Okay, this is complicated and where I am, it’s getting late (past 11pm, I live in the UK) but I am so stuck and helpless and unable to do anything at the minute apart from type this up and pray that nothing bad happens but I don’t know because bad things happen to good people.
Basically, it’s my friend Sophie’s 16th birthday tomorrow. Just over two years ago, she killed herself in the woods in our town and the Police found her body the morning after she went missing. It was the most horrific thing we have ever been through but I am terrified that I am going to go through something similar again with my friend Robbie, who is currently in the Philippines and I have literally no way of getting hold of him, despite trying multiple ways for ages.
We did our exams this year, my friends and I, but I haven’t actually seen or heard from Robbie since January. I don’t have his number and he suddenly stopped coming to school, and nobody knows very much at all. My friend Mary just said that he’s taking some time, which is good, but as it is Sophie’s 16th tomorrow and he misses her a lot, I am terrified that because of his history with mental health, he’s going to do something potentially dangerous and put himself at risk whilst being thousands of miles away.
I have tried and tried again to contact Robbie by email, getting his other friends to try and message him, through Instagram, Facebook messenger, even his cousin who said she will try and pass on messages for me, but nothing has worked. I couldn’t send him any letters or any packages because I don’t have his address and nobody will give me his number or address because he doesn’t like people passing that stuff around without asking and nobody has been able to ask him. His cousin hasn’t had a proper interaction with him since February. All his social media pages haven’t been updated in months and he’s basically disappeared, apart from the fact that we know he has done his exams, as his name was on the list and he was in small rooms on his own for every single one. If he had come to serious harm before leaving the UK for his trip, I would have known because Mary would have called me,but it could be days before the news reaches us if something happens, and that’s if his family contact someone over here who can pass the message on.
Normally, I wouldn’t worry so much, but considering Robbie’s history, I do worry. He has a history of self-harm (and the last I knew of it was November 2017, two months before I stopped seeing him), suicidal thoughts (previous attempts on his life also likely) and domestic abuse as well. He hasn’t been answering his messages for anyone at all and the only thing I know is that he is on a charity project in the Philippines at the moment. I don’t know when he is coming back or if he is okay. We haven’t spoken in eight months. The fact that when Sophie went missing and everyone said “it will be okay, they’ll find her” and they were too late also worries me. If it happened once, there’s nothing stopping it from happening again and I am panicking so much about him right now. He found it so hard on the anniversary last year and both of Sophie’s birthdays we’ve had so far since she died (this is the third one since she passed) that he was in tears and it was the first time I had ever seen him so distressed and upset. He couldn’t bear to be in the room for the one year anniversary we had because it was too much and I know that he relapsed back into harming himself around the one year marker, because the marks on his arms and his knees were fresh and he was wearing his hoodie in the super hit weather despite teachers at school asking him to take it off. Something tells me that he could relapse again if he hasn’t already, and seeing as he has an extensive self harm history, that suggests to me that he has incredibly easy access to tools he could use on himself.
I’ve tried contacting people who have his number or contacts for family that might be with him or might be able to get hold of him, but nobody is answering their phones (they’re probably all asleep or on holiday). I don’t know what to do or where exactly in the Philippines he is and it worries and upsets me so badly because if I haven’t seen or heard from him in eight months despite how close we are, something is definitely wrong and I don’t know what it is.
Sophie’s birthday and the aftermath of her death is stressful enough without worrying whether or not Robbie is safe and I’m just sat awake rocking backwards and forwards praying that someone will text me back if they have information that could put me at ease. I miss her so much and I know I wasn’t good enough for her and it makes me worried that I’m not good enough for Robbie, because I’m a mess and I don’t deserve him and he deserves better friends and I’m only one person who can only do so much but it’s not enough. I don’t know what I am going to do but I know that I’m probably going to sit awake hating myself to no end, maybe have a panic attack, I don’t know yet.
All my music is reminding me of singing with him because he loves music and if I keep it on I’ll probably cry and panic more, so I’ve lost one of my only coping mechanisms as well. I just want him to be okay and this is scary. If he was still in the UK and something happened, I could get to wherever I needed to go pretty quickly but not when he’s halfway across the world. I hope he is okay but I don’t know anymore and it scares me more that anything. He could do anything if he’s too upset to think properly. There’s nothing stopping him at all from putting himself in a situation where he might not bounce back. I really hope that this year I will not be celebrating his birthday without him.