Trigger Warning: This blog contains topics or self harm, mental health, and suicide. Readers please be advised when reading the following post
There is a lot to my story that most people reading this don't know. Some of it was not anyones place to know, but was unleashed upon social media and fed on. Silence can become deafening when you hear stories told about you over and over again and each one becomes farther and farther away from the truth.
My silence has become deafening.
Now, this is my story, wether you choose to accept it, believe in, trust in it, or not is up to you. Everyone in this world has their own right to opinion and judgement, but only judge when you've heard each side of the story. I do not expect forgiveness, I don't expect for this to fix everything, but what I have learned is that seeking validation in others will only leave you to invalidate yourself. This is me killing my silence and speaking my truth, those who read this can make their own judgements of me at their will and that's okay.
Many of the people who will read this will know about the events that happened this past January 2023. If you don't, well, just look up A Land of Dreams Ball on TikTok and you can grasp the majority of the situation.
I will begin this by saying, I know I made mistakes. I am human, not perfect. I can't change things I said or did in the past nor can I heal all wounds brought to people in a single blog post. What I can do is try everyday to avoid making mistakes like I have in the past and to be the best person I can be as I move forward in life.
Creators names will not be disclosed and will be listed in this post as X and Y
January 2023
Quickly after events that laid out in January 2023, it was brought up by some other friends that I should take over and rebrand the ball. I was so mentally gone at this point and I just wanted some peace and I didn't want something that I worked so hard on to fall apart because X was already trying to back out. I had collectively decided with friends and family that the best option was to back out or take over.
So I gave X and Y an option. I told them either I could take over the ball and try to rebrand it and you sign the rights over to me or I can't be apart of it anymore. I had no desire to affiliated with racism and if they were going to try to continue it as the two of them I wanted nothing to do with it, nor was I in a position to handle the financial burden of the fall out because of one of their actions. Which I inevitably did.
So X and Y signed over their rights to the ball and essentially dipped. I started the process of rebranding I even sent multiple messages to creators for my actions because I truly honestly reacted on impulse, pressure and being fucking drained and I didn't take time to step back and let my mind calm and think. I failed so many people by doing that and that is not something I can ever take back or change and I have to live with that and I am okay with living with it and the regret of my actions however, it reminds me to do better everyday. Some creators were also notified of me trying to rebrand and trying to make things right.
I didn't even have time before another statement was made to even discuss with anyone about the rebrand. I woke up on Sunday with my phone being blown up again and all I remember was going into a fucking manic ass state because I had to be at my friends wedding and everything was falling apart around me in that moment. I think I called one of my Booktok friends that day, but I honestly couldn't even tell you what the conversation was about, I just remember doing my hair for the wedding.
After that my wife took my phone for the rest of the day. I went to my friends wedding and half way through my wife is being called again about stuff going on and she pulls me out of my friends wedding telling me that everything I have worked on day in and day out for the last four months was now gone.
She took me home.
Warning: Talk of Suicide
Let me make a couple of things clear about what most everyone knows now. I did not take a bunch of pills, I did not, for a lack of a better term, cut my wrist. I don't know how these rumors started, but no my wife did not find me on the floor anywhere.
I had been self harming for months now. I was broken before this ever happened, this was just the icing on the cake. For days at this point not only me, but others were receiving death threats. Told we should be lined up a killed like sick animals and so much more gruesome shit. I was told that my biracial family should be ashamed of me, but no one was more ashamed then myself.
I hated myself.
I looked at my wife that night and it is probably the clearest memory I have of that night. I was sobbing not just lots of tears I mean I was screaming. Tears were streaming down my face I couldn't even breathe and I could taste blood in my mouth from how my voice scratched my throat. I was telling her to help me over and over again.
I remember looking at her as she cried trying to hold me and telling her if you don't help me I am going to kill myself when you fall asleep. I had a plan I knew what I was going to do.
So she called my mom.
My mom came to our house because she wasn't sure if this was just another episode. I suffer from a lot of mental illness, a lot that people don't know when they see a happy smiling Kylie through a screen. I have OCD, PTSD, ADHD, I suffer from an ED and I am Bipolar. Something I am still trying to come to terms with. So I wasn't surprised when my mom didn't believe me until she saw me.
My mother and my wife both said when they looked at me it looked like there was nothing behind my eyes. So that night they took me to the hospital and I was placed on Psychiatric hold for while before being transferred to the ward.
I would like to state that one creator was accidentally sent a text about me being in the hospital, when it was supposed to go to a different creator. This story about my mental health crisis spread like wild fire which led to deviations of the truth.
I DO NOT CARE WHO YOU ARE PRIVATE INFORMATION LIKE THAT SHOULD NOT BE DISCLOSED TO A BUNCH OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET.
Someones health or mental health is not yours to share to anyone unless you are told you can. No one at that time had the right to know about me. That did not need to public information and now because of that I feel the need to disclose a horrific time for me to the public. That was my life that was in jeopardy because I was being attacked by my own mind and that wasn't anyones right to share until I felt ready to do so.
This is where my knowledge of anything after this point ends so everything further is just based on questions I have received or things I have heard.
Most people don't know that I never saw or sent a single email that was sent regarding ALOD after Saturday. I wasn't allowed to look at them, my family wouldn't let me. I know that authors were upset about refunds not being given within 24hrs.
My mother and my wife took over business dealings while I was in the hospital and frankly they had no idea what the fuck they were doing. I had so many documents and files at this point that it was probably like digging through a damn minefield. They needed time and they couldn't ask me questions because well I was locked up and heavily medicated.
I did have a phone call at one point where I just kept saying give them the refunds and I think my wife was saying they were trying but they couldn't get into the accounts or something. Again I was very heavily medicated at this point and I think she was trying to ask me questions, but I was a blob of jello.
I know tickets were refunded because I did that before I ever went in because my top priority was making sure guest who paid 300-400 dollars on tickets got their money back, but after that night I knew nothing.
I still to this day haven't read a single email that was sent or received. I had to put myself and my mental health first. I wouldn't be here writing this if I hadn't. I am glad that everyone was refunded eventually.
It's hard sometimes still. Even writing this puts me back in a place that I never want to be in again. Thats why I still don't look at those emails. Why I never will. I am still standing alive and breathing and that's more important to me than anything else.
As far as I am aware, everyone has received the refunds. I also want to make something else clear.
I DID NOT ABANDON X AND Y
They abandoned me.
Here is my thing, even if I had stepped back I wouldn't have let them get to the point I did. I would've stepped back, but would have helped them figure it out. Answer questions, help guide them, do anything I could have to make it just a bit easier on them. Because I am that type of person.
My wife reached out to them for help and they said no. Things probably could have happened more quickly if they would have helped her while I was in the hospital and couldn't help. They abandoned me way before I ever abandoned them. Hell, I was so convinced that they were my friends that I even tried to call them when I was in the hospital so they knew I was okay.
They didn't care then and they don't now.
I have no idea where they came up with this "I abandoned" them thing because that never happened at least on my part. My family had to come out of pocket to make sure the authors were refunded. X and Y never helped in this regard and left it completely to myself and my family.
Things I learned after January
I learned a lot of truths the months after everything happened. Things I was never told before. I started talking to some Booktok people and telling them my story and they sat and listened to me. Sometimes even when I cried, and they shared things they knew with me. All of this happened around April 2023. Thats when I started to find out about things.
I learned that the trip that I was supposed to surprise X on she had already knew because Y told her and they told someone else that they didn't even want me to come even though it was Y who planned the surprise in the first place.
I saw text from Y body shamming that I had never seen before.
I heard voice memos of people saying horrific things about me.
I found out that X and Y had basically been talking bad about me our entire friendship.
I learned that I was heavily manipulated and used for a follower count and connections I had made, and I mean genuine connections I made with people in the Booktok community.
I found out that there was other events that happened with X and Y and another creator prior to the events of January that I never knew and was actively lied to about it.
People were fat shaming me.
I was called homophobic... I am married to a woman.
I was called ablest....I am disabled and have frequently discussed this on social media.
When I found out about these things between X and Y it led me discover how heavily manipulated I was by them in our friendship. After heavy therapy sessions I discovered that they were never truly my friends and I was a tool for them to succeed and an escape goat to fall back on when one of their actions made us fail. When my mental health began to decline when working with them they never cared to listen or be there as friends and co-owners the way they should be. It has given me the path to not be so easily trusting and to make sure I properly know people before I engage with them in the future.
I have never told them how I feel about our past friendship nor do I ever want to. Honestly, this will probably be the first they have ever heard about it if they read this post. They are no longer the type of people I want to associate myself with nor do my beliefs align with theirs.
I have some of the best friends I could ever ask for now. People who know me and I know them as if they were the back of my hand and they have shown me the true meaning of friendship and have helped me heal from a toxic one that I had put too much of myself into and helped me realize that friendship takes effort on both parts not just one.
Surviving
It's taken me a long time to get to a point where I can talk about this without feeling like I am going to combust, but I have learned a lot.
I have learned to not trust people so easily.
I have learned better ways to manage my mental health.
I am learning to think better before I speak.
I have learned and am still learning how to not need validation from others.
I have learned to create a better and safer place for everyone.
Social media can be so very toxic and I know I am not the first person that feels this way. Even people who haven't been on this side of cancelation before. Our energies feed into each other and when problems arise on social media, everyone feels that wave of emotion in their own way.
We all need to learn to be here for each other, support and love each other, but also hold those accountable when need be. I am not perfect and I know that and there isn't enough apologies in the world I can say to make up for that, but I am sorry and I know my words might sound like I am just saying them, but I truly mean it and I have been acting on them and supporting the people who will allow me to everyday.
I made mistakes, but I am choosing to learn from them and better myself everyday to become a better person.
Forgiveness is not forgetting, Its not even meaning you have to be best friends with that person. Forgiveness is for yourself. To understand, to help release emotions that may be festering in you. Hate brings nothing but pain to yourself. You can hate a person for as long as you want, but the only person feeling that is you.
So I am releasing my hate, and I am forgiving the people who have hurt me and the asking for forgiveness from those I have hurt. This is how I survive, by letting go.
In the end
If you have made it this far, thank you for listening to my story. I know I am not the most perfect person, but I always want to be better. I hope this cleared up any questions anyone may have had or even gave the slightest bit of understanding.
I am always open. If you have questions, ask. If you wanna talk then lets talk. I am here and my DMs are always available to those who want more information or have other concerns that I may have missed in this post.
Thank you for the time you have given me today.
xoxo
-Ky