My name is Bailey Reid Gwyn, and I live with multiple complex, clinically documented medical and neurological conditions that affect nearly every aspect of my daily life.

 

These conditions include:

• Hyperthymesia — a rare neurological phenomenon involving the involuntary and near-total recall of autobiographical memory with intense emotional detail.

• Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) — which affects neurological processing, stress regulation, sensory integration, and memory function.

• Lucid Dreaming associated with Hyperthymesia — causing vivid re-experiencing of past events during sleep, including traumatic medical and personal experiences. Unlike ordinary dreaming, these episodes are deeply autobiographical and neurologically immersive, often resulting in chronic exhaustion, sleep disruption, and psychological strain.

• Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome (EDS) — a hereditary connective tissue disorder affecting the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and autonomic nervous systems, causing chronic pain, instability, fatigue, migraines, and repeated injury.

• Scoliosis and spinal complications — contributing to chronic pain, neurological symptoms, reduced mobility, and physical limitations.

• Additional multisystem disorders — including gastrointestinal, autonomic, cardiac, and neurological complications that significantly impair daily functioning and quality of life.

 

Individually, any one of these diagnoses would present substantial challenges. Together, they create a severe and disabling combination of neurological, physical, and systemic burden. My body and mind exist in a constant state of physiological stress — balancing chronic pain, autonomic instability, neurological exhaustion, and the relentless weight of memory that does not fade with time or even sleep.

Although I am no longer a resident of Surry County, North Carolina, the failures of its institutions have profoundly shaped the course of my life from childhood into adulthood.

 

For years, Surry County Schools and other local systems failed to provide appropriate accommodations, equal treatment, or meaningful accountability. What I experienced was not an isolated misunderstanding or singular incident. It was a longstanding pattern of discrimination, neglect, dismissal, and systemic bias directed toward individuals who were medically complex, neurodivergent, disabled, or simply different.

 

As a student, I faced repeated barriers to education, support, and fair treatment. Instead of being recognized as someone struggling with legitimate medical and neurological conditions, I was often treated as a problem to be managed rather than a human being deserving of dignity and assistance.

These experiences had lasting consequences on my education, mental health, and long-term stability.

 

That pattern of institutional failure extended into adulthood through medical neglect within Surry County’s healthcare system — most notably at Northern Regional Hospital (NRH).

 

In 2022, I was subjected to an unnecessary involuntary commitment (IVC) during what was later understood to be a seizure-related neurological event rather than a psychiatric crisis. Instead of receiving appropriate neurological evaluation and medical care, I was forcibly committed while critical medical needs were ignored.

 

During this event, documentation was falsified, reasonable accommodations were denied, and both my seizure activity and Crohn’s disease complications were mishandled.

 

The result was profound trauma, worsening medical instability, and long-term damage to both my health and medical record.

Despite repeated attempts to seek assistance, submit evidence, file complaints, and advocate for myself through appropriate channels, my concerns were routinely minimized, dismissed, or ignored. Over time, this created a devastating cycle in which institutional narratives carried more weight than documented medical reality.

 

And I know with certainty that I am not alone.

 

Many other individuals and families throughout Surry County have experienced similar patterns of mistreatment, discrimination, retaliation, neglect, silencing, or denial of accommodations. Too often, vulnerable people are left feeling powerless against systems that are supposed to protect them.

This petition is a call for accountability, transparency, and meaningful reform.

 

We are asking for:

• Surry County Schools to acknowledge and address longstanding concerns involving civil rights violations, discrimination, inadequate accommodations, and systemic failures affecting disabled and medically vulnerable students.

• County leadership, commissioners, and public officials to confront these systemic issues openly rather than dismissing, minimizing, or concealing them.

• Healthcare institutions within Surry County — including Northern Regional Hospital — to commit to ethical, patient-centered, medically informed practices that prioritize patient safety, disability rights, and accountability.

• Greater protections for medically complex, neurodivergent, and disabled individuals whose voices are too often ignored or discredited.

 

Though I have moved away from Surry County, I refuse to remain silent about what occurred there.

 

What happened to me — beginning in childhood and continuing into adulthood — should never happen to another person.

 

This petition is not solely about my experiences.

 

It is about ensuring that future generations are treated with dignity, fairness, compassion, and respect.

 

It is about building a Surry County where accountability exists, where truth is not buried, and where vulnerable individuals are protected instead of harmed by the very systems meant to serve them.