What Trauma Took From Me - And What It Gave Back

Published on December 7, 2025

Category : Personal story, mental health

Tags : Human emotions, vulnerability, trauma, self acceptance, grief, safe spaces

Trauma is weird.

And different for everyone.

For instance, me — it's the deaths I've witnessed throughout my life of the people closest to me.

I don’t remember any of my childhood and most of my teenage years. Which is funny, because I’m still a teenager.

As a child, I lost my grandfather, someone I hardly remember except for his dead body — a memory that resurfaced only a few years ago. I was ten days short of my third birthday when I remember looking down at my knees — both busted and covered in bandages. Then, to my right, my dead grandfather lying on a wooden bed, ready to be taken away. And then behind me, my mother grabbing my milk bottle to take me away from the people and rituals.

That’s the only memory I have of him.

That’s the only memory I have of my childhood.

I spent most of my childhood listening to everyone talk about how much he loved me, wishing to remember even one moment with him. But I can’t. Still can’t.

As an early teenager, just after turning thirteen, I lost my aunt. And I thought it was for the best — because the alternative was months of waiting for death in pain. At least she didn’t have to suffer long.

Both of them had asthma.

I have skin asthma.

It’s… strange. Strange that the very deaths that shaped my trauma are also the people I share the most medical history with.

In my family, people die either in accidents (like my grandfather and one of my aunts as a toddler) or from cancer (my other aunt). Some part of me believes I’ll meet the same fate. Why? No idea. Just a feeling. And my intuition is rarely wrong. Or maybe it's just the trauma speaking.

There are things I’ve been told, though.

That my grandpa (baba) called me his god’s gift and spoiled me silly. That he loved me more than anyone. And from what I’ve heard, I think I loved him the same.

The story that always breaks me is this:

When they were taking him away, I — a tiny 10kg baby — ran after the men and kept saying,

mere baba ko kaha leke ja rahe ho? mere baba ko wapas lao.

(Where are you taking my grandfather? Bring him back.)

And I cried and cried and cried. I cried for days.

Whenever I hear this, I feel sad for myself. Sometimes I can feel what I must’ve felt back then, and it becomes hard to breathe. Like my body remembers what my brain doesn’t.

Sometimes when people talk about him, I feel the same thing I feel when I’m in a hospital: calm, serene, safe.

I think he was my best friend.

My sanctuary.

The way a hospital is to me now — that’s what he was to me then.

Is it possible to miss someone you don’t even remember?

Is it possible to grieve someone you don’t really know?

Because I know I love him. I know I miss him. I just don’t know why.

Maybe my mind forgot him to protect me, but some part of me still remembers.

I wish I could remember what it was like to love and be loved like that.

But maybe I’ll never know — not until I’m ready.

There’s a reason the brain hides things.

I get it.

My whole life, I’ve been to hospitals as much as my own home.

When I was born, I was kept in an incubator — my pharynx underdeveloped — giving my parents a thousand death scares in my early years. Then came eczema, almost my entire life. Still figuring that one out.

And when I finally thought I’d figured out how to survive with all the medical conditions, I started falling sick again. I suspected an allergy, stopped eating half the things I liked, fixed my diet, met a hundred doctors — and it finally came under control.

Months of peace…

Until a few days ago when I had a severe allergic reaction while both my parents were away.

I think I’m allergic to mangoes.

We’ll know soon.

But that day… I was scared. Alone and scared.

And that’s what I’ve been feeling most of my life.

Then I went to the doctor who has treated me since I was a child — and suddenly, I felt safe again.

That’s what hospitals do to me.

That’s what doctors do to me.

I feel safe.

And I hardly ever feel safe anywhere else.

But in a hospital? I do.

People have different places where they feel safe.

Mine happens to be a hospital.

Somewhere between visiting hospitals for myself and visiting them for people I love, the place became my home.

A place I’m more comfortable in than my actual house.

Blasphemy, I know.

Hospitals are my safe place.

Where I feel invincible.

I know — hospitals?

Something must be wrong with me.

But something is always wrong with me.

So I guess that’s my normal.

And honestly?

I don’t think “normal” exists.

Everyone has their own normal.

What’s your safe space, and why?

We’re all weird in our own weird way — don’t be shy to answer.

If you relate to even one part of this, you're not alone.

Tell me your safe space - I want to know your story too.

– Varnika