Save Me - Joel Hokka | Blind Channel

Chapter 13: I'd have been responsible

Trigger warning: This chapter includes several different potential triggers. Toxic friendship, selfdoubt, selfharm and suicidal thoughts are mentioned and descriped. If you don't feel comfortable to read about them, please take care of yourself and don't read this chapter. If you struggle with mentioned triggers in your life, please seek help. You deserve to live a happier life.

I started with telling Sofia everything about how Aava and I got to know each other and how we started to be there for each other whenever the other one needed some support before I continued with how it had developed into a different direction. A direction where I slowly but surely started to notice that somehow, this friendship was pretty exhausting to me and didn't only do me favor. "As I've already mentioned, I started to be there for her whenever she had to go through chemotherapy or other painful and exhausting treatments by texting with her and by that, distracting her. After a while, I wasn't only chatting her when I was home and had time to do so, no. I started texting her whenever it was somehow possible. When I was on my way to school or on my way home - of course I went there by bus and didn't use my phone while driving a car -, when I did homework, in the evening when I initially wanted to go to bed already, in every break at school, even the shortest ones. I chatted with her in every spare minute.

At first, I was fine with that. I mean, she was the best friend I had at that time, in the beginning even the only one. But eventually, I noticed that I was maybe chatting with her too much. Some days, I had a screentime of more than 8 hours only because of my conversations with Aava. Over time, I had stopped going for walks with my parents although they had always calmed me down when I was stressed because of school. But for me, Aava was more important, I thought I had to do my best to help and if that meant less time for myself, then it was what it was and I simply accepted it. I fully stopped doing everything I had loved before; I stopped going outside to take photos; I stopped painting and reading because it was pretty difficult do text at the same time. At some point, my life consisted of school, eating, texting Aava and sleeping. But not sleeping as much as I needed to. Often, she had a hard time falling asleep because of all the pain and then, as always, I texted with her until she felt a bit better which was usually around midnight or even later.

Aava's state of mental health was terrible and I somehow could understand that. Having cancer in that age and being a single mom of three children must be fucking difficult. I knew she cut herself and even had suicidal thoughts but I always tried to convince her to stay alive. I told her what a wonderful and strong person she was and that I was convinced she'd survive the cancer and would have a great life with her children. I also tried to show her my and her daughter Pihla's perspective so that she could understand how broken we'd be if she wouldn't be alive anymore. Pihla and her siblings would lose their mom; I'd lose the only friend I had and since I didn't have a good relation to my parents, I'd also have lost someone who was like a second mom to me. She seemed to understand that but sometimes when she had a terrible day and I didn't text her regularly, her life was more than she could take. She escaped from hospital but she didn't tell me.

I only found out when Pihla texted me, asking whether her mom had told me where she'd go because she wasn't in hospital anymore. Pihla and I spend nights trying to find her. Of course, I didn't physically tried to find her, that was only what Pihla did. I constantly texted Aava, trying to convince her to go back to the hospital or at least to tell me where she hid. Whenever she gave me some kind of information, I texted Pihla and told her every little detail. I also informed her about how regularly Aava texted me, how long she needed to write messages and how many typos they included so we had an idea of her physical conditions. Not only the cancer made her suffer, the wounds of her selfharm were a big problem, too. When I couldn't text her because of school, she resisted the doctor's advice to get them treated. Therefore, she regularly had big infections that additionally weakened her body so we had to make sure her body didn't give up when she escaped again. Sometimes, I spent a whole night only helping Pihla to find her mom and convince her to go back to the hospital so I had to go to school without having slept at all the night before. The less I had time to text her, the more often this happened.