Thank you for being here.
The purpose of this blog is simple: to create a thoughtful space for reflection, conversation, and honest exploration of the questions that shape our lives.
Grounded in the dignity of the human person, these essays, interviews, and reflections consider freedom, vocation, mental health, invisible disabilities, personal wounds, religious experience, and the interior realities that often remain hidden beneath the surface of everyday life.
The path that brought me here has not been straight or predictable.
I was baptized Presbyterian, but by my teenage years, after my parents divorced when I was seven, I had drifted away from church. To be honest, my strongest memories of those early years were not theological. I enjoyed Sunday school, the animal crackers, the smell of the wooden pews, and the worn leather Bibles, getting dressed up as Presbyterians often do, and listening to the sharp click of my polished dress shoes echo across the church floor. My ADHD seemed to appreciate anything shiny, orderly, and just loud enough to announce my arrival.
Like many young people searching for meaning, I began studying on my own by the age of twelve. I read philosophy, existentialism, comparative religion, literature, and the great questions people have carried for centuries: What is the meaning of existence? Are we truly free? And what is the purpose for which we were created?
The books at public school could not satisfy my wonder, and the long trails of curiosity that carried me from one question to the next, I found at the local public library. As a young girl growing up in a rural town, I would often disappear without informing my mother, walk several miles to the library on my own, and then reappear around dusk as if nothing unusual had happened. Along the way, I might spend my pocket change on a dusty can of Mountain Dew from a convenience store counter. If I were feeling particularly sophisticated, I would stop at the convenience store, fill a paper cup with coffee, and imagine myself a philosopher, despite being far too young to understand why no one willingly buys gas station coffee after 11:00 a.m. None of the philosophers or theologians I was reading were around to offer practical wisdom, such as, “You know, you can ask them to brew a fresh pot.”
Looking back, however, I may have been onto something. My ADHD was still undiagnosed and untreated, and that cup of coffee probably helped keep my mind focused on a single trail of thought long enough to make the several-mile journey home. At the time, I simply thought I was imitating the serious thinkers whose books I carried under my arm and occasionally forgot to return. In fact, I seem to remember the library contacting me after I started college about overdue books I had checked out as a tween. By then, so much time had passed that I simply paid for them. Whether the books were ever returned remains a mystery.
I was not always on time, and my mother occasionally wondered where I had disappeared to, but I always managed to make it home by dusk. Usually, I returned with a receipt showing I had checked out five books, two books left open on a library table, one book that had fallen out of my backpack somewhere along the walk home because I forgot to zip it completely, and another that I had thoughtfully returned to the shelf after browsing it, having completely forgotten that I had already checked it out. It was often not until several days later that I realized I had only made it home with one of the books I intended to read.
This may have been one of the earliest signs that my appetite for knowledge exceeded my ability to organize its pursuit.
What began as curiosity gradually became a lifelong journey of discovery. The questions that first drew me into library stacks and worn paperbacks would eventually lead me through philosophy, theology, religious experience, and, years later, back toward faith itself. Even then, beneath the distractions, forgotten books, overdue fines, and long walks home, there was a deeper desire at work: a longing to understand what is true, what is good, and whether God could be found amid the life of a young ADHD girl.
This was not a small question. Many spiritual traditions emphasize silence, contemplation, discipline, commitment, attentiveness, and the ability to remain focused on what matters most. These are all virtues, but they do not always come naturally to a mind that is constantly moving from one thought, question, or interest to the next. If God could be found there in the interruptions, forgotten library books, wandering attention, and restless curiosity of an ADHD girl, then surely, He could be found anywhere, and for anyone.
Even so, after leaving the church, I did not find God as quickly as I found questions. I did not find Him in the public school system, in the books I borrowed from the library, at home, or along the many paths my curiosity led me down. What I did find was an increasing awareness of my own consciousness. From an early age, I was instinctively attentive to the interior life. I found myself observing my thoughts, questioning my assumptions, examining my experiences, and wondering why human beings think, feel, suffer, and hope the way they do. I was also curious whether others experienced the world as I did. Often, I found them in books by great thinkers. Reading philosophy and literature felt less like discovering something entirely new and more like awakening a knowledge my mind already seemed to contain. In the thoughts of philosophers, essayists, theologians, and seekers, I encountered questions, insights, and experiences that felt strangely familiar.
Looking back, I recognize this as an early habit of metacognition: a persistent awareness of consciousness and the inner movements of the human thought process. For many years, I did not believe I had found God. During periods of discouragement, I searched for language almost everywhere except the Church to describe the experiences and questions that seemed to point toward Him. My ADHD nurtured a persistent curiosity, while the early wounds and experiences of my life continually pushed me toward deeper questions about suffering, meaning, and human nature. Rather than resting in any one answer, I remained drawn toward further exploration and reflection. As I entered my teenage years, those questions continued to deepen. Growing up in a rural town, largely secluded from the wider world, I often found myself identifying more with Siddhartha Gautama’s story than with the image of Jesus I had known as a young child. The Christianity I encountered before age seven was disrupted by my parents’ divorce and the lifestyle changes that followed. Jesus was not a subject taught in the public school system, and without a religious community or consistent spiritual formation, my questions increasingly led me elsewhere. By contrast, the story of a young man leaving behind the familiar world in search of truth, confronting suffering directly, and sitting beneath a Bodhi tree in pursuit of enlightenment resonated deeply with my own curiosity and desire to understand the human condition. The path of curiosity that began in church pews and library stacks eventually led me to Buddhism.
I was drawn to its simplicity, mindfulness, compassion, and attention to the inner life. In many ways, being present in the moment came naturally to me. While my thoughts could wander in countless directions, I often became deeply absorbed in whatever was directly before me: a book, a conversation, a trail through the woods, a question, or a passing observation. Buddhism gave language and structure to something I was already experiencing. Its emphasis on awareness, attentiveness, and presence resonated with my natural inclination to observe both the natural world around me and the enigma of my own neurodivergent mind.
More than anything, I was drawn toward uncovering truth, purpose, and the deeper realities hidden beneath the patterns of everyday life. Buddhism provided a framework for exploring my consciousness. For a time, it offered many of the answers I was seeking and helped cultivate a deeper awareness of the interior world I had been exploring since childhood.
While my ADHD had its strengths, it also contributed to some of the more difficult chapters of my life. My curiosity and openness to experience sometimes led me into situations that resulted in profound wounds and traumatic experiences. In time, those experiences became part of the reason I began asking deeper questions about suffering, healing, freedom, and our hidden God.
Long before I had words like invisible wound or neurodivergence, my life had already been shaped by both. I experienced childhood sexual abuse and carried the effects of those wounds into adulthood. Like many survivors, I sometimes repeated patterns that did not reflect who I truly was, especially during seasons of stress or busyness, when I was less reflective.
In junior high and high school, many of the behaviors associated with my undiagnosed ADHD were interpreted as character flaws rather than symptoms of a real and treatable condition. What was often perceived as laziness, irresponsibility, distractibility, or unrealized potential was, in many cases, the result of untreated ADHD. My forgetfulness, tendency to keep certain areas meticulously clean and organized, and habit of thinking differently were often laughed off or minimized, and over time, I learned that if I could be funny or make others laugh, it helped ease the pressure of feeling out of place. I also had a habit of experimenting and tinkering my way through problems, often arriving at a solution through instinct and intuition rather than by carefully following directions. At the same time, my body seemed to resist the classroom’s structure. Sitting still for long periods was physically uncomfortable and often led to headaches and increasing mental fatigue. These were not imagined difficulties or a lack of effort; they were real challenges that affected how I learned and engaged with the world. Rather than maintaining steady attention, I often moved between periods of distraction and intense immersion, becoming so absorbed in an idea, project, or question that I would lose track of time and everything happening around me. Yet when I encountered philosophers, theologians, and other great thinkers, I often felt strangely at home, as though I had found companions.
I did not simply struggle academically; I barely graduated high school, meeting only the minimum requirements necessary to walk across the stage and receive a diploma. I graduated with a 2.0 GPA, a result that reflected neither my curiosity nor my intellectual capacity, but rather the reality of living with invisible wounds and undiagnosed ADHD in an educational environment that did not support the way my mind learned or processed information. The GPA was just high enough to keep me eligible for athletics, though balancing academics and sports often felt like running a race while carrying extra weights that others could not see. While many of my classmates entered college with the advantage of academic scholarships, athletic scholarships, or a stronger educational foundation, I arrived carrying challenges that were far less visible: untreated ADHD and traumatic internal wounds.
At seventeen, while preparing to begin college, I faced the difficult decision of a later-term abortion at twenty-one weeks. That experience profoundly changed my life. In the years that followed, I carried questions about suffering, responsibility, forgiveness, grief, and the value of every human life. Those questions did not disappear with time. Instead, they remained quietly present, shaping my reflections and deepening my search for a hidden God. By affirming my daughter’s humanity, innocence, and inherent dignity, I began to see more clearly the reality of my own actions and my need for grace. In a profound and unexpected way, God used her life to reach me, revealing truths about love, responsibility, mercy, and the value of every human person. Through her, I encountered not only my grief as a mother, but also a God who was patiently drawing me back to Himself. My daughter, once unnamed, unseen, and known only to God, had remained hidden within one of the deepest secrets of my life. Years later, I came to know her as Lily.
This spiritual encounter changed the way I understood Lily’s life and my own responsibility. In that spiritual moment, I became deeply aware of her innocence and of the role I had played in her death. It was a painful realization, but it was also a moment of truth. That encounter opened a place within me where grief, accountability, mercy, and grace could begin to work more deeply within my interior life. My daughter Lily remains an important part of my story. Her life and loss continue to shape how I think about human dignity, motherhood, grief, forgiveness, hope, and the worth of every person. Even as time has passed, this remains one of the defining experiences of my life and one of the places where I continue to encounter both suffering and grace.
Although I had recently lost a child and barely graduated from high school, I eventually discovered that my difficulties were not a measure of my potential. Once I left my rural hometown, the world grew larger, opportunities expanded, and I found environments where curiosity, instinct, and intellectual exploration were strengths rather than liabilities.
Despite my early struggles, education became one of the ways I nurtured my ADHD. College was structured differently from high school, allowing me greater freedom to pursue subjects that captured my attention and curiosity. For the first time, I found myself in an environment where I could thrive academically and eventually graduated with honors. Along the way, I earned degrees in psychology, business, vocational rehabilitation counseling, and divinity, each discipline offering a different perspective on the human person. I also joined the United States Navy and deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Yet those measurable achievements did not fully reflect the difficulties that remained. Much of my struggle was invisible, carried quietly beneath my accomplishments. My Catholic life was not immediate nor simple. For much of my life, I studied psychology, philosophy, and theology. Over time, those studies, together with the experiences that accompanied them, gradually led me to Christ and the Catholic Church. On the Easter Vigil of 2019, at the age of thirty-five years old, I was confirmed. Looking back, I cannot help but notice the providence in it all. I was seven years old when my parents divorced, and we stopped attending church. In many Christian traditions, seven is often associated with the age of reason, when a child begins to understand moral responsibility and the life of faith more deeply. Yet it was also the age when my own religious formation was interrupted. God met me again decades later, after moving through schools, institutions, relationships, and communities that had shaped my life but often struggled to recognize the dignity that He had placed within me.
Through years of reading, questioning, and reflection, I came to believe that truth is ultimately one because its source is God. I also became convinced that God is often encountered as a hidden presence, gradually revealed through reason, experience, conscience, prayer, and the interior life. Following the thought of Thomas Aquinas, I believe that God is our ultimate end: the fulfillment for which every human person is created, and that the deepest longing of the human heart is a search for the One who is already nearer to us than we realize.
In some of my writing, I will explore how ethics, medicine, disability, religion, spiritual experience, and public institutions influence the human person and how each can better recognize the dignity, freedom, and interior life that belong to every individual.
The phrase interior life refers to the hidden landscape within each person: the world of thought, conscience, memory, imagination, suffering, prayer, wonder, and encounter with God. It is where we wrestle with life’s deepest questions. It is also where transformation often begins quietly, away from public view.
Because questions of faith, ethics, human dignity, disability, freedom, and vocation often touch social and political realities, those topics may occasionally arise here. But this is not a political forum, and it is not meant to advance a political agenda. Political debates, elections, parties, and ideologies will never be the primary focus of my essays, reflections, or interviews.
More importantly, a person’s political affiliation does not determine their worth, dignity, or whether their story deserves to be heard. I am interested in people, not labels. I do not intend to judge individuals based on political beliefs, and I do not expect guests or readers to disclose their political affiliations. If someone chooses to share that part of their experience, they are welcome to do so.
At times, religious, ethical, cultural, and social questions require us to name and examine the institutions, policies, and public issues that shape human life. When those conversations happen, my hope is that they will be approached with intellectual honesty, charity, humility, and respect for the dignity of every person involved.
This blog is not an attempt to present myself as someone who has all the answers. It is a place for conversation.
Most of all, I hope this space encourages you to reflect on your own story.
Our lives are often marked by suffering, mistakes, unanswered questions, unexpected detours, and moments of grace. Yet these experiences can also become sources of wisdom. They can help us better understand ourselves, one another, and God.
Thank you for being here.
I look forward to learning from your story as much as sharing my own.
— Stephanie Hilton
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