First Mental Scar

One of the most traumatizing experiences that I ever had in my life can probably be traced back to my early childhood. It’s the earliest memory of my life that I am currently able to recall.

I was probably six or seven years old when the dreadful incident happened. Toy Story was playing on the television and as you might have guessed, I watched it religiously, scene to scene, eyes glued to the screen.

As a six-year old, the closest people I had (emotionally) were Mum and Dad, i.e. my beloved parents. Never did they use any kind of violence or even raise their voice to me even though, as far as I could remember, I was quite a frivolous kid. My parents were like angels to me. They showered me with love and they taught me things that I needed to know: discipline, courage, compassion, kindness — everything.

That very afternoon, however, the angelic image of theirs was completely shattered to pieces.

At first, I started hearing some noise coming out of my parents’ room. The noise sounded like two people talking, yet in a manner far from pleasant. I was initially nonchalant towards the noise, but it was very difficult for me to ignore to the fact that the room was becoming more and more cacophonous.

All of a sudden, the door was slammed open. Mum burst out of the room.

I shivered in fear.

The two most loving figures that I knew in my life were nonexistent.

There were only monsters, yelling at each other in some gibberish language that I could barely understand. The only words that I could catch were those that sounded really hateful and hurtful. I was frozen on the sofa, unable to say anything, let alone move or run away from the scene.

At the zenith of my stress, I broke my silence, shedding a bucketful of tears. I wailed. It was the only thing that I could do at that moment.

Luckily though, it turned out to be the right thing to do.

The commotion was suddenly put on pause. The fighting and the yelling, gone. Their tempers cooled down in an instant. It probably dawned upon them that fighting in front of their only son was not exactly the wisest thing to do.

At the end of the day, Mum and Dad came to hug me and abruptly apologize for the cruel thing that they had done.

I was not able to recover quickly but I could see that my angels had returned.

At least the monsters were no longer there.