Madeleine Watson: How I Uncovered the Truth about my Toddlerhood Part 9: Suffocation Memory

I am now at my final novel, Nadia. I pause on spotting a broken bottle in a key scene. I continue gleaning, expecting to find further clues to the day my twin Eve had cut her face. Instead I find a character I had based upon my uncle. He is a Narcissistic doctor that runs a care-home where Nina, the main character used to work.

In the key scene, the creepy doctor's voice enters Nina’s head as she tries to save the life of a choking occupant of the limo by puncturing a hole in his windpipe.

I wonder why I had put Uncle Dan there. He wasn’t present when Eve.'s accident occurred and he rarely visited.

I was wrong.

I have provided an abridged excerpt from my book Mirror Image Shattered which describes how the reading of this scene within Nadia triggered a horrific memory that has been hiding from me for almost 50 years.

The Lead up to My Recall

In the novel, Nina is an ex-care worker who finds herself in celebrity Vincent's limo which later crashes. Throughout, Nina appears naive, like a child in the company of adults who are sharing grown-up innuendos. Nina is flustered and seduced. This is because Nina is in fact only 3.

The scene contains a strong subtext of what actually happened to me when I was 3. All my novels contain disturbing double-meanings which I hadn't noticed. The subtext here is shown in italics. Notice how the roles of Vincent and his PA sometimes merge. Notice also how action is taken out of context.

This next bit has spurred a churning in my stomach and I am sick with dread. Here goes.

“Nina is in a nightclub with friends having a loud time with drinks.

Uncle Dan, Mum, Dad and perhaps others are chatting in the living-room of our cottage 1968.

Nina is urged to snog a pole-dancer. The crowd join and Nina feels embarrassed.

I am the centre of attention for some reason, possibly because of Uncle Dan.

Nina’s friends spot celebrity Vincent in the corner who looks bored. Nina thinks he is an odious alpha-male.

Uncle Dan unnerves me even at three.

Nina gets separated from her drunken friends and remains at the nightclub.

I get separated from my chief caregivers.

Vincent's PA is in the bar. He introduces himself and jokes about the scene in the nightclub.

Uncle Dan possibly says something to me and I am flustered.

The PA flatters Nina before offering her a lift home in Vincent's limo.

I feel obliged to show gratitude for Uncle Dan’s attentions.

Nina proceeds to a dressing room before making her way to the limo.

I possibly don my pyjamas or something to get ready for bed.

Nina’s foot slips as she makes her way to the limo with Vincent's PA.

My toddler foot slips as I approach the bedroom door.

Nina feels uneasy about entering the limo.

I have a bad feeling about going into my bedroom with Uncle Dan about.

Vincent and his PA make jokes that Nina does not get. She feels insecure at the overtones.

I don’t understand Uncle Dan’s adult sense of humour.

The limo falls silent. It is dark outside.

My bedroom is silent. It is dark outside.

Vincent changes his shirt to expose broad expanse of flesh.

Uncle Dan has taken off his shirt for some reason.

Nina regrets entering the limo. She fears the press may find things out about her past and that her mother will get involved.

I wish I wasn’t in my bedroom. Uncle Dan tells me not to speak to my mother.

Before long, the limo falls into a skid as described here:

The floor quaked and the chassis jerked violently. The shadows reared and crashed against the windows. Nina’s seat-belt seized her in a molar-rattling embrace. She feels she is on a fairground carousel on a tumble down a hill.

Uncle Dan is upon me, restraining me with force. Everything has become a blur.

Nina sensed she was tumbling downwards with horrible force. The road receded in a sickening freefall that flattened her against her seat (I fall back on my bed). Her stunned windpipe would not permit a sound. (I cannot make a sound).

Nina’s knuckles hardened against the edge of her seat (the mattress). The death-car’s fishtail battered her into a ragdoll state (my body is shaking like a ragdoll).

The limo tilts, her skull aches and the limo groans. Nina’s seatbelt cut into her midriff. She batted the floor in a futile attempt to defy gravity.

My feet bat the foot of the bed as Uncle Dan is assaulting me. I can hardly breathe.

The cab pitched backwards. In an instant, her head weighed a ton. Her nape slammed against her seat. Would the cab ceiling be her final vision?

His force increases. My skull aches. Would my bedroom ceiling be my final vision?

She grunted air she thought impossible. She didn’t want to black out.

He is suffocating me. I am blacking out.

Her body no longer felt hers. No pain, just numbness, a disembodiment.

I come-to. My body no longer feels mine.

She sneered like a child at the sight of a worm. She gawped at her hands. Warm, sticky. Nina flaps her palms against the seat, crying out.

In the novel, this is blood. In reality, I have been sexually assaulted.

Nina’s breaths condensed upon the window. On the outside, Nina saw another self staring at her. (Nina is seeing Vincent's reflection in the glass, which is really a split-off of herself).”

This is dissociation: the splitting of the consciousness during trauma. Vincent and Nina have now become two halves of one person experiencing the same trauma. Vincent is suffocating now instead of Nina. No sex abuse occurs in this scene. Instead, a phallic-shaped sweet has got lodged in Vincent's throat. Action is taken out of context, which frequently happens in my novels. Vincent's fingernails gouge at the car seat as he is choking to death.

I am rewriting my memory so I am no longer taking the abuse. However, I am the one who thrashes about and gouges at the mattress as I struggle for air.

The scene continues like this, the subtext, again is in italics:

“Nina forages for her mobile phone. With no signal, she pleads into the mouthpiece.

I am terrified and plead for someone to be with me.

Nina now attempts to save Vincent's life by piercing his throat with a shard of glass. The paramedics arrive and Vincent's body is ferried on a stretcher. Nina feels he no longer belongs to her because his body was in fact mine.

Later in the novel, Nina awakens to the news of the crashed limo. She thinks to herself:

They’ve had sex in the limo and now Vincent can no longer speak. At a newsstand, Nina sees a mother shoving a toddler-laden buggy past.

Uncle Dan has raped me in my bedroom and my toddlerhood cognition renders me mute. But the trauma remains in my head, subconsciously triggered by the sight of toddlers who resemble myself at that age.”

The manner in which Nina wipes the blood from her hands had triggered the memory.

That one paragraph brought the horrible memory to the surface of when I came-to after Uncle Dan had suffocated me on my bed. It’s always been there but my brain had done a good job of hiding it from me.