Sometimes, I look at people who grew up in homes filled with laughter and warmth. They speak fondly of childhood holidays, of parents who never raised their voices, of dinner tables where everyone stayed long after the last bite, just to talk. And I wonder — what a privilege it must be, to grow up without fear, to know that if something went wrong, there would always be someone waiting to help.
Then I think of my own family.
There were nights, back when I still lived with my parents, when I would wake suddenly in the middle of the night. I’d hear shouting in the living room — someone crying, someone else asking for help. I’d lie frozen, my body tensed, my heart racing. But when I finally gathered the courage to look, there was no one there. Everyone was asleep. The house was silent.
Even now, years after moving out and living on my own, I still wake up sometimes to the same echoes. I’d think I heard someone quarrelling, a voice pleading in the dark. But it’s only in my head. My mind, it seems, still remembers the script of those nights too well.
If you look at my kitchen ceiling, you’ll see the history written there. On one side, it’s blackened with soot, a quiet witness to years of shouting and smoke. On the other, splattered red with asam pedas — the day dinner was thrown, and words were sharper than knives. The ceiling keeps its silence. But it remembers.
People often talk about “getting over” trauma. Some say therapy helps. Others swear by prayer, meditation, or time. I don’t doubt any of that. I’ve seen how others heal — how they reclaim joy, how they rebuild. But I also know that there is no one way to make peace with the past. There’s no magic phrase, no session, no closure that can make it all disappear.
Because trauma doesn’t leave when you ask it to. It lingers — patient, quiet, familiar.
It sits with you at breakfast. It follows you to work. It whispers when you’re alone. It waits for you at 3am, when the world is silent, and the house feels too big. Sometimes it takes the form of a sound — a door creak that makes you flinch, a raised voice that turns your stomach. Other times, it’s a memory that visits uninvited, triggered by something small and harmless, like the smell of sambal frying or the click of a lighter.
People like to say time heals everything. But time doesn’t erase. It teaches you how to live with the ghosts.
That’s what trauma becomes after a while — a ghost. Not the kind that slams doors or rattles chains, but the kind that lingers quietly in the corners of your mind. It doesn’t always mean harm. It just wants to be seen.
There was a time when I tried to shut the ghost out — to silence it, to forget. But now, I think healing means learning to let it exist beside me. To acknowledge its presence without letting it take control. Some days it still visits in the form of a sound in the dark, or a memory that makes my chest tighten. But I’ve learned to breathe through it. To say, quietly, “I know you’re here.”
Maybe one day, when I wake in the middle of the night and hear nothing, I’ll know peace has finally learned my name.
Until then, I live with the ghosts — not as enemies, but as reminders. Of what I’ve survived. Of what I’m still learning to forgive. Of the house that taught me that silence can be as loud as screams.
Because trauma is like a crack. You can mend it, paint over it, and pretend it’s gone. But the line will always remain. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s what it means to heal — not to erase, but to live gently beside the ghosts that time could not take away.
Written by: Adi Jamaludin
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