Part 1: The Day My Life Began to Change — A Mother’s Panic and a Buried Memory

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A look at the beliefs that shaped my identity before discovering the truth about my childhood and the memories buried beneath it. The following tells the story of how I recalled the abuse. It begins here, with 'Part 1'.

The Identity I Built Over a Lifetime

I grew up in a troubled and chaotic household with a mentally ill parent, five siblings and little money coming in. I suffered intrusive thoughts and a terrible guilt sensation which I explained to witnessing Dad’s psychotic episodes and believing I took after him.

I filled my days with creative pursuits, as testified by my diaries: writing children's mysteries, oil painting, toy-making, a weather project and more. I reasoned I was running away from being me. I always wanted to be someone else because I feared I would end up mentally ill and a negative role model.

Children's stories showing illustrations by a child of 13
Children's stories I wrote at the age of 11 to 14

I reasoned my troubled thoughts were typical of the human race. People have quirks, obsessions, secret worlds and fears. Don’t they? Had I been correct about this, I would never have written this blog or my book Mirror Image Shattered.

The Day My Life Started to Change

I am now living with my partner and two children. I am working as a learning mentor and my future seemed set. I was content.

My life starts to change in August 2016 when I took my children to Colwyn Bay. (My partner had work commitments). It was a lovely day and the pair had badgered me into buying a couple of floats so they could have a drift in the sea.

The following is an abridged account taken from my book Mirror Image Shattered.

“I watched the children drag their floats to the sea. I had instructed them not to go far but slowly, the figures kept diminishing.
 
I grew uptight as the children continued to float further out. Before long, I could no longer make out their faces. And that’s when it dawned on me.
 
Had an undercurrent caught them and they could no longer paddle against it?
Suddenly, a vast blue divided them from the nearest bather.

A thunderous dread slammed into my chest and I felt sick. I shot up but my legs wouldn’t budge. The sound of my voice unleashed from my throat mutated my sick fear into a feral panic.
People on the beach looked my way, but I barely noticed. My shouts became a scream.

I launched myself at the sea. The entire section of the beach had become spectators of a frantic mother dashing into the waves.

As I ran, I started to have the eerie sensation that another ‘me’ was running inside of me. My subconscious thought had been: I’ve been here before. I’ve done this before."

Thankfully, the children weren't in any danger, but the drowning of 5 young men on East Sussex’s Camber Sands a week later would haunt me.

The Feeling That Wouldn’t Leave

The following day, I allowed the children back on the floats, not wanting our holiday to end in this way. But during the remainder of that day, I had been visited by a mysterious and crushing depression. Yes, I had experienced a mother’s dread of losing her children, but there was something else bothering me – a separate force drip-feeding nausea into my stomach.

It had to do with my sense of my other self running inside of me, terrorised with the sun on my back. It was a feeling I had never experienced in my adult life before.

And that’s when the truth of my toddlerhood began to open up to me.

Part 2: My Obsessive Novel Writing
Or go back to prologue

About this blog
The moment I learned the truth
How I learned about my toddlerhood
My book Mirror Image Shattered
About my diaries
Links to my other articles

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Intro

Welcome — I’m Madeleine Watson, a memoirist, artist and diarist. For more than forty years I’ve lived a lie. I have documented my journey to the dark truth about my toddlerhood through writing, artwork and research. This blog brings together everything I've discovered at the age of 51 — a discovery that reshaped everything I believed about myself.

My work spans childhood trauma, identity, memory, twinhood and the ways early experiences echo through adult life. Here you’ll find memoirs, diary excerpts, artwork, family‑history, research and reflections drawn from decades of personal documentation.

If you’re new, the best place to begin is the Start Here page, which introduces the prologue and the 10‑part series that leads to the moment I learned the truth about my past. You can also visit About Me to learn more about my background and the purpose behind this project.

Thank you for reading.

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