About Me

Hello, I’m Madeleine. I'm a memoirist, artist, diarist and researcher. For almost fifty years, I lived a lie. It goes back to my toddlerhood.

Since learning a terrible truth in 2016, I’ve documented my inner and outer life through diaries, artwork, creative projects and family history research. My work explores how early childhood experiences shape identity, memory and the adult self.

This blog brings together the strands of that lifelong record. Through memoir, diary excerpts, artwork and essays, I share the story of how I uncovered the truth about my toddlerhood at the age of 51 — a discovery that shattered my belief system. My writing examines trauma, resilience, identity, twinhood, creativity and the ways we make sense of our past.

I hold a degree in Fine Art (1986) and have spent many years writing, painting and researching personal history. My diaries from the late seventies and eighties form the backbone of my work, offering a continuous record of thoughts, fears, creative obsessions and the emotional landscape of growing up in a turbulent household.

My aim is to offer an honest, carefully researched and creatively expressed account of a life shaped by darkness and resilience. I hope readers who have lived through difficult beginnings — or who are simply drawn to memoir, psychology or family history — will find something meaningful here.

If you’re new, you can begin with the Start Here page, which introduces the prologue and the 10‑part series that leads to the moment I learned the truth.

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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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Prologue: My Beliefs Before Discovering the Truth About My Toddlerhood

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If you’re new to my writing, this page is the best place to begin. I am an author, artist, diarist, archivist and researcher. I was born in 1965 and live in the UK. This blog is about how a disturbed and stolen childhood distorts the adult self. I wrote diaries, stories, poems and projects, all holding clues to my dark beginnings. The reader will find my artwork, diary excerpts and my research. Ultimately, I wish to share what I have learned. My work spans how I uncovered the truth about my toddlerhood at the age of 51. Yes, my toddlerhood. Read how my diaries, artwork, and family history slowly revealed a terrible truth, hidden for decades. This prologue tells the story from the beginning. From here, you can follow the 10‑part series that leads to the moment I learned the truth. When the Truth Leaked Out This article looks at the beliefs that shaped my identity before I discovered the dark truth about my toddlerhood. Not until 21 October 2016 at the age of 51, would the lie I've l...
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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 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 ...
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The Hidden Message Behind My 1985 Railway Tunnel Paintings: 23 Aug - 18 Sep 1985

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In the summer of 1985, I spent weeks painting a railway tunnel without understanding why the site unsettled me.  This is a true story about secret messages in my landscape paintings . The journey is dark, but the outcome is unexpected and heartening. Introduction: The Summer That Would Haunt Me It is late August 1985. I’m 20 and about to begin my third and final year at University. The summer holidays are coming to a close and I have no idea what I’m going to paint for my Fine Art degree show. I’m beginning to feel tetchy. Dad tells me of a railway tunnel where he takes the dog for a walk. It might be a good spot for alfresco paintings. On 23 August 1985, I accompany him to encounter an old railway bridge with a cattle gate. It seems ok, but something is missing. I mention this to Dad, but he doesn’t see what I mean. He likes the site and believes it has everything needed for good landscape painting. The Railway Tunnel: A Place That Felt Wrong Dissatisfied, I accompany Dad to a...
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How Childhood Trauma Shaped My Behaviour as a Sunday School Teacher at Fifteen: 15 February - 1 November 1981

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Between 15 February and 1 November 1981, Mum arranged me to be a Sunday school teacher. She probably did so because I didn’t socialize much. I now know I was different because my toddlerhood had been brutalized by an uncle who lived with us for over a year in 1968. I was 3 and my adult self was completely oblivious to this fact until I was 51 .   Becoming a Sunday School Teacher at Fifteen During my Sunday School teaching, I had no conscious awareness of my vile toddlerhood but I kept a diary of a life that did not seem extraordinary on face value. On 1 Feb 1981, Mum arranges me to be a Sunday school teacher The Persona I Adopted: A Separate Identity So I begin Sunday school teaching when I am 15 in 1981. I never enjoy it, but I am successful (the church warden, Mrs. Lackie said she couldn’t do without me).   However, I am mortified to find hidden clues to my difficult toddlerhood in how I behaved whilst I was Sunday school teaching.   Firstly, I am by nature a tombo...
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The Hidden Message Behind the Derelict Barn: 15 July – 21 September 1986

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It is 15 July 1986 and I am 21. I have just graduated from City University with a degree in Fine Art with Hons. I had almost failed due to the lowest dissertation mark of my group. However, the strength of my paintings had earned me an upper-second. My degree show had comprised studio pieces taken from alfresco oil paintings of a bridge, gate and dead tree scene just outside our village.   Still, I am pleased about my degree result. What My 1986 Paintings Revealed About My Past I am now living back home, am on the dole with no boyfriend. I am also struggling with my novel The Lessons , which I had been working on since 23 April 1985. With nothing else to focus my mind on, I decide to have a go at another stint of alfresco oil paintings like last summer. I focus my mind upon the Stables Farm at the bottom of our road. Dad knows the owners and had asked permission for us to trek over the fields there. The Derelict Building That Held My Buried Childhood Trauma Abridged excerpts fr...
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The Haunted House – A Children’s Short Story from My Early Writing

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This article explores one of the earliest short stories I ever wrote as a child. I can now see themes and patterns that would later recur in my novels. These patterns would indicate something is very wrong with my life. This story is about Frankenstein's monster and a haunted house. It was written on 20 Sept 1975. I was ten years old and at school. Being only 200 hundred words, will only take a moment. My illustrations for the Haunted House showing the monster of Frankenstein , a coffin and dead spiders. The Haunted House – The Story I Wrote as a Child Once upon a time there was a girl called Claire Jones . She ran away from her stepmother and father. They treated her badly. She saw a house and heard footsteps. Suddenly Claire saw a big shadow on the outside wall of the house. She turned and saw Frankenstein (meaning the monster). He said, ‘Come here my child’. He picked her up and gave her sleeping pills and then she fell asleep. Then Frankenstein put her in a cold room and lo...
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The Doll Pantomimes: How Childhood Play Revealed My Hidden Trauma

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Between 31 March 1978 and 25 January 1981, I created what I called “doll pantomimes.” I recorded them in my diaries, which I had begun in Christmas 1976 and continued until July 1988. Only in adulthood did I understand that these pantomimes were expressing my difficult and disturbed toddlerhood. The Cast of My Doll Stories The cast of my stories included a large doll with blue eyes and curly flaxen hair; a panda called Collywobbles, who was chatty and popular; Tatty Teddy Bear who was likeable and easy-going; Delia (also known as Big D) who was scheming and bossy; Cindy who was high-maintenance and fashionable and finally Humpty who was oafish and silly. (Other toys took part in minor roles). Reconstruction of my doll-playing. Sue is in fact comatose after being suffocated. Sue: The Unconscious Centre of the Story There would be no pantomime without Sue (the blonde doll). She was the star, but she had no lines. All she did was lay supine unconscious in the background as the other to...
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My Childhood Diaries: How My Early Journals Revealed the Truth About My Lost Toddlerhood

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My diaries are extraordinary because they were written by someone who was unaware that her toddlerhood had been stolen by an uncle who lived in her childhood home throughout 1968. I was 3 at the time. In October 2016, a month before my mother’s death, the message about my toddlerhood would finally get through: via my novels. I would then see the clues to lost innocence stamped all over my artwork, my stories and my diaries.   This article is about my diaries. My diaries My First Diary (1977): Innocence on the Page I kept a diary between 1977 and 1988. I had my first diary for Christmas when I was 11. This first diary, which was a Letts Schoolgirl’s Diary was small and therefore contributions were brief, being a sentence or so. My first ever entry was on Dec 26 1976: “Went to church. Had a fight with an older sister. She had the blame. Played organ and games, Mastermind and Top Form.” My 1977 diary On 9 January 1977, I made my first mention of writing a story: Solomy’s Tre...
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Part 2: The Novels That Exposed My Buried Trauma — How Fiction Revealed What I Couldn’t Remember

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This article describes how years of compulsive writing would one day show me the trauma I carry. My fiction thrillers conversely carry fact. I am about to find out I have been living a lie. The Aftermath of Colwyn Bay I truly believed Colwyn Bay had almost claimed my children after they had drifted out to sea in floats. Once I had led them back to the beach, a mysterious depression had descended upon me. The creepy feeling of an earlier ‘me’ running within my body as I darted into the sea kept lingering. The Thunderstorm Within Throughout my life I have suffered intrusive thoughts and a dirty-blame feeling which I explained to a troubled childhood of warring parents and Dad’s mental illness. Countless creative pursuits and projects formed a diversion including painting, and particularly novel writing. A secret fantasy world had been a consistent force throughout my life and it felt like an alternative reality. For decades, a childhood familiar whom I called Aidan haunted my imagini...
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Part 3: My Twin’s Childhood Accident — The Day That Triggered a Hidden Memory

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I am about to find out the truth about my life. A childhood accident involving my identical twin would form the portal to a horrific memory. It would point me to an emotional fractures and and a deeper, unspoken trauma. The Memory That Rose From the Sea I am sitting on the quayside badly shaken after believing I had lost my children to to sea. This would trigger an old, equally-traumatic memory of when I had been 4. My twin had injured herself after a squabble and I had darted through the back door on seeing blood on her face. Eve’s accident is nothing new, for it was an old story that my family seldom talks of now. What shocked me was how the mind can play tricks, hiding the trauma sensation and the horrific detail. The Patterns in My Novels Worse still, I noticed patterns within my novels that I had feverishly been writing for decades. I never noticed them before: broken glass, blood, disfigured faces and characters running north to a hideout. They were everywhere. Climactic sce...
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