Ruth Titus Sum | Am I Healed Enough to be Vulnerable?

Long after the bullets stopped flying and the smoke cleared, footprints of those who ran barefoot appeared —mothers dragging children, fathers clutching machetes, hearts pounding louder than sirens.

A question lingers, a relentless whisper in the back of my mind—dry like harmattan dust, persistent, suffocating, and everywhere. It’s not a shout. It doesn’t demand attention. It settles, seeps into the cracks between my thoughts, quietly invading my every moment. And no matter how much I try to shove it away, it clings to me. It stays—like a haunting melody I can’t shake. Maybe it’s God nudging me from behind. Maybe it’s my ancestors, their gentle hands tugging at the corners of my soul, urging me to remember. Or maybe it’s the silent parts of me, tired of being buried, desperate to rise.

In this place, where I grew up, where I learned how to survive, we don’t talk about healing. No, here we talk about survival. We talk about respect, about responsibility, about pushing through the brokenness and pretending the cracks don’t show. You are expected to be something: a good daughter, a prayerful woman, a man with ambition, a provider. Someone who does not ask too many questions. Someone who keeps their tears hidden, who doesn’t let the world see the weight they carry.

But those of us from Jos know survival in ways others can’t understand. We learned to carry our pain, to bury it beneath a smile, to hide it in the folds of silence. It was an art we mastered early. The crises came like waves 2001, 2008, 2010 and in between the brief calm, we built our lives knowing that the ground beneath us could split at any moment. You learn how to live like that. How to always be alert, never comfortable. You learn to move like a shadow, quiet, unnoticed, always aware of the sudden shift in the air when danger is near.

I was just nine years old when the sirens first shattered the air, sharp, unnatural, a sound that carved through the quiet of an afternoon like a jagged knife. It wasn’t the kind of sound that simply passed. No. This sound pulled you in and held you in place, like a death sentence that couldn’t be ignored.

It was the kind of afternoon that should have felt safe. The sun was still high, the sky clear. But when that sound came, everything stopped. Time didn’t move.

I was on my way home from school, my red-and-white uniform stained with dust, my lunch box clutched in one hand and my mother’s hand in the other. The streets that were once lively with children’s chatter and the shouts of vendors froze.

In Jos, when you hear the word “an fara”, you don’t think. You don’t question. You start running.

Religion and ethnicity can divide streets like borders on a map; the shortcuts are escape routes. They’re the first roads people think of when gunshots snap in the distance or when someone screams “An fara!” (It has started). 

The world tilted. My mother’s grip on my hand tightened, the only sign of urgency in her. You learn to run without asking why; you learned that survival has a sound: “Don’t look back,” she said, and her voice was like steel.

But no matter how hard I tried, my mind refused to listen. My body moved forward, but my thoughts… my thoughts stayed behind, lingering in the dust and the smoke.

We ran through the narrow gutters, the one my mom hated, the kind you only use when danger is close, too close for comfort. The ground was rough, every step stirring the dust, choking us. It felt like the earth itself wanted to swallow us whole. The smoke from nearby burning homes billowed in the air, and every step we took carried the weight of survival. We didn’t know where we were going. We just knew we couldn’t stay here. We couldn’t stop.

Then the explosion hit. It was sudden. The sky roared like an animal in pain. The ground shook, and then there was a deafening silence—so heavy it felt like it would crush us. In that moment, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. My feet felt glued to the earth, frozen in place. There were flashes of movement—people running, screaming—but I couldn’t see clearly. My heart pounded in my chest, louder than the world around me. I blinked, over and over again, hoping it would stop. Hoping it was a nightmare. But it wasn’t.

It was real.

Around me, the world was crumbling. Shoes were scattered, a schoolbook fluttered in the air like a bird too afraid to land, and in the middle of it all, our neighbour, lying on the ground. His body was lifeless. His eyes were wide open, staring into a sky that no longer cared. His breath had stopped. And somehow, I could still hear the echo of his last scream.

We ran, faster now, my breath ragged, my legs burning with every step. There was no time to think. There was no time to ask questions. We just ran. We stumbled through narrow streets, through back alleys, the dust so thick it choked us. The sound of gunshots echoed in the distance, mingling with the cries of people, mothers, fathers, children lost in the chaos. 

We found shelter in an old colonel’s house, a place that felt as abandoned as the world around us. The compound was surrounded by tall, rusted gates, the walls cracked and weathered from years of neglect. The house itself stood silent, as though it had long forgotten the warmth of life. Inside, there was no comfort, no light—just the smell of damp earth and the oppressive weight of the heat. We were led down to a dark underground shelter, a place that should have been a refuge, but felt more like a tomb.

I clutched my lunchbox, my favourite storybooks pressed to my chest like they might save me. But nothing would save us. The world was changing too fast. And in that moment, I remembered my father. The one who stayed behind. The one who didn’t run. The one who stood guard over what remained, with nothing but a machete and faith.

His face had aged in the brief moments since the last time I saw him. It wasn’t the kind of age time brings; no, this was something different. Something the silence of war had carved into him.

In the face of war, they say that women and children hide while the men protect. But I could see in his eyes that he had become both protector and prisoner. He stayed behind to guard the life that hadn’t yet been consumed by the flames.

I thought of my grandmother’s stories. Stories of when they came, burning villages and people alive, their flames not sparing anything, not even the crops. She would tell me how they had to remain silent, how even the smallest sound could betray their hiding place, how even a single cough would mean death.

I had heard of war. I knew the stories. But this… this was different. This wasn’t just a story. This was happening to us. To me.

The smoke continued to rise around us, thick and choking. Gunshots echoed from the distance, mixing with the cries of people. The sound of war was everywhere. The battle was no longer a faraway thing. It was here. Right here. It felt like the world was being torn apart in real time.

And that feeling the one of being caught in the middle of something you can’t escape stayed with me. It stayed like a shadow. Always present, lurking behind every quiet moment, every peaceful evening. It’s the kind of fear that doesn’t go away. It doesn’t vanish when the fighting ends.

Something stayed behind in those two nights of terror. This is the cost of survival. It’s a kind of peace, yes—but it’s earned through scars. Through pain. And through losing parts of yourself that you never get back.

And even in peace, they are never truly still. There’s always a boy kicking a stone. A girl hurrying to grind pepper at a neighbour’s house. A generator humming behind a wall. A part of me, small, scared, and permanently alert. Always watching. Always remembering. And now, whenever a siren wails, or even when a car alarm goes off, my body flinches. My mind jumps to survival mode. Underneath it all is the tension, like a thread pulled too tight, that those who grew up in Jos know all too well.

But truth, no matter how deeply buried, has a way of coming to the surface. And so began the slow, painful shedding of all those skins I had worn to survive.

I remember thinking, We made it. I remember saying it out loud. But something in me knew the truth: not all of me returned.

As I grew older, I wore many skins that kept me hidden from the world, from the pain. The obedient child. The smiling church girl. The helpful one who never raised her voice. I learned early that love—or the performance of it—came easier when I made myself small. I was praised for being calm, composed, and godly. I knew how to be the girl everyone loved, so I became her.

But no one saw the version of me that cried quietly at night, face buried in a pillow so the sound wouldn’t travel. Travel to the smoke rising. The familiar faces of the ones who wielded the cutlass.

No one saw the guilt I carried for surviving things that broke others. Or the shame that came from having questions I was never allowed to ask. Questions about God. About humanity, about pain.

I didn’t have the language then. Just the ache.

I found ways to cope. I performed goodness. I mastered perfection. I learned how to nod even when I was drowning. I said yes when I meant no. I wore clothes I didn’t choose, prayed prayers I didn’t believe in fully, and walked through life like someone gently holding her breath.

I swallowed anger like communion.

And when the cracks began to show subtle things, like forgetting who I was in a conversation, or walking out of church feeling heavier than I entered—I had no idea what to do with them. I blamed myself. I tried harder. I fasted. I apologised. I served.

But truth, no matter how deeply buried, always finds a way to rise.

And so began the slow, painful shedding. The quiet rebellion. The mourning. The becoming.

Grief was the first stage. Grieving all the selves I had constructed to survive. The calm girl. The agreeable girl. The invisible one. Grief taught me that loss is not always about people, it’s about identities, too.

Hate came next. Hate for the institutions that taught me my silence was holy. Hate for the roles I played, the words I said, the dreams I deferred. Hate for the parts of me that accepted so little and called it love.

Then shame. Shame for wanting more. For not fitting into the mould I was handed. Shame for being soft and wild and questioning in a world that said, “That’s not what we do here.”

Then self-loathing. The hardest stage. Looking in the mirror and not recognizing the girl I’d become. Blaming her for everything. Picking at every scar like it was proof of failure, not survival.

And finally, guilt. Guilt for growing past it. For leaving people behind. For unlearning things, my mother still believes. For creating a new language that others don’t understand.

Healing didn’t come in a single moment. It came in fragments. First, through solitude. Then through stories. Through journaling, through therapy, quiet and private, far away from the gaze of a culture that thinks needing help is weakness. It came through sitting with my younger self and saying, “I see you now.” I grieved the girl who was never allowed to fall apart. I mourned the woman I could’ve been if I’d been allowed to speak. I forgave myself for not knowing better. For staying too long. For not fighting back.

I didn’t lose people. I lost selves. The self that craved approval. The one who mistook survival for purpose. The one that still freezes out and puts on my armour when I see people running. Even if it’s for fun. Or when I hear screams. I craved quiet. Even in the quiet, my mind reminds me of the wars I have seen. The one who mistook pain for power. And I came out with something like peace. Not a peace that’s soft and perfect, but a peace that’s earned, scarred and sacred.

But what no one tells you is that peace can feel like a strange country when you’ve been living in chaos all your life. And so I sit here, healed in so many ways, and yet… restless. Not because I want to go back to pain. God knows I don’t. But because I’m used to a certain kind of urgency. Because healing, for all its beauty, can feel like stillness. And stillness can feel like stagnancy.

I asked a friend one evening, “Do you ever feel like peace is not enough?” We were sitting in her compound, the air cool, the sky that perfect shade of purple just before night. And without even looking at me, she said, “All the time. Because we’ve lived through too much to believe that calm is safe.” Her words sat with me. Peace is good, but when you’ve known fire all your life, it feels like an illusion. Like a break between battles. And maybe I’m not craving destruction. Maybe I’m just craving something worthy. A challenge. A purpose that forces me to stretch. Then that’s when the question came. “Am I healed enough to be vulnerable’

Because now, the battles are quieter. They show up in conversations, in meetings, and expectations. They show up when I say “no” and someone calls me difficult. When I choose to rest, someone calls me lazy. When I love myself loudly and someone says, “You’ve changed.” Yes, I have. And I will keep changing. Because I am not who I was. And I refuse to shrink again.

Some days, I feel strong—like I can take on the world with just my voice and the weight of my past turned into fire. Other days, I can barely get out of bed. And in between those days, there is this stillness. This quiet. This nagging wondering: Is there more?

Maybe I’m not meant to find peace and stay there. Maybe I’m meant to carry it like a lantern into darker places. Maybe the ache is not a flaw—it’s a compass.

Maybe this is it.

Or maybe the real question isn’t, “Am I healed enough to be vulnerable?”
Maybe it’s “Am I brave enough to keep going, knowing I may never be fully healed and still showing up anyway?”

The truth is, I don’t know what comes next.

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe healing isn’t even the point anymore.

—–

Image: HelmutHohenstein Pixabay