I live in a post communist country and I guess that communism could be described as a spectre in my life. Because I wasn't around to experience it (I was born a decade after it fell), but especially when I was growing up you could still feel its legacy all around you. A lot of commie era infrastructure was still in an untouched state; same for people's houses which all had the same commie furnature. And you could still feel the regime radiating from some people's mindsets/personalities. And until the internet came and diluted it, a large part of the country's body of monoculture originated from commie times. I'd say that only in the past ~12 years have I been able to go about life without encountering subtle reminders that my country hasn't always been the way I grew up with it.

I've watched a ton of commie era films so I have an idea of how society worked, and I think if you teleported me there now, I'd be able to make my life work and to integrate. But I hated commie era films as a <teen because they made me imagine being teleported back into that time and the prospect made me feel very powerless and claustraphobic. Because of how remote society & culture were from what they are today (due to the isolation and constrained possibilities), in a way that western cultures weren't.

i never experienced such abuse firsthand, but my mom learned to live in a mess to make herself unattractive to her abuser. that habit got transferred to me so that i have to actively manage an urge to live in a messy home.

The only spectre I don't like encountering is the spectre of a stranger's ass on a toilet seat.