The world called him a troublemaker. I call him my brother.
I still remember Alan as a little boy, the youngest in our family, full of mischief and curiosity. Back then, none of us could have imagined the kind of storm he would carry inside him as he grew older.
When Alan was in elementary school, he made a small mistake one day. It wasn’t something terrible, just the kind of childish thing any kid might do. Normally, a teacher would scold him, maybe give him a punishment. But that day, Alan wasn’t punished. Our mother was a teacher at the same school—she taught religion—and perhaps without realizing it, her presence created a different atmosphere for him.
Years later, one night at 2 a.m., when the house was silent and everyone else was asleep, Alan confided in me. His voice was soft, almost as if he were afraid to wake the past. “When Mama was around, the teachers were so kind to me. But when she wasn’t there, they whispered things, mocking me… ‘Of course, he’s the teacher’s son, so whatever he does must be right.’” He said it so quietly, almost casually, but I could hear the wound behind those words. He never told Mama. He didn’t want her to worry, or maybe as a child he didn’t even know what to do with that kind of pain. So he buried it inside.
By middle school, Alan’s reputation had already begun to form. He was called a troublemaker. Teachers often punished him, and my parents were frequently summoned to school. Sometimes, it was for reasons that sounded almost absurd. Once, his chair was taken by another student. When the teacher commanded everyone to sit in their assigned seats, Alan had nowhere to go. In his desperation, he sat on the lap of the student who had taken his place. The classroom burst into laughter, but the teacher grew furious. Alan was scolded harshly, and once again, my parents received a letter calling them in.
When asked to explain himself, Alan only said, “I was told to sit in my seat. But it wasn’t there. So I sat where it should have been.” His answer was both innocent and defiant, but no one seemed to understand the way his mind worked. Every mistake, every punishment, every angry word from authority shaped him further into the boy everyone labeled: trouble.
In high school, Alan was accepted into one of the better schools in the city. We thought maybe this would be a new beginning. But fate had other plans—our parents had to move for work, and Alan was transferred to a rural school. That’s when things began to spiral more intensely.
He was smart—everyone in the family knew that. His intelligence wasn’t the problem. But his past wounds, the constant criticisms, and the crowd he fell into made him restless, rebellious. Teachers in the new school were stricter, harsher. Alan told me once that a male teacher beat him so badly, he felt humiliated more than hurt. He never forgot it.
At home, things weren’t any easier. My father and Alan clashed almost daily. Father is strict, unyielding, quick to anger. Alan, fiery and wounded, refuses to bow. Their voices often fill the house, one yelling, the other shouting back. Sometimes, it goes beyond words. Once, Father even burned Alan’s clothes in anger because Alan had refused to go to school. That image still haunts me—the smoke rising, Alan’s eyes blazing with fury and despair, Mother crying between them.
Mother has always been his defender. She has a softness that constantly clashes with Father’s hardness. She cannot bear to see Alan broken. Many nights end with her standing between them, shielding Alan, while Father mutters that she is spoiling him. Sometimes, the fights are not just between Alan and Father—they spread, tearing into the marriage itself. And I, the eldest, could only watch from afar, helpless. I was in Bali then, studying and working. My second brother was in Kalimantan. Alan, the youngest, was left in the middle of it all.
As he has grown older, the battles haven’t ended. They have only changed shape. Alan began showing signs that none of us fully understood at first—his mood shifting like waves, his laughter suddenly turning into angry outbursts, his words sometimes scattering into nonsense. He speaks to himself, laughs at things unseen, and when episodes come, he shouts, curses, or seems lost in another world entirely.
Three years ago, the doctors gave it a name: depression, with complications that sometimes make him lose touch with reality. Since then, he has taken antidepressants every morning and night. The medication steadies him, but not completely. There are days when his hearing seems unreliable, when conversations don’t connect, when his laughter rings out in places that make others stare.
And yet, despite it all, Alan goes to college. He walks into those classrooms, carrying his invisible weight, and sits among students who may not know the war he fights every single day. He studies, he tries, he insists on living as normally as he can.
Sometimes, when I watch him—whether in person or through the fragments of stories Mama shares with me—I feel both heartbreak and awe. Heartbreak, because I see the boy who never really had the chance to grow without being judged, scolded, or punished. Awe, because despite everything—despite the whispers of childhood, the punishments, the blows, the battles at home, the nights of screaming—he is still here.
Alan is still here.
I don’t know what the future holds for him. There are days when his illness frightens me, when I wonder how long he can endure the noise in his head, the side effects of the medicine, the stares of strangers who don’t understand. But there are also days when I see a glimmer of who Alan has always been: intelligent, stubborn, alive.
If I have learned anything from being his sibling, it is this: some battles are silent, invisible to the world. Alan’s story is not about failure, though the world may have painted him that way. It is about endurance. It is about a young man who keeps standing even when life has knocked him down more times than anyone should bear.
And as long as Alan is still here—and as long as Mama and Father are still here to walk beside him—so is hope.
Jrt. 01/10/2025 || 10.01 a.m