started they were closed down.

Eventually I moved out into an apartment of my own while I was working at the IS Service Desk for Mass General Brigham. While there, I learned that I really do like being able to help people on an individual scale, and I enjoyed the job there for several years. However, when Covid hit, the additional stress compounded into something horrible, and I knew I had to move on to something that wasn’t 40 hours a week of customer service face.

I came into UX in part because I saw that opportunity here, to make a world that was more open to people of all abilities, backgrounds, and skills. As someone with both poor vision and ADHD, I’ve encountered unfriendly UIs in the past, and even had apps or games rendered unusable by bad UI, and it has always been infuriating when something so basic gets in the way of something I want to do.

Outside of professional ambitions, I still remain an avid gamer and fantasy enthusiast. I run a couple of tabletop RPG groups and am part of a few more, and usually unwind with some games with friends, or listening to a few chapters of the most recent audiobook I picked up. I recently was introduced to virtual miniatures games by a friend of mine in Australia.

I am also nearly always listening to some kind of music in the background, and take full advantage of the variety given to us in this day and age by youtube. Pop music, classic rock, anime themes, movie background tracks, fan remixes, folk music, they all find their way into my playlists, and it leads to a bit of an eclectic mix of sounds throughout my day.

In April of 2022, I came to the realization that I had been denying myself for years, and began the process of transitioning to life as a woman. Since then, many of my complications with both depression and anxiety have vanished, and I feel like I’ve been granted a new lease on life.