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Prologue: The Beliefs I Held Before Discovering the Truth About My Toddlerhood

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This article looks at the beliefs that shaped my identity before I discovered the dark truth about my childhood. Not until 25 October 2016 at the age of 51, would the lie I've lived, vanish into a mirage. I am about to uncover something truly horrific about my toddlerhood. The circumstances that led to this discovery are somewhat complex but incredible. All of it is true. This condensed version is told in 10 parts following this prologue. However, the full story can be found within my book, Mirror Image Shattered . This is what I thought I knew about myself until the age of 51. My Family and Early Identity I am an identical twin and daughter to troubled but well-meaning parents. The cottage that I grew up in was cramped, as I have four other siblings and we had little money. But Dad knew about renovation and he built an extension with a guestroom where Nan used to stay. Childhood Memoir Prologue: Where it all Began When I was 4, Dad quit the family business and worked nights f...
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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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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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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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Return to the Railway Tunnel 32 Years Later: 5 May 2018

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In the summer of 1985, I spent weeks painting a railway tunnel without understanding why the site bothered me. Thirty‑two years later, after uncovering the truth about my toddlerhood, I returned to the tunnel. It is now 5 May 2018. Eighteen months have now passed since I uncovered the horrific truth of my toddlerhood . I continue to struggle to come to terms with what I have found. Returning to the Tunnel After 32 Years Secret messages to my trauma emerged from the manner in which I composed two landscape settings for alfresco painting. The first one was a railway tunnel and and gate , where I produced paintings in the summer of 1985. Feeling that something was amiss, I placed a dead tree against the gate at the mouth of the railway bridge. My paintings and drawings of the dead tree and tunnel Messages within the Landscape The second setting was a tumbledown barn in a field in the summer of 1986. Again, feeling that something was amiss, I placed a plank across the doorway. My ba...
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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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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 5: How I Uncovered the Truth about my Toddlerhood: The Man in My Chest

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I am about to solve the mystery of the missing four hours. A childhood sensation called a somatic memory would reveal psychological fragmentation and the imprint of early trauma. The Mystery of the Missing Hours After talking to my identical twin about her terrible accident that occurred when we were 4, I discovered things about that day that didn’t fit. I had thrown a glass bottle at Eve after a squabble. On seeing blood on her face, I had dashed out of the cottage to hide somewhere in the garden. For decades I had believed I had wandered in a daze for 10 minutes or so before returning via the back door. However, I have since realized that the light had radically changed between my dash out of the cottage and my return. Not only that, but Eve had already been stitched up and was laying on Mum’s lap. I had not encountered a family member the entire time Eve was in hospital. So where had I gone? Finding Answers to my Toddlerhood I naturally ask Mum about that day but she is by now te...
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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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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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