Penelope Mazzetti is a writer, memoirist, and late-diagnosed ADHDer who spent most of her life believing she was simply “bad at being a person.” Long before she understood her ADHD, she underwent a vertical sleeve gastrectomy in pursuit of “skinny,” convinced that shrinking her body would solve every problem in life.
In 2022, after the devastating loss of someone she loved sent her into a severe restrict-binge cycle, Penny admitted herself to The Renfrew Center, terrified of what her body and her mind were enduring. That turning point forced a reckoning: The problem was never a lack of willpower. It was unresolved grief, untreated ADHD, and a nervous system stuck in survival mode.
A graduate of Temple University now living in Baltimore, she is writing a memoir that braids together the impact of late-identified ADHD, her lifelong battle with disordered eating body dysmorphia, the aftermath of bariatric surgery, and the quiet devastation of dreams deferred by capital-T Trauma. Her stories dismantle the lie that smaller is better, asking instead what happens when a woman refuses to disappear.
Some of her early work has appeared in the Renfrew Connections Alumni Newsletter and VoyageBaltimore online magazine. She lives with two cats, a restless mind, and an unwavering belief that telling the truth, especially the uncomfortable kind, can set people free.
