Unskinned is part memoir, part meditation — the story of a woman born without a name she could call her own, and her lifelong search for home, belonging, and the love that doesn’t leave.

Born in South Africa and adopted into a life that, from the outside, appeared secure, Lalena’s early years were shaped by movement, loss, and a quiet sense of not fully belonging. That thread carried into adolescence and adulthood, shaping the relationships she formed and the life she built.

In her early twenties, she created a successful career and a life that was moving forward. Yet beneath it, something remained unsettled. Over time, the structures she had relied on began to shift, leading her into a period of breakdown and addiction that brought everything into question.

At twenty-eight, the discovery that she was pregnant became a turning point. Years later, a natural pregnancy with quadruplets would take her further into a lived experience that stretched her body, her capacity, and her sense of survival beyond anything she had known.

What follows is not a story of resolution. It is a movement through loss, motherhood, identity, and the slow return to a life that can be held more directly.

Written over nine months, Unskinned draws from memory held in the body as much as in the mind. It moves through lived moments rather than linear narrative, staying close to what was experienced as it was.

At its core, it is a return.