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This page is the best place to begin if you’re new to my research into toddlerhood trauma.

I have used an assumed name, Madeleine, for sensitive reasons.

In 1986, I graduated with a degree in Fine Art from a London polytechnic. My achievement came from an inability to sit still. My artwork was abundant, huge. Just like my other endeavours. I couldn't stop.

In 2016 (thirty years after my graduation), I learned that trauma has fuelled not only my degree show, but all my creations. I have written children’s stories, novels, factual projects and kept a detailed diary. My ugly toddlerhood has fuelled my copious creations.


Research books by Madeleine Watson
My research books available online. Click image to buy.

At the age of three, I lost my childhood to a strange man who lived in my childhood home in 1968.

During my decades of oblivion, I’ve kept diaries, churned out artwork, stories and wrote factual projects. These outpourings have led me to uncover the ugly truth about my toddlerhood at the age of 51 — a discovery that shattered everything I believed about myself.

This blog brings together my research. It explores something normally shaded from view: a stolen toddlerhood.

Readers interested in toddlerhood trauma, complex PTSD and how the brain protects the adult self will find this blog useful. Find reflective essays and hard-boiled research from my outpourings created prior to recall when I was 51.

The Journey Begins Here

Read About Me for background. My research strands are teased apart in my themes page, which clarifies each area. Browse the Book Catalogue page where the full story can be found and where you can buy my books from Amazon.

For now, read a Prologue that introduces the 10-part series that tells the story leading to the moment I learned the truth about my toddlerhood. Why I wrote this blog is explained in Home and About this blog.

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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. My research books explains all. 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 ag...
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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. Image taken from my book, Mirror Image Shattered . 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 mad...
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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. My book Tales from Daler Cottage analyses them. I reasoned my troubled thoughts were typical of the hum...
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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 Haunted Me The following is sources from my memoir book, Mirror Image Shattered . 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 T...
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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. My 1986 Paintings Reveals My Past Excerpts of the following have been taken from my memoir book, Mirror Image Shattered . 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 D...
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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 tomboy...
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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. Taken from my book Tales from Daler Cottage . 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. Th...
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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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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 Characters of My Doll Stories My book, Mirror Image Shattered explains. 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 Subconscious 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 supi...
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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 scen...
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