The 1 in 10,000 Girl
Essays From A Statistically Improbable Life
Ketamine. Con Artists.
Rare Diagnoses. Strange Hope.
Rare Diagnoses. Strange Hope.
I call myself The 1 in 10,000 Girl for a reason
Years ago, after being resistant to medication after medication for a list of mental illnesses long enough to require its own paragraph, I finally found one that worked.
Like, actually worked. I kept walking around saying, "Is this what you guys feel like all the time?!"
And then I got a rash.
I didn't even notice it. Someone else had to point it out because it was on my back.
It was an allergic reaction that can kill you in 72 hours if you don't catch it.
My psychiatrist couldn't believe it. The odds were somewhere around 1 in 10,000.
Of course they were.
Because this is my life.
Years ago, after being resistant to medication after medication for a list of mental illnesses long enough to require its own paragraph, I finally found one that worked.
Like, actually worked. I kept walking around saying, "Is this what you guys feel like all the time?!"
And then I got a rash.
I didn't even notice it. Someone else had to point it out because it was on my back.
It was an allergic reaction that can kill you in 72 hours if you don't catch it.
My psychiatrist couldn't believe it. The odds were somewhere around 1 in 10,000.
Of course they were.
Because this is my life.
The problem is, it didn't stop at 1 in 10,000
I've accumulated an abnormal amount of abnormal experiences.
A dozen mental and physical illnesses. Drug addiction. Falling in love with con artists whose name I didn't know. (Multiple.) Sexual assault. Romantic fraud. Death threats. Suicide attempts. Self-harm. Emergency surgeries. Botched surgeries. Abortion. Tumors more rare than being struck by lightning. Multiple near death experiences. Arrests. Probation.
And those aren't even all of the stories.
When I tell someone one of my stories, they're horrified. They ask how someone can keep going after that. And I laugh, because I have ten more that bad.
My life is has been the latter.
Most people have a few 10/10 stories
Most people have a couple traumatic experiences that are a 10/10. The kind that divides time. That diagnosis, the phone call, the accident, the betrayal. That year everything fell apart.
My life has felt more like a polycrisis with commercial breaks.
Something huge happens. I survive it.
I start rebuilding. Something weirder happens.
I survive that. I make a joke...
And eventually someone says: “Wait. There's MORE?”
There is almost always more.
Statistically Improbable Hope
The part I'm the most interested in is that I'm still here.
Because alongside all of the crazy "bad" stories, I've also... been slimed on Nickelodeon, facilitated a human rainbow that landed on the front page of the newspaper when I was 10, given lemons to strangers, organized thousands of acts of kindness, made absurd art in public, written books, given awards to dogs, dressed as a troll doll on a bridge.
These aren't two different lives. They're the same one.
My life's work has been to help adults to enjoy their lives as much as possible, despite their struggles, no matter how huge or frequent.
I have been relatively open about my life online for 20 years. But openness isn't the same thing as telling the whole story.
There were stories I was too ashamed to tell. Things I didn't understand yet. Experiences I was still too close to. Stuff I could describe, but hadn't been able to extract meaning from yet.
Now I have distance, context, and perspective. To give you the whole story.
I have years of psychology, therapy, personal development, mistakes, recovery, relapse, relationships, work, and plain old getting older between me and some of the hardest moments of my life.
I can finally tell these stories as the person who lived them AND the person who has had time to understand them.
That's what The 1 in 10,000 Girl is.
For a year, I'm writing an essay a week. It's neither a highlight reel nor a trauma dump. Or 52 stories where I heroically discover that everything happens for a reason (cuz some things just fucking sucked).
I believe the best art is detailed and honest. And that's what I can promise you this will be.
The truly statistical improbable thing is that after an improbable amount of evidence that life can be absolutely fucking brutal... I still have hope.
If you're someone who also feels like their life has been a polycrisis, you're not alone.
I want you to know that no matter what your life has been like, it doesn't have to kill you. It can make you stronger. And I'll tell you how I did it.
So... what the hell am I going to write about?
Good art is when it's detailed and honest.
That's what I can promise you here.
That's what I can promise you here.
The time I woke up in a K-hole on the street. Being addicted and getting clean.
The professional con artists I've dated. Yes, plural.
Being the other woman more times than I care to count.
Qualifying for TMS after being medication-resistant.
Having a tumor rarer than being struck by lightning and how they had to form a team of doctors to treat me.
Being diagnosed over the years with autism, OCD, Tourette's, bipolar disorder, PTSD, ADHD, trichotillomania, panic disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder, dissociative fugue, automatonophobia... and more.
Finding a medication that dramatically helped my mental illness... and discovering I was deathly allergic to it.
Having to beg to go to therapy as a teenager.
Cutting myself for years.
Working for five years at a psychiatric rehabilitation program with 100 mentally ill adults and quietly wondering why some of their diagnoses and medication lists were shorter than mine.
Being fired from psychotherapy.
Doing enough drugs to leave a hole in my nose.
Being a dancer for 11 years and developing anorexia and body dysmorphia.
Weighing more than 300 pounds.
Thunderclap migraines after sex. Anonymous sex.
Getting slimed on Nickelodeon.
Having a man break into my hotel room.
Being denied a protective order after a judge told me, "Your boyfriend can't rape you".
Getting pregnant by an ex.
Getting back together with my first boyfriend 22 years later.
Being arrested.
Getting hit by a parked car.
Endometriosis. Botched surgeries.
Having synesthesia, which means my senses occasionally refuse to stay in their assigned departments.
Being asked to take the SAT at 13 because adults thought I might be a genius.
Going to private Christian school.
Moving out of my mom's house in the middle of the night at 19.
Sitting down and asking her for an apology and she couldn't say the words.
Cussing out Ric Flair.
Suicide attempts.
Starting a business with a made up job title and almost quitting a dozen times.
Smuggling drugs.
And experiencing a strange number of life's milestones earlier than my peers: mental illness, chronic pain, weight stigma, existential questions, and eventually learning to build my identity around things other than the milestones I wasn't interested in chasing.
I could keep going. But I haven't even gotten to all the weird stuff yet.
Every Thursday, a new essay drops.
📖 The Essay
Read it on your phone, tablet, or computer. Save it. Revisit it. Build your collection as the book grows.
🎧 The Audio
You can read along, listen while you're driving, take me on a walk, or allow me to tell you increasingly concerning stories while you fold your laundry.
🌀 Messy Integration
🌈 Become a Founding Reader
FOUNDING READER PRESALE: $182 $130
You'll receive:
- All 52 personal essays + recordings
- All companion reflections
- Immediate access to the complete archive as it grows weekly
- The finished digital edition of the book when it's done
price goes up to $182 on September 15th!
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FAQ
Q: Where do I access the essays?
A: All together inside a private collection on Mighty Networks.
Q: What happens when I check out?
A: Whenever you join, you'll immediately unlock every essay and audio recording that has already been published. Then you'll receive each new essay as it drops for the remainder of the year.
Q: What if I join before essay 1?
A: You get #1 through #52 as they're released.
Q: What if I join randomly, like week 37?
A: You'll immediately get Essays #1–37, plus every remaining essay as it comes out.
Q: When does the first essay drop?
A: September 17th, 2026
Q: What day of the week do new essays come out?
A: Thursdays
Q: When does the pre-sale end/price go up?
A: September 14th, 2026. It increases $52 and you lose your bonus.
Q: Do I get audio and visual?
A: Yep. PDF + audio versions (I will be speaking).
Q: If I join after September 14th, do I get the book compilation when it's released in the winter of 2027?
A: No
Q: Will the hard copy and/or compilation be available for purchase separately in 2027?
A: Yes
Q: What makes this different than your other books?
A: For most of my career, I've written about personal development, positive psychology, happiness, play, and what eventually became my Merriment Method. I've used pieces of my own life as examples. This time, I'm flipping it. My life is the subject. The lessons come second. It's also individual essays instead of chapters.
Q: Why am I doing this now?
A: Because I've started realizing how much of my life I've never documented. And I don't want to forget it. Sometimes I moved so quickly toward asking "What can I do with this?" that I skipped: "What actually happened to me?" My memory isn't getting better. Time isn't slowing down. And the list of stories I keep telling myself I'll write "someday" has gotten absurdly long. I just know I have stories I want to leave behind.
Maybe hope is my rarest diagnosis
I'm still a person. I still make mistakes.
I've experienced enough darkness to understand why people become cynical...
I've spent an enormous amount of time thinking about death...
and built my life's work around enjoying being alive.
I've had an improbable number of reasons to become harder, colder, quieter, more suspicious, and less hopeful.
And somehow I still believe people are good.
I still make art. I still fall in love. I still get excited. I still dress like a kindergartner with a bank account. I still believe life is worth participating in.
I still believe happiness is something we can practice, even when happiness isn't the only thing we're feeling.
I think the strangest part of my story isn't all the 1 in 10,000 recurrences. It's that after all of them, I became who I am.
Ketamine. Con Artists. Rare Diagnoses. Strange Hope.
Come read the statistically improbable story while I'm still writing it.
See what past readers have said...
PS - This is my 4thbook!
"This book is life changing. The fact [the author] is like me, or was like me, gives me hope."
"This is like my little bible. You've gotten me through so many dark times."
"Thank you for creating this beautiful book."
"This book was so honest and straightforward, and something you can read again and again."
"I am so grateful for the fun and lightness and love she can bring to sometimes heavy topics." -
"From the first paragraph in this book, you can tell it's going to be a different experience."
"The first time I started reading this... I just started to cry. Happy and sad tears. This book spoke to me."
"This book belongs on everyone's bookshelves!"
Mary gets it and this book gets straight to the points that matter."
"I wouldn't have been able to get through your book without tears, both sad and happy, streaming down my cheeks most every page."
