We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Adina Rey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Adina, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

At 4 years of age, I began singing. It is then when I realized that I was created to sing. It was a gift God has given me.

My mother pushed me to sing. I sang for church and I was in talent shows and competitions. My parents split when I was 9 and the singing faded along with their marriage. Singing seemed to annoy my mother. After my dad remarried, my stepsister and I spent a lot of time singing outside together and we bonded over it.
At age 11, my mother had told me she didn’t love me and never would. I think this was mostly because I enjoyed seeing my father. Looking back, I realize it was the point when I started feeling that I was alone in the world. It was around this time that I started writing lyrics. I didn’t connect well with kids at school because I think I lived a very difficult and different life than they did. We would get out of school, go to work with my mom or babysit, and then we would have to do our homework, then we could come downstairs and eat, and then we would go back upstairs. We weren’t allowed to be in the kitchen unless we had a phone call. Kids at school would talk about things they did with their friends and going places and TV shows, and I would just pretend like I knew what they were talking about. We weren’t allowed to watch TV at my mom’s. My siblings lived with my mom and I was the only one floated between parents. I was often shipped back and forth between parents and never felt like wanted. I knew my dad loved me, but my stepmother put distance between us.

During one move, my friend Ben gave me an address and told me I needed to write this guy named Trent. He thought we would connect well! I took the time to write him but he never wrote back. I thought, I’m gonna find the son of a b who didn’t write me back! So I did some searching for his number and called him. Funny and true story… I asked why did you not write me back and he said, and I quote, “I did, I was just too lazy to walk out to the mailbox!”

From there, oddly enough, our connection grew! We started “dating” months before we had met in person or even seen each other! After we finally met in person, I just felt like this was the man I am to be with the rest of my life.

At age 15, my mother told me, “Either you marry him, or you get out!” Trent had long hair, painted nails, and played in a rock band, and it caused a lot of friction. I knew I wasn’t ready to get married so I moved in with Trent at his mother’s house instead. Needless to say, I became pregnant a year later at 16. From that point on, my life was dedicated to my family. Which meant all my dreams and aspirations stopped. My sole focus became about them. I wanted to make sure Trent and the kids knew love. Trent grew up feeling abandoned by family and even the church. I understood how he felt and I didn’t want him or the kids to feel those feelings.

By age 22, we had 3 incredible children and we decided I was to be a stay-at-home mother. At that point, I needed to get my driver’s license, but due to health issues and randomly passing out, that was out of the question. Growing up, we didn’t really go to the doctor. So it wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I found out some of the reasons why I was having some of the medical issues I had been having for years. From age 4, I was sick most every week and didn’t know why or what it was. I was sent home weekly from school. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I started learning what my health issues really were. I found out I had been having severe panic attacks and I had deformed kidneys. I have one big kidney that is upside down. My ureters are at the top and twisted around one another, so I do not filter well. Technically to filter well, I should be upside down… So that explained all the kidney stones! I also have scoliosis from the base of my skull to my hips, along with arthritis, bulging discs (my L3, 4, 5, and 6 are bulging, with 5 and 6 right in nerves), fibromyalgia, gastroparesis, IBS-C, endometriosis… I have an extensive medical history! All that said, they are nothing compared to what happened to me in 2020.

I was given a medication for gastroparesis called Reglan. It totally disrupted every part of me and my life. This medication had me right on the edge of death. I began losing my cognitive abilities. I was having trouble remembering. I started repeating things over and over and walking in circles all day. I would sit and cry. There was an overwhelming feeling of confusion… the smallest thought would send my mind reeling into what felt like a dark abyss of lonely confusion. I couldn’t follow the simplest of conversations. I felt so unintelligent… I would sit and cry solely because I felt so stupid. I had intense mood swings and even hallucinations. At first, we didn’t connect my symptoms to the medication because we thought I had dementia. Previously around age 30, doctors told me I was predisposed toward early onset dementia, and my mother had passed at 59 from dementia, so it seemed likely. About 6 weeks into taking this med, I received a call from my doctor’s nurse. I was told it was a wellness call because the med they gave me causes permanent psychological damages. That’s when my husband and I suspected it was side effects from the medication. We brought it up to the doctor and he dismissed it and told us that the only side effects that medication could cause were spasms. We trusted his judgement and I continued taking the medication. I thought I was crazy.

Then it got worse. I started not sleeping at night. I was sleeping about 30 minutes a day, and not altogether. I started losing my ability to speak and I ended up manic. There were many nights Trent would take me outside at 2, 3, 4 in the morning and we’d walk laps around the yard to keep my mind from thinking about what was happening. I had so many thoughts coming at me all the time and there was loud music in my head that NEVER stopped. I honestly hated hearing music at the time. I was afraid to listen to it. I had a great fear it would become louder or even add an additional song in my head. It would play like a never-ending record. When someone would try to talk to me or I to them, all I could hear was music. It was ALWAYS THERE! I didn’t think I would ever like music again.

It came to the point that we started making plans for my death. Every night, we both wondered if I would be alive the next day. Nights were the worst… They were terrifying to me. I likened it to a Freddy Kruger movie. I’d start to fall asleep and as soon as I would, my heart would race and pump so hard it would send me into a panic attack. I also dealt with little things like electrical pulses in my hands that I had every day randomly, but at night they intensified.

7 months into taking the medication, I was begging my doctor to take me off of it, but he refused. We decided to stop the medication cold turkey on our own terms… which was another horrible experience. It seemed like I had some kind of withdrawal symptoms. I think I did the right thing, it was just really horrible going through it.

Friends and family outside of our home life didn’t really know what was going on. Trent stopped working for months to take care of me. One day, he was talking to my sister and she told him about her doctors. They are a concierge group specialized in functional medicine called WellcomeMD! I began seeing the doctors there and it started turning things around. It was a very slow process, but they were a huge help in my healing over the years.

While I was on Reglan, I was determined to start learning things again. I started with grammar school books. Trying to learn addition and subtraction. After stopping the medication, I ended up focusing on learning how to sing again. I was so aggravated with myself because I wanted to talk correctly and sing. I couldn’t follow a song. My brain wasn’t quick enough. So I would have to listen sentence by sentence and I would write it and repeat it over and over til I got thru an entire song. Eventually, I started learning songs and singing again. It wasn’t easy at all, but I did learn again. It was during this time that my passion for music and singing resurfaced!

It led me to starting my first social media page where the very gifted Drake Margolnick of Flagship found me. It was then that he and I started working together. We came out with my first EP ADINA REY in 2025 and a few singles. Today, I am working with a wonderful producer, Michael Munley. I am also working with Melanie Lech who is currently making several music videos for me. Seriously though, we’re just having some fun!!! Doing photo shoots and testing each others’ strengths… stretching ourselves. You can sometimes find me working with Rita Miles at Charlotte Seen. Melanie Lech and I will be joining them for a designer challenge in June!

Throughout my life, I felt restricted creatively for a lot of reasons. People told me all the time you sing great, you write great, you need to do something with this, but nobody gave me a direction with where to go… Even at home, I felt like I was capable of so much, but there wasn’t anybody who encouraged me to do things creatively. It wasn’t a good thing, it’s not something pursue. I never had the ability to do the things I felt I could do. The things inside me I knew I was capable of… I never had an outlet for them. And I’ve always had somebody telling me no, or I know better, or you’re weird. So it kind of always held me back. I became “normal.” Now, this is allowing me to have creative freedoms, which is something I have been longing for my whole life.

I spent my life dedicated to making sure everyone else was happy and loved and I’m now realizing I lost myself in the midst of all that. I want to find myself again… breathe life into my dry bones and go beyond the boundaries that life has created around me. It’s not over yet… I’m not gone and I hope the day that I leave this earth, that I have not only touched millions of lives, but that I leave behind a legacy of love!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I met my husband at 14 and 31 yrs later we are still together. Having kids at such a young age is much different than waiting til you’re older and more established. My husband worked 14 to 16-hr days for 7 days a week for many, many years. I didn’t drive, so I was literally a stay-at-home mother for 25 years.

When you don’t get to leave the house, you don’t realize how much you actually miss out on in life. Here I am a singer at my age, and I have never been to a concert, I’ve never been on a boat, never been on a plane. Til very recently, I had never even been inside a bar. There are a lot of things I didn’t get to experience that most young adults have experienced. But life doesn’t stop unless you do.

I am a stubborn, ambitious, creative individual. My family, desires, and passion drive me to keep going. I have a desire to leave behind a legacy for them so they never forget they were loved!

I truly believe my God given creativity kept me through the solitude I experienced for so long. I was always thinking of ways to create things to give someone or making decor so I could redecorating the house just to make things feel or look different to me. One thing I can say that I hate is stagnation! I also believe that solitude gave me a lil edge. It makes me different. Most people tend to find my stories interesting and they want to know more about me. I’m often asked how in the world I have made it so long without driving and being so secluded. I just know I had one goal in mind, and that was my family.

Now it is time for me to grow and expand myself. I feel I have forgotten who I am. Getting lost as mom and wife! I imagine a lot of women feel that! Now I’m relearning who I am and awakening parts of myself I thought died many years ago.

I have to say what I am most proud of myself for doing is stepping out in faith. I was (and I still am) struggling from the effects the medication had on me and I decided to step out into the music industry even though I knew I was still having problems. Showing my children I can’t give up has been very important to me. I feel it’s best to lead by example and not with demands. So my hope is they will see how I continue to step out in faith into many different things. I hope to encourage my children and others I meet along the way to be brave and step out!!!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Yes, I realized that my story was important. I have been through so many things in my life. So I feel now I’m able to connect with others in ways that I couldn’t before. I’m actually very thankful for all the hard times that I’ve gone through because it gave me the ability to relate to others. I would not have that ability had I not went through those struggles.

It’s important for all of us to take the good times and the bad times and go out into the world and connect with others. You never know who might need to hear your story and how you overcame your struggles. There are many people out there feeling alone like I did. Feeling like they are right on the edge. I’ve felt alone all my life. Alone in the pain and the hurt.

Look, our journeys and our stories are so important. We can touch a life today, and we may never in this lifetime know that we touched it. Every single person on this planet has a purpose… Each life connects with another life and from there it grows and expands. What you tell someone today may reach someone 10 years from now in a completely different country… And it could change the way they see things or even save their life. You just never know and that became so important to me after surviving the side effects of that medication.

I want to be a light in the world, I want to make a difference, and above all, I want to show love and kindness!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I grew up in church; I was raised southern baptist. I was taught that in order to be humble, you basically needed to debase yourself. I spent my life believing that I could not do well at anything because it was sinful. Prideful. I still struggle with it today. When I hear someone tell me that I sing well or I’m pretty or I do something well, my instant reaction is to say something negative about myself or try to tell myself that they’re just being nice. I know that there are a lot of people out there that struggle with this same untruth.

The truth is the word tell us to acknowledge the good things God has placed in us. I have had hard times with the church and the things that come out of it. I do not see eye to eye with “religious” people, but I am a Christian! I love God, I love Jesus, but unfortunately like the song MY JESUS says by TODD AGNEW, like Jesus, I would not be accepted in many churches today!

I love people hard. If I just met you, I probably already want to tell you how much I care for you. I can get deeply connected to people quickly.

Look, I don’t care what you wear. I don’t care what your race is. I don’t care where you live. I don’t care if you’re gay. I don’t care if you’re trans. I don’t care if you like cats or dogs. I don’t care that you aren’t like me. I don’t care that we disagree.

What I care about is that you are human. You have a need to love and to be loved. You were designed to create and be creative. You have passions, desires, and feelings. There’s something inside of me that you need, and there’s something inside of you that I need. When we come together, we grow and we create something greater than we could have ever created without one another. That is what life is about. There is a great exchange, a great connection going on right now everywhere around the world. A great creative connection to grow, build, design, construct things that we cannot do without one another. This life is about love and connections and what we do with those connections and that love.

We are created to love above all things.

I have carried a saying for most of my life… I cannot judge another because they sin differently than I do. I hear too many stories of people walking away from God because of rejection and judgmental people. My husband and I have both dealt with rejection from churches, but it didn’t stop us. I don’t believe that it gives us a pass to do whatever we feel like or indulge in things we shouldn’t, but I think it is a reminder that we all sin and we’re equal. We all do things wrong sometimes and make mistakes… It doesn’t mean we reject those people, but accept that we all make mistakes. We cannot forget to have grace, mercy, and to walk in love.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @adinareymusic
• Facebook: Adina Rey
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@adinareymusic
• Other: https://linktr.ee/adinarey

Image Credits

Melanie Lech, Dave Rynne, Trent Johnson