Dissociative amnesia, they say, is the term often used when the brain automatically blocks out traumatic experiences and painful memories. I never really understood why I was experiencing it until one day, when my best friend pointed out how I had lost track of certain conversations and events from my past. At first, I was taken aback, but slowly I began to appreciate how I no longer carried the emotional weight of certain people or memories.
Growing up, I never understood the benefit of having men in the house. I never saw them contributing or being involved to any meaningful extent. That void remained unfulfilled for as long as I can remember. My childhood memories are similar, faint and dusty. Right now, I feel I am in a “healed” stage of my life, but while growing up, the fear of pain, the splintering trust, the terror of abandonment, and the unhealed wounds never let me be real. I used to be delusional, believing everything would magically become fine one day.
I grew up in an open-minded household where everything looked normal on the surface, but beneath it lay silent cries for help. As the eldest daughter of three, I was expected to cater to certain responsibilities, but the child in me always wanted to run away from it all.
The first time I saw my father disrespect my mother, I was eight. I remember her on the floor, begging him not to go to his then-girlfriend, while he kicked her forehead with the black shoe he was wearing and walked out through the main gate. As time went by, the visits from his girlfriend became frequent. She would bring things to our house, humiliating my mother repeatedly, even attending public events with the man I called my father. Soon enough, the beatings became frequent. I still remember my mother’s cries and the wounds she endured after every session of mistreatment. Over time, we adjusted to this life, full of mental torture and emotional instability. Running to another room with every shout or punch, and pretending not to hear the abuses, became normal.
I grew up with a constant feeling of loneliness. I felt helpless and unable to share my emotions. The void of not having someone to lean on existed from the very beginning. No one could truly understand what I was going through. The smallest things reminded me of how broken and incomplete we were as a family, whether it was my father hurling abuses at my mother during a family vacation, or throwing a bottle at her, leaving a dark bruise on her stomach.
This continued for more than two decades. Then one day, everything came crashing down when my mother decided to leave us and move to her parents’ home. I was the only one against it. I was judged, mistreated, and abused by my own family. From being called selfish and emotionless to being left alone, I had to endure everything. It felt never-ending. The panic attacks, the crying spells, everything was killing me from the inside. My only escape was anxiety medication and the psychiatrist who visited me at the university.
People say time heals everything; I disagree. Time doesn’t heal; it only numbs the emotions attached to the pain. With therapy, however, I began to speak out. The embarrassment started to fade, and realizing that none of it was my fault helped me move forward. The only constant, though, was the man I called my father and his selfishness.
Over the next year and a half, my mother remarried, and soon after, my siblings and I moved to the same city as her and our maternal family. Life began to feel normal, no shouting, no abuse, no trauma. Things felt clearer. I became independent, taking care of my house and everything that came with it. But the fact that the man who shared my genes still existed meant his self-centredness did too.
Eventually, the inevitable happened: he abandoned us. It was something he had been doing indirectly since the day I was born, but the physical distance had felt bearable back then, and the emotional distance had never been acknowledged. This time, his abandonment left me hollow. Surviving in a new city became difficult, not financially, but emotionally. Living in a world where you have no one to lean on felt unfair. Yet I kept hoping he might change, might love us, might at least acknowledge our existence. I fought with my sisters to convince them to stay in touch with him, and I exhausted myself emotionally trying to “support” him. I gave everything, but it left a deep void where my self-love should have been.
I grew used to exhausting myself to serve everyone while suppressing my own feelings. Life went on, aging and ignoring until the miracle happened: I decided to get married. Something I had resisted my entire life. Marriage never felt sacred to me; I had never seen a healthy one. I had been conditioned to live without men, to believe they were unnecessary. Still, something shifted, maybe because of a year of meditation and self-reflection. Therapy helped too. I began healing again. And then, long story short, I found a wonderful man, something I never knew existed. He became my miracle, my answer, my quiet salvation.
When I shared it with my father, he showed interest briefly before doing what he did best: abandoning me again. But this time, the new me felt different. I finally understood, it was never me. It was him. He was the problem. I had simply spent years overcompensating.
My healing and my miracle-man gave me the strength to do something long overdue: I followed his footsteps. I decided to abandon him, now and forever. And for the first time, I could breathe. It felt like relief. Like freedom.
Healing takes time, sometimes baby steps but better late than never. My inner child needed to feel free, unbothered, and safe enough to move into the next phase of life. Staying stuck would’ve been my burden to carry. And as they say, time will heal it.
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