Youthful Blossom

CHAPTER 13: Dark Summer

The school year was over and it was the start of my two-month summer vacation. I went outside with my father and Jamie for some walks and spent some time at the water park, but most of my summer was spent in the room that I shared with my brother. I used my phone when I was in my room and spent time on Instagram. I was in this community on Instagram called the 'Stan' or 'Spam' community, where accounts posted comedic content and their favorite artists, who they idolized. I was a huge fan of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, and Twenty One Pilots while my instagram friends in the online community were fans of the same artists that I liked plus others. I always posted on my Instagram account (that I identified with the community) about my mental health issues. I posted numerous times about my anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. I spent the entire summer being preyed on by the monsters in my head. One day in July 2019, I went with my father and Jamie to the mall while feeling extremely depressed. I thought of the song 'Guns For Hands' by Twenty One Pilots, and immediately wanted to cry because of the song's message. I wanted to meet Tyler Joseph, the lead singer of the duo band, and tell him how much his music meant to me especially from the duo band's 2013 album 'Vessel' as mental health is the theme of the album.
My father was angry during our time at the shoe store that was nearby the mall because I couldn't find the shoes that I wanted. He always had an angry-like persona and it was even worse when I was much younger. My mother had told me multiple things about what my father thought of me when I was a baby, which complicated their marriage that led to separation in late 2010, after being married since February 1999. They never officially divorced as they never had the time and the money for it. Their separation didn't affect me much when I was younger. I just knew that they weren't together anymore, which I accepted. I always lived with my mom until April 2018 to January 2021. I believe my father has always had his anger issues because of his traumatic childhood in Mexico. Judging from what my mother had told me about what my father thought of me when I was young, my father seemed to have abandonment issues. I'm not sure if he still has them, but he has for sure improved over the years.
Anyway, later that month of July 2019, I made a comment with a harmless joke on a post from one of my Instagram friends in which I had jokingly asked him to shave his legs as the post was a picture of his legs that had some hair. He replied to me with a "shut up" and posted multiple posts about me on his account including a picture of me where he made fun of my looks in the caption. I was so hurt and apologized to him for the comment I had made. He had said that he was offended because he was struggling with an eating disorder. He thought that I was making fun of the way his legs looked, but I only targeted his leg hairs, not the way his legs looked nor his overall body. But, the leg hair joke triggered his eating disorder, so I apologized. He didn't accept my apology and proceeded to call me out on his Instagram feed with negative posts. Even months later, he made a comment on a picture on my personal Instagram account that said something like, "You made fun of me when you look like this," with what I believe was a laughing emoji. I deleted his comment and blocked him. This was during the ends of 2019. Going back to July 2019, after reading all of his Instagram posts targeted at me, it made me even more depressed and anxious, so I decided to take a week off Instagram. When I came back, I was stronger than before. In fact, I was angry. I made an Instagram post about his wrongs and blocked him. I was mad that bullies still existed in this world. In my head, I said, "I thought I had made a harmless joke, but even if it had hurt him, he should have been mature about it rather than immature." I never thought a joke about his leg hair was going to trigger his eating disorder, so it was never intended to hurt him. I always made jokes about shaving body hair on my Instagram page, so I thought he would know that it was a joke because it was something I usually joked about on Instagram. I was confused that he reacted positively to a friend who had commented on a post, with a picture of his physique, jokingly telling him to eat more hamburgers to gain weight as he was very thin due to his eating disorder. His friend had made a worse comment than mine, I thought, so how did I receive such a negative reaction? It's really just how the human mind works. Basic human psychology. Maybe he valued his friend way more than me, or knew that his friend was joking while he didn't know that I was joking nor believed that it was a joke. I'm not sure, but what happened, happened.
The entire summer was filled with depression and anxiety. I wanted to commit suicide, too, but I told myself to hold on a little longer to see what would happen in the new school year of 2019-2020. I thought, "Maybe something good will come out of it!" So, I decided to hold onto life a little longer.