The Truth Revealed
However, a series of events would reveal that my lifelong
passion for novel-writing was in fact fueled by my childhood trauma of seeing my twin Eve's bloodied face after an accident with glass. We were both just 4. Nonetheless, I was later
to learn that Eve’s accident merely formed a portal to earlier, more horrific
traumas of when I was 3.
My mother’s half-brother Uncle Dan had lived in our cottage
for over a year in 1968. I was only 3 at the time and assumed he had nothing to
do with me. However, after gleaning my novels, I discovered recurrent scenes of
sex abuse, rape and smothering all over the place. I hadn’t noticed because
I was looking only for broken bottles and disfigured faces - things to do with Eve's accident. I also believed I
was simply writing ‘dark fiction.’
On seeing Eve’s anesthetized form on her return from
hospital, I had seen a man’s face rise in my chest. This bizarre experience is
known as a somatic memory, which means a body part stores the memory rather
than the brain alone. The man’s face had been Uncle Dan’s. I hadn’t realized at
the time, not understanding what I was experiencing.
One particular scene in my novel Nadia would finally trigger a horrific memory of what had happened to me when I was 3. The scenes were factual recounts dressed up as fiction and taken out of context. Adults replace the parts of children. The manner in which I described a woman wiping blood from her hands had triggered the memory. I had just read about a character almost choking to death after another character, based upon Uncle Dan, had entered the scene.
I now have the terrible memory of being suffocated at the age
of 3. I haven’t seen it for almost 50 years.
This next part is an abridged excerpt from my book Mirror Image Shattered which describes
what actually happened. I had found it extremely difficult to write and certain
readers may find it distressing.
“My twin Eve and I had been playing in our
bedroom. He climbed onto my bed. Being only 3, I had believed this
adult was doing something routine. His dark face loomed against the
ceiling.
He mounted my abdomen, legs astride. He grunted commands. I grew confused.
He added force and eclipsed the window as his shadow drew across. His next
action was swift. He cut off my airways. I had initially
believed this unintended and he would move, but he didn’t. Terror reared up on the
realization he was intentionally denying me of air. I writhed
and kicked. I screamed in my throat, but the sound
never came out.
His weight and his pressure grew unimaginable, burning my face. A snowstorm gathered
over my eyes and the pulse in my eardrums became deafening. The torture of
asphyxiation is indescribable. I’m going
to die, I thought, even at 3. I had no choice but to give in, but the
moment could not arrive soon enough. I blacked out.
I came-to. He was gone. I knew even at
3, he had done something despicable. My head weighed a ton and I felt
sick, my sinuses pounding.
I wiped something horrid from my hands. Filth and shame overpowered me. Burying the memory had seemed my only
option. From then on, I hated my body and I wanted to be
someone else.”
Trauma Memory
It seems incredible that such a terrible memory could
be buried within my subconscious for almost 50 years. And yet this is exactly what
my brain has done. Self-preservation must have been the aim.
Strangely, I have thought of that memory every day of my life, but merely as symbols, imaginary situations and scenes taken out of context, not as anything real.
A year after being suffocated on my bed, I would see Uncle
Dan’s face in my chest at the sight of my identical twin's comatose
form. She had triggered the memory of seeing my Uncle’s face seconds before he had
suffocated me. I would become like Eve: comatose. But even at 4, I didn’t know who the man was and I had no access to the actual memory.
With the memory now in my conscious awareness, my past
is about to fall apart. I am not who I thought I was and I am about to enter a
strange and frightening landscape. Further questions naturally arise: my lifelong
intrusive thoughts. Were they in fact flashbacks? What about my childhood
familiar and my secret world? I can no longer ask Mum as she passed away
shortly after I retrieved the memory.
Pushchair Chronicles
I was soon to discover further clues to my toddlerhood
within my so-called novels which I now view as ‘pushchair chronicles’. I would
find anagrams of his name, anagrams of mine, evidence of a split psyche due to
dissociation, clues to our family situation in 1968 that I didn’t
know I knew. Worse, I would find descriptions of further traumas within key
scenes, including rape.
My lifelong childhood familiar, Aidan contains his
name: Dan. How many times had my toddler ears heard Dad or Nan address my uncle
as ‘hey, Dan’ or ‘Our, Dan’ as they spoke to him? Weirder, my novel, Nadia is
Aidan spelled backwards.
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| Mind map of growing up after living a nightmarish toddlerhood (Mirror Image Shattered) |
But this is only the beginning.
I am about to embark upon a treacherous journey that will cast further light upon my shadowy toddlerhood. The
full story can be found in my book Mirror Image Shattered.
However, I was yet to discover that my artwork and my
diaries would also yield clues.
Only a specific set of circumstances would have
provided access to the horrific memory. I would easily have lived my life through,
completely unaware that I had been raped when I was 3.
Uncle Dan has been dead since 1998.
This completes the story of how I first uncovered the
truth about my horrific toddlerhood.
Go back to part 9
Or start again at the prologueGo back to part 9
