Maya Kowalski, 19, has been labelling and stacking neatly packed boxes next to the desk where she keeps her late mother’s rosary in the home she's getting ready to leave.

She already moved with her father and brother, less than a year ago, from the Florida house they’d lived in with mom Beata, who died by suicide in 2017 - after Maya, then 10 and suffering from a debilitating rare condition, was ripped from her parents' custody.

Beata's death amid allegations of Munchausen syndrome by proxy - after 87 days where she was allowed to see her daughter just once - became infamous around the world after the 2023 debut of Netflix documentary Take Care of Maya. 

It shone a light not only on what happened to the Kowalskis but also on the experiences of families torn apart by medical-related child abuse allegations.

Now, Maya is leaving behind her home state altogether, along with the painful memories it holds of her mother’s death and her own medical kidnapping. 

She’s moving across the country to pursue an acting career in Hollywood - she's found the creative outlet invaluable in helping to process her trauma.

Maya Kowalski, 19, has been labelling and stacking neatly packed boxes next to the desk where she keeps her late mother’s rosary in the home she's getting ready to leave

The cross-country move, Maya says, means 'finally doing something for myself.'

‘I tend to be a big people pleaser, and I worry a lot,' she tells the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview. 'But for the first time, I’m kind of stepping outside of my comfort zone and letting go of my past.

‘So it is a really big deal for me.’

The decision follows a years-long, harrowing ordeal that saw Maya lose not only her mother but, for a time, her freedom – all while suffering from a rare condition that debilitates her to this day.

Now, the eloquent and soft-spoken teenager is taking more control over her life – and her healing.

An agonizing condition that baffled doctors  

At nine years old, Maya started suffering mystery symptoms such as lesions, asthma attacks and lower-limb muscle contractions. She was in constant pain.

Specialist Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick diagnosed the young girl in 2015 with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), an extremely rare neurological condition that causes acute sensitivity to even the slightest touch.

Dr. Kirkpatrick recommended ketamine infusion treatments for the pain - they noticeably helped. He also suggested a more intense procedure involving an induced coma that - after days of research - the family decided to travel to Mexico to try.

She showed signs of improvement, but severe abdominal pain in 2016 sent Maya to the ER at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital (JHACH) in St. Petersburg, Florida.

When Beata requested ketamine as treatment for Maya, doctors refused to administer the drug. And when she further explained that it was recommended by a doctor and the only remedy they'd found, then demanded it for her daughter, Maya was taken from her parents' custody.

Beata was then accused of having Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP) - a mental health condition where the affected falsely acts like someone within their care is sick. 

Maya is leaving behind her home state altogether, along with the painful memories it holds of her mother’s death and her own medical kidnapping

Maya was just 10 years old when she went to hospital with a debilitating pain. Doctors accused her mother of abuse and Maya didn't see her for 87 days 

The story of Maya's medical kidnapping and the agonizing journey that drove her mother Beata (second from right) to death is the focus of the harrowing Netflix documentary 'Take Care of Maya'

She underwent a court-ordered psychological evaluation which determined she did not have MSbP. 

Still, Maya remained in the custody of the state and, for months, was allowed only minimal contact with her family.

While confined to her hospital bed in December 2016, Maya wrote a letter to the judge overseeing her case, outlining in excruciating detail how she was in more pain and begging him to let her see her family over Christmas.

Maya's lawyer also asked the court if there was 'any way' she could simply see her mother to give her a hug, but the judge refused.

She only saw her mother once over the 87 days – when Maya appeared in court in January 2017 for a dependency hearing, where a judge would consider if she could return to her family.

Maya was in a wheelchair, and her family and legal team said she was looking 'worse' than ever, despite almost three months in the hospital.

Beata died by suicide 48 hours later, believing that removing herself as a perceived obstacle was the only way to get her daughter better care.

The family sued JHACH, accusing the hospital of medical malpractice, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress among other things.

They were stunned when they found staff had billed their insurance for 174 CRPS treatments - a remedy for the condition they’d accused her mother of manufacturing. 

Five months after Take Care of Maya’s streaming premiere, a Florida jury found the hospital had falsely imprisoned Maya and contributed to her mother's death - the Kowalskis were awarded $261 million in damages.

The amount was later reduced to $213.5 million. 

A judge struck down the hospital’s demand for a retrial. JHACH is appealing the decision, insisting they were not responsible for Beata's death because she wasn't in their care.

Maya started learning the piano at three years old with her mother's support. A natural performer, she is now hoping to put her ordeal behind her by moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career 

Trying to put her traumatic childhood behind her  

Maya tries not to dwell on the experience.

‘We have a limited time on this Earth,' she says profoundly, 'and why would I want to spend even a fraction of that thinking about the worst things that have happened to me?’

Instead, she looks to the future, focuses on spirituality and meditates overlooking the lake and private dock behind the Florida home she has been sharing with her father and younger brother.

In addition to concentrating on mental health, Maya does physical therapy exercises in her family’s pool. But her pain has still not completely gone away.

‘I have my moments where it is worse, and I always get really scared,' she tells the Daily Mail. 

‘My biggest fear is being as sick as I used to be, but I am starting to do the things I know work for my pain management and promising myself that I’m going to take care of my physical being.

‘I feel like the work has paid off. I’m walking.’

Still, she has limitations. She tried figure skating again – something she’d enjoyed doing with her mother – but ‘noticed the pain was getting a little bit uncontrollable’ and stopped.

Nowadays, Maya says, she’ll feel pain in her leg and lower back and ‘randomly’ in her left wrist. 

A few months before her 19th birthday, she moved with her father and brother to Odessa, 95 miles north of the home she grew up in, to mark a new beginning.

Maya still has ‘beautiful memories’ from her old house, but couldn’t escape the fact that it was where her mother died.

‘It’s like every day I was reminded that she had killed herself,’ she says. ‘It was time for a change.

‘Also, people in the community started to notice us for our traumatic history,' she recalled, adding that she has 'a hard time' when people she doesn't know have preconceived notions about her based off 'the worst part of my life.'

In addition to concentrating on mental health, Maya does physical therapy exercises in her family’s pool. But her pain has still not completely gone away

Healing through pursuing her passion

Immediately after the move farther north, Maya didn’t know what to do with herself.

She’d earlier been accepted into the University of Miami and planned to study business marketing, but also considered becoming a homicide detective.

Ultimately, she decided to forego the classroom completely for now.

‘I think I would be a lot more stable just starting my life as an adult, as opposed to going to school and then worrying about what people think of me,’ she says.

‘From an emotional maturity standpoint, I definitely am a few years above average – which I see as a gift now, but it has been hard to cope with,’ she tells the Daily Mail. ‘I feel like an alien most of the time.’

She’s also emerging from what she calls ‘one consistent' eight-year-long depressive episode where the trauma kept piling up.

It was ‘during a depressive episode’ after moving to Odessa that Maya leaned into a talent and passion that’s now sending her life in a new direction: the performing arts.

‘I looked up things in the [Odessa] area, and I found an acting studio,’ she tells the Daily Mail. ‘It was the first time I had genuinely laughed and smiled in a long time.’

A natural performer, she wanted to be a pop singer as a child and, with her mother's support, started learning piano at three years old.

‘I remember going to her about it, and she took it upon herself to educate herself on the very basics before putting me in class,’ says Maya.

Beata would listen to her daughter play while working and ‘found it very relaxing,’ Maya says. There’s a Yamaha baby grand in the pristine white living room of their new home that she likes to play at sunset.

She’d been taking vocal coaching twice a week up until recently but hasn’t performed much publicly since her mother’s death.

‘When I sing, I think of her… it’s very emotional for me,’ she says. ‘I always end up crying.’

She has focused on acting - something she used to love doing in school productions until she got sick - and found it a very effective outlet for channeling her pain and emotion.

‘I’ve only been acting for four months, and… I have so much room to grow,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I’m that great; I feel that I’m decent… but I know one of the silver linings of everything I’ve been through is that it has added so much life experience – and that life experience, I think, is more beneficial than talent, or what other people call talent, because it’s real.

‘When you’re able to excavate those emotions and apply them to these projects, it’s actually very healing, as well,' she said, adding that it's allowed her to let go of some anger, sadness and hurt.

She considers this catharsis a 'privilege.'

'I’m able to have this outlet to kind of project all of it in a healthy way... I’ve gotten to this place where I feel very grounded. I feel very calm,’ Maya said.

‘Obviously, I still struggle with sadness and anger and frustration, but the difference is, I have a coping mechanism – and for all people, at the end of the day, you have to learn how to forgive.’ 

Maya can now frequently be found filming audition tapes or flying to jobs. Despite her newbie status, she’s already worked on projects that include a YouTube comedy series, a Hallmark movie and a dystopian short film.

'One day, I want to be in a feature film,' she says. 'And I just want to feel that I'm making movies that matter.'

Some collaborators know her history, such as the director who cast her as 'girl who’d lost her mother'. Others have no idea. And when it comes to genre, Maya says she does ‘gravitate towards drama, horror and dark comedy.’

The acting community has also introduced her to a new circle of ‘soul friends’ she would never have expected getting close to.

‘I actually feel like they are my best friends,’ she says. ‘It’s hard to find people here (in Florida) that I could connect with.

Beata took her own life in the garage of the family home in Florida after only seeing Maya once in 87 days  

‘And these people have gone through a range of things as well. So I think, the collective of their experiences and mine - we just have a different type of bond.’

The unbreakable bond with her father and brother  

Her strongest bond, though, seems to still be with her brother, Kyle, who’s now 17 and keeping out of sight in Odessa.

‘I think the trials of our life have bonded us together, and even though we’ve experienced them from very different angles, we still have that underlying understanding of pain,’ she says.

Kyle and Jack accompanied Maya to California in February to help find a place for her to live.

The trip coincided with Beata’s birthday - she would have turned 52 this year.

The trio celebrates the day together every year, whether it be with dinner, a cake or Beata’s favorite, gelato - this time, they found somewhere in LA where they could enjoy it in her memory.

In the immediate aftermath of her mother’s death, Maya says, ‘we talked about her a lot.

‘And then I think when the trial happened, we all got very quiet – because long days, emotionally taxing days, and then we all had to decompress.

‘Now we still talk about her, and we’ll share memories, but it’s always in a really positive light.'

Keeping her mother's memory alive  

The family will recall expressions and words Beata would use, fondly remembering things she loved. 

There are echoes of their matriarch throughout the new home – whether it be her rosary, which Maya keeps within easy reach on her bedroom desk, or their dog's middle name. 

They brought Chelsea Benya Kowalski - a Yorkie - home in the aftermath of the suicide.

The middle name ‘doesn’t make sense to a lot of people,' Maya explained, 'but it’s a nickname in Polish for Beata.'

During moments of doubt and difficulty, it’s her mother’s spirit that Maya tries to channel.

‘I obviously wish she was still here,' the teen says. But she remembers her mother as 'so bold and audacious and brave – and no BS. 

Maya holds her mother's rosary at the home she is preparing to leave. She has tried to channel Beata's drive as she takes the bold step to move across the country

‘She was very goal-driven, and… she had this self-respect that I admire so much. I wish I had a little bit more of that.’

Maya calls her ‘strong, like strongest person I know. And whenever I’m feeling uneasy or self-doubt creeps in, I try to picture my mom and think, “What would she do? She wouldn’t be bothered by this. She would stand her ground and be who she is, regardless of what anyone says."'

The young adult hopes to memorialize her mother in other ways, too, through a dream totally separate from but just as important as her acting goals: She wants to do some type of charitable work helping others with chronic illnesses.

'Once my court is wrapped up and once I’m situated, I would love to start putting in some plans to make this happen.’ 

She believes here mother 'would be on board' fully with those charitable efforts, which 'would be so important to her emotionally' given the trauma that devastated the Kowalskis.

Maya says she'll 'do my best to live up to that’ passion and devotion so strongly exhibited by her mother.

Maya says she'll 'do my best to live up to that’ passion and devotion so strongly exhibited by her mother, almost a decade after her life was upended 

And the teen remains, remarkably, philosophical.

‘Sometimes bad things need to happen for progress to be made,’ she tells the Daily Mail. ‘And I look at my situation, and if I was the person that had to go through all this bad stuff, so be it.’

Maya says that while she largely doesn't pay attention to social media comments, she sometimes takes a peek. 

And when she sees social workers, nurses, doctors or anyone in the medical field leaving positive words, it's gratifying.

‘I’ve been told that my documentary is used to educate medical professionals, and I can’t even begin to express how happy that makes me.

‘This really negative thing happened, sure – but the people who need to hear it most… they’re learning from it,' she says. 'Maybe [it] won’t happen to other people. So that’s a fulfilling thing for me.’