Archive of Articles About My Toddlerhood
My name is Madeleine Watson. It is an assumed name, chosen for reasons that will become clear. I am an identical twin living in the UK, and in 2016 I uncovered a truth that had been hidden from me for nearly fifty years: when I was three years old, I was brutalised by an uncle who lived with my family throughout 1968.
For half a century, I lived in complete oblivion to what he had done. In the meantime, I kept diaries, wrote stories, novels, and created artwork — all without seeing messages threading through them. Only in adulthood did I see how my early experiences had shaped my inner world, my behaviour, my creativity, and my identity.
The Themes of My Work
This page brings together 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.
The moment I learned the truth
How I learned about my toddlerhood
About my diaries
How decades of diary‑keeping became a map of my subconscious.
My book Mirror Image ShatteredThe 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
The day a buried memory surfaced and reshaped everything I believed about my early life.
A memory fragment that became the first piece of a much larger puzzle.
Part 2: My Obsessive Novel Writing
How a teenage writing obsession carried messages I couldn’t yet understand.
Part 3: My Twin’s AccidentA pivotal event that shaped my emotional world and sense of identity.
Part 4: The Missing Four HoursA gap in memory that later revealed its significance.
Part 5: The Man in My ChestA symbolic image that pointed toward something buried.
Part 6: ComaA psychological state that mirrored the silence surrounding my toddlerhood.
Part 7: Black Hole in the DarkA metaphor for the void where memory should have been.
Part 8: TriggerThe moment something small unlocked something enormous.
Part 9: Suffocation MemoryA resurfacing memory that changed the direction of my life.
Part 10: My Life Falls ApartThe emotional collapse that followed the revelation.
My Parasitic Novel
How my childhood trauma split my psyche in twoMy Artwork
Hidden message behind the railway tunnelA childhood drawing that carried a message I couldn’t yet see.
Hidden message behind the barn paintingVisit 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 1978My 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 1981My Sunday school records 1 Feb to 1 Nov 1981
My Periods
My 6-day period pain, story and intrusive thoughts 2 – 7 May 1977Day Trips and Holidays
The first aid dummy in the village fete of 8 July 1978My day trip to Port Meriden on 3 Aug 1981 where The Prisoner was filmed
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