Save Me - Joel Hokka | Blind Channel

Chapter 7: It all started so nicely

Content information: First of all, there are some potential triggers in this chapter. Suicidal thoughts and cancer are briefly mentioned but not described in detail. Secondly, there will be some backstory in this chapter. The entire backstory is written in italics. And now: Enjoy the chapter! (Or skip it, if you don't feel comfortable with reading about mentioned topics)

Everything was just like back then. It all started so nicely, we started to connect more, spent more time with each other. I had met Joel several times. Way too often. I knew that it always started this way but I ended up to be destroyed. Just like back then. Being broken and tripping on the edge, ready to end everything. And if I didn't take care of myself now, I would end up as devastated and traumatized as back then.

I was a teenager back then and just like many other girls of my age, I was a fan of one TV-show. After my that time best friend, who wasn't a really a good friend but the only person I could have called like that, supported my idea of creating a fanpage, I did what I had thought about for so long. For a while, I was really happy because due to the edits I shared, I got in touch with many other people who were fans of that series as well. We started chatting about the new episodes, why we liked the series and also about some happy incidents when these people met the actors.

One of the friends I had made there was the first person to follow me. She published stories on her fan account that were the best ones I had ever read until that day. Whatever they were about, they were interesting and especially emotional. Often her stories made me cry because I could understand the main character's emotions so well and those people found a way to deal with that. And sometimes that way was to end everything.

Back then, I wished I wouldn't have to live anymore but I wouldn't have dared to end it myself or to hurt myself in any way. That's why Aava's stories were always special to me: Through her stories, I felt like I found a way to deal with my emotions. When I told her about how much I loved what she wrote, we started to get in touch. In the beginning, we chatted only once in a while but eventually we started to text each other more frequently.

We started to not only talk about the series we both liked so much but also about other, more private, stuff. I found out that she was quite a lot older than I was, already in her forties. Aava had two children, one of them being a girl around my age. After chatting for a while, it turned out that Pihla, Aava's daughter, went to the same school as a good friend of my friend who supported my fanpage. They were even in the same class and therefore knew each other.

Knowing that, I started to trust Aava more. Her daughter went to the same school as a girl I kinda knew so Aava should be the person she said she was, right? And after Aava did a live stream on her Instagram, I was convinced that Aava was not some creep but actually a person who genuinely loved the same series as I did and whom I could trust.

I started to tell Aava more about myself and eventually, we exchanged our phone numbers so that we wouldn't need Instagram to text. Therefore, Aava also knew what I looked like because I had a photo of me as my profile picture. Apart from school life, we also chatted about more personal stuff. I told her about my struggles and the problems I had with my parents because of which I didn't feel comfortable talking about my problems with them.

The relationship between me and my parents had never been really good, to me it felt like they only cared about what I achieved but not about how I felt and what I liked or wanted to do. Therefore, I eventually stopped talking to them if it wasn't necessary. Sometimes I asked my best friend for advice but that didn't happen often either. Most of my problems and worries stayed hidden inside of my mind and I didn't tell anyone about them. Until I got to know Aava.