On TikTok, burn survivor Alecia King makes hilarious videos and appears to be bubbly and full of life, but she has admitted that there are days when she feels extremely depressed. Even though she brings smiles to her many viewers, and was recently allowed to formally graduate high school, the 18-year-old has been finding it difficult to joy. "There are times when I break down to the point where I get suicidal thoughts.
Mommy [her guardian Julian Mendez] has been a rock in my life and I live in a yard where I have friends, so they keep me going. Them make mi laugh and always a give me joke but there are times when I am very unhappy," she said. One of her worries is that she does not have a job.
"My friends that I used to go school with are working and their skin look so beautiful. Dem nuh spoil up suh and dem can continue with dem education. Mi just deh home and deh pon a big pause.
I want go work and get a next chance at life. Dem little summen deh bring mi down, mi nah tell nuh lie," she said. King was doused with gasolene and set ablaze as she slept in Redwood, St Catherine, last August.
She miraculously survived and received treatment at Shriner's Hospital in Texas. Her ex-boyfriend, Antwone Grey, has been charged for the crime. But in addition to the memories of her horrific experience, King said she is being bullied by online trolls who taunt her about her skin.
"Yuh [expletive] finger look like when chicken foot drop inna hot water," read one of the texts. "Sometimes I think it doesn't bother me because I have been through so much in the past. But, I am human," King said.
In other texts, the senders have blamed her for her ills. "A pure man inna uno head when yuh fi focus pon school yuh have man see learn the hardest way go serve God," one text said. To make matters worse, King said the bullying is not only from online.
"Someone I knew told me that I am expired and my life done and it make mi feel really bad. Mi have even family members who rub mi out and tell mi that I fava like when dem pluck chicken and yuh throw hot water on it," King said. Mendez told THE STAR that it is painful to watch her child sink into depression over her situation.
"It hurts my heart when I see her crying and I have to keep encouraging her that she will be okay. I am so grateful for Sanmerna Foundation because in all of this, they have never left our side. It is hard.
Sometimes when she start cry, I have to watch her like a hawk and continue to tell her that God didn't just save her for her to exist - he saved her for a purpose," Mendez said. "It is rough now but things are going to get easy for her because I know after her surgeries things will be better. She always wants to work and if she see her sister or anyone of them a put on clothes to go out, she start cry.
She even cry after me sometimes . She can't put on her shoes by herself and she was saying that she gonna have to depend on me for the rest of her life to do this and that for her. But, I am always going to be here for her," Mendez added.
