Photo By Staff Sgt. Jessica Blair | U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Zaskira Cabrera, 31st Force Support Squadron dining facility...... read more read more
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AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy-- Surrounded by aisles of stainless steel and the cool glow of fluorescent lights overhead, one Airman finds comfort in her daily routine. Every clank of a pot and every beep of an oven sends a kaleidoscope of hues across her vision.
For Staff Sgt. Zaskira Cabrera, 31st Force Support Squadron dining facility floor manager, her world is a little more colorful than her peers. As she reaches over to touch a clear plastic bag sitting on the desk, she explains how the thin, crinkly material feels and sounds very yellow to her.
“Sometimes textures and sounds can seem a bit overstimulating all at once and all the time,” said Cabrera. “Especially working at the dining facility during the high tempo, fast-paced environment. Even our uniform has a lot of patterns, but I wear it with pride and honor.”
Cabrera has Synesthesia, a genetic, neurological condition that blurs the boundaries between some or all the five senses and how she perceives the world around her.
“It's almost like your senses are cross wired,” she describes. “A lot of people have their five senses: sight, taste, smell, touch and hearing, but now imagine that those experiences are intertwined.”
Synesthesia can be perceived completely different between synesthetes, though the perceptions are stable throughout the synesthetes life, it is often hereditary and is considered rare. Synesthesia is a cross wiring of neural connections in the mind, and it is believed people who have synesthesia also have more neural connections communicating with each other between the brain regions, said Cabrera.
Some synesthetes feel sound as a temperature sensation on the body, some visualize words as subtitles when people talk, some experience Lexical-gustatory synesthesia [hearing, spoken, read or thought about words], some produce a flavor and some can produce a color when smelling or tasting food.
When one synesthete eats food, they can taste a specific shape or for others, each word they read has its own individual color, but Cabrera experiences a wide spectrum of the neurological phenomenon.
“For me, I have many different types: chromesthesia or sound-color, color-grapheme or word-color
and tactile touch color,” said Cabrera. “But the most intense form that people gravitate towards is Chromesthesia or ‘colored hearing’. This is where I hear a sound or voice and I see its color. For me it's very intense, so I lead an extremely structured life.”
Growing up, Cabrera had a childhood filled with a big family, art, nature, books and color.
“My mother, made art and is the one who taught me,” Cabrera reminiscences. “I was creating things as soon as I could pick up a pencil. I was always exploring in nature and making art. I can remember vividly just always being in nature and always being around water.”
While Cabrera has experienced Synesthesia all her life, she never realized how rare her condition was – or that it was a condition at all – until recently.
“I found out when I was 26 and I'm 30 now, I had no idea,” she said. “One day I was training, and I was curious, so I asked one of my friends what color he saw when he listened to specific music and he was like, ‘What are you talking about? You see things?’ It was quite the identity crisis.”
It is a genetic condition, much of Cabrera’s family also has Synesthesia. She grew up accustomed to speaking about her life in terms of color. Finding out she was experiencing things differently than her friend, prompted Cabrera to call her family and find out why nobody told her about this rarity that they possessed. This is where she found out it was because of the stigmas associated with it.
“My family told me that in their time, it was not easy to talk about it because not many people knew enough about it,” said Cabrera. “Once I kind of calmed down and assessed what was going on, I started deep-diving into it going into forum groups and finding research topics on it. It just isn't something that I truly understood about myself until I grew up and turns out, it's pretty cool.”
Since then, Cabrera has been a part of Synesthesia research studies, given lectures to psychology students and is part of a small online community of other individuals who also experience this condition where they can speak about the experiences that they have.
“It’s normal to me, as I've had this my whole life,” said Cabrera. “I've adapted to it and embraced it. I didn't stop being successful because of it. It's allowed me to be more empathetic.”
Only 4% of the human population experiences any form of synesthesia. Cabrera hopes to talk about her condition more openly, making people aware that they are successful, capable and diverse people still able to thrive.
“I don't want others who have it to feel like my family members felt back in the day,” said Cabrera. “So, my goal would be to seek to understand others and continue to empower them while also empowering myself. I hope my troops can see I do my best to empower them.”
Cabrera’s goal is to continue creating her art to express her experience, educate and empower those around her with her example and words.
“You have to take a lot of time to work on yourself, when there aren’t many resources for you," said Cabrera. “You have to do a lot of inner work so you can survive in a society that isn't going to necessarily seek to understand you.”
Overall, her growth from the experience has shaped her into the leader that she is today.
“If I can empower my troops to better themselves and the mission, that means I am doing my job as a leader,” said Cabrera. “This means speaking in ways that empower people and oneself. We want empowered Airmen, they’re our future after all.”
| Date Taken: | 06.27.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 07.05.2023 08:41 |
| Story ID: | 448041 |
| Location: | AVIANO, IT |
| Web Views: | 18 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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