Presence of someone absent

My childhood is present with me today as a ghost, as an experience which I am trying to make sense of. It is in everything: the way I walk, I talk, I love, and how I communicate with both people and myself. Growing up I was constantly living in conflict with emotions like absence and love, where pain co-exists with comfort. I used to imagine a figure with me when I was in pain, trying to fill a void of absence. I feel like that figure still lingers, as I am often living in the past, or rather bringing the past into the present, sometimes just to evoke that presence of someone absent.