I was born into uncertainty handed to my adoptive parents just days after birth, flown across the country from California to Georgia, stepping into a world that didn’t quite know what to do with me.

I was labeled early on. ADHD. Troubled. Too much. By first grade, I was placed on Adderall—not because anyone truly understood me, but because it was an easy way to explain why I didn’t behave like everyone else.

I quickly learned that I wasn’t someone to be understood. I was someone to be fixed.

But amidst the chaos, I found an unexpected refuge.

At five years old, I met the one thing that accepted me exactly as I was horses.

They didn’t care if I was too loud or too quiet. They didn’t try to control me. They just let me be. Riding bareback across the fields, I felt something I hadn’t felt before peace.

But while horses gave me freedom, my body was quietly carrying the weight of everything I couldn’t express.

By my early teens, chronic pain began creeping in. I brushed it off at first—after all, I was an athlete, a competitive equestrian. But the falls, the injuries, the emotional stress they all started to catch up.

The pain grew worse. It spread. It became relentless. Doctors dismissed me. “It’s just hormones.” , "Your labs are normal” “It’s all in your head.” Just take this pill, you'll be fine”

I started to believe them.

I spent years trapped in a body that felt like a prison, searching for answers no one seemed to have.