Many people say that it does not take a lot to break them. To make them laugh. To make them cry. I used to say phrases like this so often that I actually believed them myself, that is, until Saturday, March 05, 2016. The night before, my best friend, Abbey and I had done something different. We had gone to Huntington Beach to go meet up with three new friends that we had met by “accident” in October of 2015, just about six months ago. We had decided to meet up at Lifeguard Tower 9 because it was the closest spot we could get to by the pier from the direction we were driving, and they were already there. We had arrived to the beach around six while our friends had been waiting for us for about three hours. The sun had already set above the ocean’s horizon line, and it was gradually getting darker and colder. Even though we were with them for only about four hours, it was fun while it lasted. And no matter how cold the night was, we enjoyed the icy wind brushing up the sand and blowing it against our bare feet more than anything in the world.
Saturday, March 5th, the morning after had basically felt like the most amazing morning we had ever woken up to because we simply could not believe that we had actually met them and all we could keep repeating for the rest of the weekend was, “It felt so natural. Like we had known them for so much longer.” I had felt as comfortable as I did with Abbey. Although, I knew that something in my body felt physically, mentally, and emotionally different because I did not know how to explain what my emotions were and what I was feeling to anyone anymore, even to myself. I found myself trying to put what I was experiencing into words for what felt like the longest four weeks of my life.
Throughout those four weeks, I was so confused and lost in my own head that I did not know how to respond when people would say simple lines like “How are you?” or “Is there anything new in your life?” Yet, the worst things that someone could say to me was “Are you ok?” and “What’s wrong?” because I never knew the answer. I did not know if I was “ok” and no matter how much I contemplated about it, I did not know what was wrong.
The amount and variety of thoughts that kept running through my mind remained endless; I did not know how to ask for “help” because whenever someone would ask me to explain I would not know where to start or even what to say in the first place. I can simply say even now, my mind cannot find enough words to explain what I was feeling. Many people, myself being one of them, believe that this was all generated from a mixture of disorderly and new emotions, yet, to this day, I am not exactly sure what caused any of it. The situation was so awful that it started affecting my everyday procedures. My grades started to drop, I started eating less, I was constantly in a despondent mood, and I simply did not feel like myself anymore. I did not enjoy the same things that I used to look forward to habitually such as, seeing my friends, completing an assignment, seeing my family, participating in activities over the weekend, and so much more.
Although I noticed that there were significantly bad changes, I also noticed that there were some small but very different and positive changes. There were certain things that would make me happy, and they usually had to do with talking to the new friends that Abbey and I had gotten to meet.
Once I had been in the midst of the first week of this situation, about six days after March 4th, something very uplifting happened. I was doing my homework one night while being on a Skype call with the guys and messaging Abbey over Snapchat when after about two hours of being in the call, there were only two people left in the call, me and one of the guys, let us call him B. At first it was just the usual, both of us on our phones, not really talking to each other because, well, we usually just do not talk that much. Once I had been in the call alone with B for about an hour, Abbey messaged me saying that that night was the night. It was the night to tell him something that I had wanted to for what we had called a “decent” amount of time at that point, but as usual, my mind was overthinking everything and I was simply too fearful of any sort of “rejection.” What I “needed” to tell him was that I liked him.  It was as simple as that. I had had feelings for him for about five months at that point and I just needed to let it out. He did end up finding out that night, yet the way he found out was by Abbey sending both of us screenshots of what we had told her about how we both felt about each other. The rest of that night lasted about two more hours before my eyelids started slowly closing and blurring out my vision.
Although we both knew that we had feelings for each other, we hadn’t actually told each other. A couple days after that night, Abbey and I had made plans with my younger cousin to spend a Friday night at her house so that we could go to different places over the weekend together. That Friday night, we were talking to the guys over Skype, as usual and again, it ended up just being B and us. We had been in the call for a couple of hours. It was around 1:30 in the morning and out of nowhere, my cousin and Abbey started acting slightly strange. I had noticed that they had been speaking under their breaths to each other for a couple minutes but I had not made much of it until they started staring at me and eventually said, “You have to do it now!” in coherence. After a long period of hesitation and stalling, I eventually decided that I had nothing to lose at this point.  I needed the words to come out of my mouth before I could make the situation get any more complicated. As I hid behind the mountain of blankets, my exact words were, “Okay, ummm, I like you!” Abbey said, “No. Get up! Get up and tell him to his face.” Finally lifting the computer screen so that he could see my blushed face as I spoke the words, “Okay. I like you. So, Abbey!” Immediately, the only thing that came out of anyone’s mouth in that moment was the obnoxious squealing from both Abbey and Tati whom I was more than grateful for being there with me. His exact words were, “You’re torturing her!” And of course, Abbey said, “So do you have anything to say to her?”

“I like you too.”

He was easily blushing as much as I had before, but it felt nice. A weight had been lifted from both of our shoulders and I could not have been happier. The happiness from that moment lasted inside of me for two full weeks and whenever I think about it, the same feelings arise again.
Even though I felt very happy for a long period of time, I was still very confused about how I felt. Once the third week of the situation came around, my thoughts only became more chaotic in my mind. Whenever I would start to figure something out in my head, I would lose track and get even more irritated at myself. The confusion that I was experiencing had gotten so far in the third and fourth week, that I started to think that I had a sort of mental disorder called Alexithymia, the incapability to express emotions or feelings with words. I was actually worried and convinced by the last week of this situation that I had a mental disorder so I told a two other friends about the disorder and what I was experiencing. They told that I had nothing to worry about but I was not persuaded to that statement. I eventually told Abbey and her exact words were “You are just trying to find something wrong with you.” This made me feel more trapped than ever.
On April 5th, Abbey had come over to my house because we were planning on finishing up a few assignments together and we started talking about her relationship with B’s best friend whom we will call E. She had been going through a “rough patch” with him at the time and it was getting problematic. We were talking to one of his ex-friends and he was telling her that it was not healthy for her to be feeling and thinking how she was at the time. I did not want to intrude in their conversation, so I simply went into the Notes app on my laptop and showed her what I had typed.  I told what I believed was best for their relationship at the time. She ended the conversation with E’s ex-friend whom we shall call J. We dove into each other’s arms for a hug and immediately started crying.
After that moment, she had to leave and the situation was over. I realized that I did not feel confused, lost, or misplaced anymore because before I had only thought of myself as an emotionless human being. Even though I felt drained of energy after the moment, I was relieved and happy.  That night was the first time that I had cried in front of a friend.