The Girl I Didn't Know

This is a secret I never thought I’d tell out loud. But if it helps you see how big pharma really moves, spot a loved one slipping into dependence, or helps you feel less alone if you're struggling and just thinking about trying to reach up for help — then it’s worth it.

I grew up a horse-loving farm girl in Idaho — mud on my boots, hay in my hair, lungs full of barn air. Then, in my early 20s, I jumped without a net: traded hay bales for the palm trees of a film career in Hollywood and somehow landed in the South Bay of Los Angeles.

Sunset walks on the pier, salt in the air, fruity cocktails at Sharkey’s or beer and popcorn chicken after a day of volleyball, karaoke on the same stage Miles Davis recorded a live album on — life felt like one long summer night and I was all in. I was blessed.

One of the first grown-up things I did (and yes, I was surprised, too) was find a doctor who actually listened. Not the clipboard type who hands you a script and shrugs. He asked what I ate (I owned up to the fries), how much I moved, and with a conspiratorial wink — how much I really drank, including an order of 80 oz of water daily.

He didn’t shame the young and wild version of me. He saw the whole picture. For five years he was my family doctor. I trusted him like family.

Then the car accident happened and shattered my world. Suddenly the soundtrack changed.

What began as pain turned into surgeries and more pain. Major back surgeries. Nerve injuries. Oxycodone. Percocet. Dilaudid. “Just for a month,” they said.

I left the hospital and got handed back to my primary. That’s when the scripts started to stack. The surgery hadn't worked as well as was hoped. Pills were a constantly changing cocktail:

One for pain. Another for pain.

One for muscle spasms.

One for nerve damage.

One to help me sleep.

One for the creeping anxiety and the black-cloud depression that came with realizing your body is no longer yours.

It went on for years — another surgery to patch the last, instructions to “stay ahead of the pain,” and a haze that did exactly that: kept me numb. Weeks blurred into months. I laughed less, loved less, lived less. The girl who danced barefoot on the beach and belted karaoke at the Lighthouse was gone. The woman left behind? I didn’t recognize her.

The fallout isn’t always tabloid drama. It’s quieter and more poisonous.

The mom who misses school plays because she’s fogged out.

The friend who fades away from shame.

The years you lose while you survive instead of live.

And sometimes it’s loud — like your mother finding you unresponsive and everything crashing at once.

I know that place. I was her. I almost didn’t come back.

And that part of the story — the climb back, the teeth-gritting reclaiming of myself — is coming next.