# they forgot to call me this evening (trigger warning: for discussion of mental health psychological abuse and existential loneliness) **+** and i started freaking out wondering where they are and if they were all right they forget that i would be all alone here with nobody to turn to they happened to be busy doing their bs job far away in another country and will be back this thursday they only told me the day before they were leaving for this business trip when i asked why they hadn't informed me earlier they said it was because they knew i'd worry yeah because being casually told of something vitally important at the last possible minute is so much less stressful i have a sickening dread of being left alone - what are often termed abandonment issues my parents psychologically abused me for over nine years until i finally escaped to university at age 24 they not only witheld their love and constantly berated and degraded me they simply didn't have enough love inside them to give in the first place a dead rat has more keen quiet emotional intelligence and compassionate sensitivity than the pair of them combined i felt withdrawn terminally bored often deeply lonely and in agony over the fact i had absolutely nowhere to turn to and nobody to talk to - talk with i simply stayed alone in my room for years with my tapes and my books and said jack to nobody only occasional pleasant afternoon walks through some sparse woods near our house prevented me from further existential damage no i would not of ended myself - although i did regularly wish my dear mother would expire horribly and suddenly i've also accumulated more than a few how-to-say self administered experimental tribal markings along the way (which did help relieve the pressure as i recall) as for good ol' dad - the malignantly useless father figurine as i call it - i tried not to think about him at all because he certainly didn't give a damn about me he used to be my hero when i was a boy but during my troubled teenage years the look of dead eyed apathy whenever he looked in my general direction - mostly to shout about doing what my mother told me - was like a blinding black flashlight of wilful ignorance beaming through the beady eyes set in his stupid skull **+** i have to do better with the person i live and love with all my heart because life is too long otherwise and time not spent doing the best for loved ones is time that drags on hopelessly and on and does not end i mean what else is there to do other than be better for people - help them cope with the crushing pressure of existence the rest of it can fall away like dead leaves **+** when you know that you're parent's love is sick and twisted and not really love at all but rather just control ignorance and dominance you start to feel pretty withdrawn or at least that what happened to me it's what's happening to me right now and i tell you dear fellow wayfarers of the republic it's like the start of a zombie apoc calypso - when it suddenly dawns on you that the only person you know in the entire world has forgotten you and left on the last transport out of the megacity - and there's just you and nobody to save you and hoo-boy it's quite a unique and awful fear one's guts twist and grind inside - a slow mounting silent dread which creeps up on one and can rise in intensity to an almost unbearable pitch > how i wish i had someone to call right now i wish i had someone to hold me tight and tell me it's all ok and that i'm not alone and that they love me and will never let me go > ~ robert what / a miserable rented flat / june 2026 so i'm sitting here alone tonight just like last night and it's getting later and later and they've still not called yesterday they said they would but tonight it seems they all but forgot about me alone here according to google maps that's 314 miles away by foot not including the 4 hour swim across the channel damn - just thinking about that distance makes me feel like norman reedus feetus in the classic zombie tv series "the walking undead flogged horse" i just don't know what to do i just gotta make some money and some friends and construct for myself a solid social support network of close acquaintances and like-minded souls before i just crush-depth myself into the dread-pit of despair **+** why didn't you call me this evening when you said you would? **+** i paced this lousy flat for hours like someone waiting to be told awful news **+** i can't believe i'm (apparently) a grown-ass man yet stuff like this leaves me feeling like newt in the movie aliens when she's standing in the water clutching casey the dead-eyed plastic blob - ripley is telling her she's just about to be rescued and newt just about manages to croak out the most fearful and heartbreaking "..ok" you've ever heard **+** you know what thinking about it right now everything in my life is basically casey the dead-eyed plastic doll head that i desperately clutch in a dire desperate attempt to keep the loneliness alienation deep fear of abandonment and terminal existential boredom away - constantly shoring up an infinite series of utterly pathetic defences against the deep repressed inner knowledge and deep (often horrifying) suspicion that "i'm all alone and in fact might always be alone" **+** non ironically that's why i always keep others at bay for fear they're only in it for themselves and will drop me like a bad habit andor hot old mouldy potato-headed idiot at a moment's arbitrary notice of their choosing **+** and yet also why i'm often utterly embarrassing to be around whenever i suspect the merest possibility arising that someone could be a new friend (talk about try-harding oh man i cringe painfully whenever i remember how pathetically desperate i must have seemed back in the day) as long as the useless data hording - "for rnd purposes"(tm) - and the endless cups of coffee and the comics and lousy action movies continues then it's entirely possible for me to forget what i am inside - permanently stark terrified of existence oh how the the silent dread of feeling alone gnaws at me **+** and so on and on it goes only i at least partially understand the entire situation (life?) is totally flocked and there has to be a better way anyhow whatever the past and reasons and the slow creeping desperation of an endless present with no happier end in sight - you should have damn well called me because tonight it counted and i needed you i utterly hate your job with more passion and sick bile that you seem to be able to falsely dedicate to it and it's disgustingly exploitative utterly soul destroying and unending ways i don't want you to work another day and i will do everything in my limited power and resources to ensure that happens - i just need you to be here with me constantly within earshot do you understand what i'm trying to say my distant missing love please don't leave me hanging on the phone i would have not forgotten you > if i don't get your calls, then everything goes wrong > i want to tell you something you've known all along > ~ hanging on the telephone by blondie // republic of bob