I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home and with an extended family that loves the Lord. Someone who has been particularly influential faith journey is my granddad. Although my granddad is no longer with us, his faith legacy lives on and still inspires me today. My story is unique to my eyes and ears, but I believe that it is probably more relatable amongst members of the church than expected. I say my story is unique because I am a Christian who was raised “right”, had faithful support, and yet, still fell away. Now when I say I fell away I don’t mean in the typical ways we hear about people falling away from their faith. I never got angry with God because of a tragic event, I didn’t leave the faith, , and I didn’t pursue other belief systems. Where I ‘fell away’ was in my pursuit of greater intimacy and relationship with the Father. Let me take you to the beginning and walk you through briefly my rollercoaster journey. My story ignites me today and provides me with a testimony I intend to continue sharing until called home. It’s the highest of highs and lowest of lows that have showed me the realness and incomparable nature of Christs unconditional love and mercy. It has given me a fire for the Lord that I can only pray I am able to explain. This fire lit within me for Christ is so wild and intense I pray it shines out and touches everyone I meet, as well you my lovely reader. It starts at age four, right as my mom says goodnight to me, tucking me in. In this moment I became filled with the Holy Spirit, saved forever. I prayed the prayer of salvation and accepted Jesus into my heart. Jesus, my first love, knocked and I heard Him. I started to develop a deeper understanding of the gift of His presence through my many moves as a child. I moved every 2-4 years throughout childhood, and this has continued through my college career. Continually being the new kid came with anxiety and rejection, but also strength, courage and spiritual maturity. There was a peace in the chaos that I knew came from My Father who I was taught would “never leave me nor forsake me” so I took courage Joshua did. You see faith is believing what you don’t see, Hebrews 11:3 tells us that. I believed God was always with me and that I could have courage because He would be there with me and going out before to prepare the way. As David says in the Pslams, where can I go to escape His presence? The answer is nowhere! I believed His love before I saw it and then I started to experience it, living out the prayer of Paul in Ephesians. This got my heart bursting from the inside. I had a boldness I didn’t know I had. Bold, passionate, brave, admirable, loving, confident in the Lord, and honorable. These were the ways I described my granddad. He was a Gideon and I always admired his ability to draw people in through the way he loved on them and how he could share the gospel so boldly. My granddad was unapologetically a believer in Christ, and he was going to tell you the good news, not for himself but out of love for you. He had extreme steadfastness in his love and faith in Christ. I wanted to be just like my granddad, so when he gave me a set of Gideon Bible’s of my own I was nervous but also excited. I don’t remember specifically praying for strength, but I know I must have because the next thing you know I am sharing the gospel with the Jewish and Muslim girls in my elementary classes at recess. Now reading this you may be thinking, okay I am waiting to see where you “fell away” and that’s what I am going to be transitioning into now. You see, the enemy prowls around like a lion seeking whom he can devour. Our enemy, Satan, is extremely clever. He came for my identity, just as he did Jesus in the wilderness. The way I fell away was from little temptations, lies, and deceptions that led me further into compromise and seeking pleasure, acceptance and identity in the world. This caused me to focus less about stewardship and growing my relationship with Christ and more on my feelings, being liked and feeling important. The next thing you know I am living a life leading to destruction and have convinced myself while I believe in and love God, I didn’t the Bible because ‘people’ wrote it. Therefore, I was deceived into writing my own rules that led me into numerous bad decisions resulting in losing my academic scholarship that was paying for most of my school. It led me into practices in my relationships that left me feeling more broken and cast aside than I have ever felt in my life. During this chaos I never hated God, never stopping believing in Him but I stopped pursuing intimacy with Him and growing spiritually with Him. By not filling my mind and heart with the Word and seeking deeper intimacy with my Creator, I allowed Satan’s worldly influences to grow instead. When I grew intimate with the world, I felt more dead inside. I didn’t feel like a daughter of the King, I didn’t feel fearfully and wonderfully made, and I certainly didn’t feel like I was made for a purpose. Well, I did at times, but I felt I had messed my purpose up and couldn’t see a way out of my mess. But God! I was touched with such grace and mercy by my Father, it’s difficult to put to words. He saved me and pulled me out of my pit, and I don’t even recall asking for help. His grace, His mercy, His unconditional love for me is something I cannot find anywhere else. I was made new all over again. Cast your burdens on Him for He cares for you! I am currently wrapping up my degree in neuroscience and biology and looking to pursue a master’s in applied behavior analysis. I want to bring my testimony to my everyday life as I saw my grandfather do. He was a contractor and lover, a valiant ambassador for Christ. He loved people everywhere he went and showed others the love of Christ through the way he treated them. He didn’t have a role such as a pastor in the church but he shared the gospel in everyday places, with every day people, during every day encounters. I want to make my workplace my ministry and share the gospel in all the areas of my life where people are involved. I was a college athlete for the first 3 years of my college career and when the Lord closed the door to that part of my life, He opened another, coaching. Through coaching volleyball, I have already been able to lead more girls and colleagues to Christ than I thought possible with the way I was living before. I have been able to steward my gifts for the Lord again and I hope to do that with the families and colleagues I will work with and around when I am in applied behavior analysis. Winning this scholarship will help me make up for the consequences that came from falling into my pit. While I was a college athlete, much of my school was funded through academics. While I was spiraling, I chased worldly things to numb the pain of curse of rejection that was over me and it numbed attention to details in the process. Consequently, my GPA fell below the threshold for keeping my scholarship. While this was devasting, the Lord has given me new strength at Wayne State. After hitting rock bottom, I took a semester off before going back to school at Wayne State. After fixing my eyes on Jesus for redemption, restoration and guidance through the wilderness, I am pleased to say I have turned it around through Christ who lives in me. My first and most previous semester at Wayne State I made the Dean’s list and will be finishing my undergraduate career this summer semester with not one but two bachelor’s degrees and with a GPA that far surpasses what I needed for the scholarship I had at my previous school. The Lord meets us where we are, He never gives up on us. No pit is too deep for the Lord to pull you out of and I am walking proof. Romans 8:28 reigns true in my life and I will forever be focused on not only sharing the gospel but to share with current believers the authority and victory we have in Christ. It is never over for you; the battle is already won!

I feel my face flush and body temperature drastically increase. My heart pounds rapidly and I feel intense pain in my chest then in my stomach, and now I suddenly feel nauseous. My shoulders curve inward. Simultaneously my mind races with numerous thoughts. All of them bouncing around like a ping pong ball on steroids in a small space. I am completely distracted and disoriented. My day thrown, why did this have to happen when I have so much to do today? Ugh, I feel trapped in this emotion and its suffocating. This is often how I feel every time I sense, perceive, or experience rejection or failure. This intense physical and emotional experience is due to a condition called rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) which is a common symptom that occurs in individuals with ADHD. In fact, over 90% of people with ADHD experience RSD, with 1 in 3 people with ADHD saying that RSD is the hardest part about living with ADHD (Dodson, 2020). And I, Isabella Giuffrida, am one of those individuals. While many think that ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, just causes one to be hyper and difficulty with focus; it incurs so much more. While RSD is not listed in the DSM-V as an official symptom yet, RSD is nonetheless a common experience for those with ADHD. That why it is referred to as a dysphoria and not a disorder. RSD is caused from an emotional dysregulation that many people with ADHD suffer causing intense emotional and physical distress as a result to rejection, criticism, or falling short(Dodson, 2020). The intense pain can occur also from neutral and vague reactions from people. Particularly if that person is of importance to them. It’s not that people with RSD don’t want or are unable to manage their emotions, rather the way their brain dysregulates emotions makes managing rejection harder. In a neurotypical brain, neural signals that trigger emotions get regulated and rerouted when situations occur. So, while neurotypical people still feel intense emotions their brains are doing some buffering for them so that the pain is not unbearable or overwhelming to the point that it limits function. However, those with RSD, this buffering process doesn’t work optimally. When the signals triggering an emotional are going off in their brain, the emotional response signal gets stuck at the maximal level and can’t be turned down without severe help (Dodson, 2020). I like to think of it as the volume knob on your car stereo got turned all the way up out of nowhere and is stuck on the highest volume. Studies show this is genetic and childhood traumas can be of influence on its degree but not its cause (Dodson, 2020). I was not diagnosed with ADHD until I was in college and had little knowledge of what ADHD was and what it entailed. Receiving my diagnosis, to an extent, was a relief and brought validation to some of my internal struggles I was facing. However, it also came with challenges. For one, my father did not accept my diagnosis and refused to believe that many of the my behaviors were symptoms of ADHD or were symptoms at all. My shorter attention span for certain tasks, and forgetfulness was labelled as lazy, careless and disrespectful. He believed it was an excuse for my unmotivated and “fleshy” behavior. On the bright side, I was able to seek accommodations for my collegiate studies and be set up for more success in the classroom. I began to do my own research and pursued a degree in neuroscience and have since educated myself on ADHD and learned about RSD. I also got into ABA therapy and learned that between 50-70% of people with ASD also have ADHD (Hours et al, 2022). This encourages me to spread awareness of RSD and how communication with body language is crucial to think about because you never know how it is influencing someone to feel. The thought, “how they feel is not my problem” has an element of truth, but it’s not that black and white for all individuals. Fortunately, I have been able to develop a lot of coping strategies to manage the intensity of my emotions. However, some individuals with ASD have increased difficultly regulating mood and emotion (Hours et al, 2022). Imagine how poor communication and body language could affect a person with ASD and ADHD along with RSD? As I pursue a career in ABA and potentially a PhD in neuropsychology down the road I plan to bring RSD into the forefront of conversation as much about RSD and its link to other disorders remains unknown. Additionally, I work with youth coaching volleyball teams with girls ranging from ages 12-18 years old. I am more intentional about the mannerisms and body language I possess while I coach because of my experiences and research. Copious amounts of my players look at me after every play. How I communicate with them verbally and nonverbally is crucial to their success, dignity and confidence. Especially as a person of influence and authority in their life. I also wonder, how many girls am I coaching and encountering on a daily basis struggling with RSD or other mental health challenges that I don’t know about and they might not even know about? Awareness is the first step but then comes the intentionality piece. Purposefully putting the compassion and research into practice. It’s not enough to “feel” for others with mental health struggles. One must also carry out a compassionate life daily with their actions and words, actively choosing to behave in a way that is considerate of the things not visible to the eye. Dodson, W. (2020, February 28). RSD: meaning of rejection sensitive dysphoria, ADHD Link. ADDitude ADHD Science and Strageties. https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-and-adhd/?srsltid=AfmBOoqzQfEjIRO3iU2LjQsTXWVi-1oR1I0LchE8lx42NKqv3zMKAi0l Hours, C., Recasens, C., & Baleyte, J. M. (2022). ASD and ADHD Comorbidity: What Are We Talking About?. Frontiers in psychiatry, 13, 837424. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.837424

I want you to imagine a person that has been incredibly influential in your life. Now try to imagine that very same person once full of wisdom and joy, be someone unrecognizable and almost entirely dependent on you to function. Picture that role model saying goodnight at 8am because she no longer can tell time. Picture the person that taught you everything, need you for everything. Seriously, everything. Needing you to help her shower and keep her from going outside and walking into someone else home. Not because she is physically unable but mentally doesn’t know how. This is hopefully no one in your life’s reality but it’s the reality of my grandmother. As a neuroscience student I have a tremendous love for the brain. The brain is the only organ that knows itself. Our brains functioning molds our entire subjective experience of the world and our life. This uniquely shaped experience of life that our brain creates is our autobiography. We maintain and hold on to our autobiography through our memories and conscious awareness. And while it is heart wrenching to fathom, it’s estimated that 42% of Americans over the age of 55 will develop dementia (Fang et al, 2025). Dementia is an unforgiving thief that is stealing my grandmother’s autobiography with no remorse. It is hard to feel hope when there is no cure for dementia and no effective way to slow the progression of the disease without repercussions. However, Dr. Chen and her team provides hope with the technology they have developed and thus makes it my favorite invention over the last decade. Ahsonogenetics or airy-beam holographic sonogenetics have changed the way we look at debilitating diseases that attack the brain. This technology is a non-invasive method for activating neurons in the brain that have been engineered to express ultrasound-sensitive ion channels (Hu et al., 2024). This means that through ultrasound rays this device can activate neurons that are cell type-specific and activate neurons in a spatially precise manner not seen before. Another benefit is that is means that the brain can be stimulated in multiple regions simultaneously and provides flexible neuromodulation in freely moving organisms (Hu et al., 2024). Thus far most of the testing and success stories using this device has been on rodent models, although nonetheless very inspirational and hope giving. This device has been used to improve motor deficits in mice with Parkinson’s disease. This is incredibly encouraging as this model breaks the ice to be used in human patients as well. This technology is non-invasive which makes the risk to the patient lower as well as less painful that deep brain stimulation. Deep brain stimulation(DBS) has been used to treat depression and PTSD and has potential to be used in atrophying diseases. However, DBS can be painful, not very precise and poses additional risks as it requires implants. Ahsonogenetics technology shows promise for restoring function in deteriorated brain regions and for insights into the workings of neural circuits. Consequently, perhaps this technology will be used to improve understanding of dementia. Additionally, this technology provides promise to slow the progression of dementia and even make dementia patients’ lives more enjoyable. As I continue in my education as a neuroscience student and my work as a behavioral technician, I am excited to see how this technology advances the knowledge in my field. I plan to stay aware of Ahsonogentics progression so that I can eventually use the insightsd gained from it to advance the lives of those living with the thief and other disorders or diseases that regard the brain. References Fang(2025)https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03340-9 Hu(2024)https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2402200121