Archive of Articles About My Toddlerhood

My name is Madeleine Watson. It is an assumed name for reasons that will become clear. I am an identical twin and I live in the UK. In 2016 I discovered I had been brutalized when I was 3 by an uncle who lived with me throughout 1968. For 50 years, I lived in oblivion to what he had done. In the meantime, I wrote diaries, stories and produced artwork. I wish to share with you what my life has been like and how I unearthed the truth about my difficult toddlerhood.

The image shows me during one of my writing episodes. My creations are fuelled by intrusive thoughts.

The Core Themes of My Work

This page brings together all of my writing on childhood trauma, identity, memory, and understanding what has happened to me. My work spans memoir, diary fragments, research, and visual storytelling, to piece together different aspects of how my early experiences have shaped my adult self.

I created this collection as a way for readers to navigate my articles more easily and to follow the themes that run through my work — twinhood, revelation, emotional survival, and the unravelling of lifelong patterns. These links lead to full-length posts where I write openly about my experience, difficult questions and the uncomfortable truth I continue to uncover.

What is it like to carry a brutalised toddler within the adult self?

If you’re new to my writing, this page is a good starting point. It offers a curated path through the pieces that matter to me, and I hope it helps you find the stories or reflections that resonate with your own journey.

My Full List of Articles On This Blog

About this blog

Books by Madeleine Watson
The moment I learned the truth
How I learned about my toddlerhood
About my diaries
My book Mirror Image Shattered
The Lessons A True Story about a Parasitic Novel
Tales from Daler Cottage: Unearthing the Messages within my Children’s Stories

How I discovered the truth about my toddlerhood

Prologue: What I Thought I Knew about Myself
Part 1: A Day at the Beach
Part 2: My Obsessive Novel Writing
Part 3: My Twin’s Accident
Part 4: The Missing Four Hours
Part 5: The Man in My Chest
Part 6: Coma
Part 7: Black Hole in the Dark
Part 8: Trigger
Part 9: Suffocation Memory
Part 10: My Life Falls Apart

My Parasitic Novel

How my childhood trauma split my psyche in two

My Artwork

Hidden message behind the railway tunnel
Hidden message behind the barn painting
Visit to the Railway Tunnel 32 Years Later
Visit to the Derelict Barn 31 Years Later
My landscape paintings decoded

My Doll Playing

The first aid dummy in the village fete of 8 July 1978
My odd doll pantomimes of 31 Jan 1978 – 25 Jan 1981
Triggers to my doll pantomimes in 1978
The trigger behind my doll pantomimes 17 – 31 October 1978

My Odd Behavior

My odd behavior in Dad’s bedroom My behavior as a Sunday school teacher in 1981
My Sunday school records 1 Feb to 1 Nov 1981

My Periods

My 6-day period pain, story and intrusive thoughts 2 – 7 May 1977

Day Trips and Holidays

The first aid dummy in the village fete of 8 July 1978
My day trip to Port Meriden on 3 Aug 1981 where The Prisoner was filmed

Excerpts from Tales from Daler Cottage

The Haunted House