The story is not what he says it is.

Apparently, I always engaged in silly behaviour, like putting my finger into an outdoor electrical socket. Or getting into a stranger’s car.

I couldn’t recall ever getting into a stranger’s car. So I asked, “How did I get out?”

“Oh, apparently they just let me go again.”

Just like that.

I didn’t believe that story.

Why would someone take me and just let me go again?

I remembered the truth years later.

I never got myself into that car.

I was pushed in.

(By him.)

The morning of—or night before—I was told he would pick me up from kindergarten and we would go do something fun together. I was instructed not to walk with my friends.

He waited at the end of the walkway by the road. I ran to him. Then I noticed the car. It was not his car.

He opened the door. I hesitated.

Then he grabbed me and pushed me into the back seat, telling me, “You’re a smart girl.”

That’s right. I was a smart kid.

I often knew something was off instinctively.

He didn’t seem to like that I was smart, quick-witted, and observant—unusual for a child that age.

He pushed me in.

Then he got into the front passenger seat. The car moved.

A woman with curly dark hair and hoop earrings sat in the back seat with me. She gave me a chocolate cookie—my favourite at the time.

I didn’t know her. I didn’t know the man driving the car.

We stopped. He got out. The door closed. The car kept moving.

I jumped on my knees and looked through the back window, watching him turn—coat flying—as he walked back up the road toward our town.

Without me.

My heart dropped into my stomach.

An immediate sense of terror came over me.

I was left with strangers.

What was going to happen to me?

I will spare you the details.

They did drop me off again later. I don’t know how much later. I don’t know if I stayed overnight or if it was just an hour or two.

All I know is that I landed on the side of the road, not fully conscious. In shock. Feeling beside myself.

I vaguely remember someone finding me and carrying me home. I remember lying in bed, having pains, not responding. I wasn’t talking.

Similar to the feeling after I got electrocuted.

I felt numb. Like I was no longer there.

My body buzzing. My legs rigid.

I couldn’t feel anything.

I began to realize that what I had been given wasn’t the truth—it was a version of it.

Reflections

Not a complete lie, but something carefully shaped.

Enough truth to make it believable. Enough distortion to make me doubt myself.

He didn’t just control what happened.

He controlled how it would be remembered.

He told the story before I ever had the chance to form my own.

It explains why remembering didn’t feel like clarity at first—it felt like confusion.

What was coming back didn’t match what I had believed all those years.

It didn’t match what I had been told.

That was the hardest part—not the memories themselves, but the conflict between two versions of reality.

I didn’t know which one to trust.

Looking back, I can see why.

I wasn’t just remembering—I was undoing something that had been shaped for me.

I was trying to find my truth underneath someone else’s version of it.

Clarity

I’ve always wanted clarity.

Now I understand why.

Clarity cuts through confusion. It exposes what doesn’t add up.

And when something isn’t clear, it leaves space—space for doubt, for distortion, for someone else’s version to take over.

Whether intentional or not, a lack of clarity keeps the truth just out of reach.

And I can see now how long I lived in that space—trying to make sense of something that was never fully clear to begin with.

I didn’t carry his version as my own.

I didn’t even fully remember it.

But I also never believed it completely.

Something in me knew it wasn’t the whole truth.

But there was a quiet resistance.

A sense that something didn’t add up.

And years later, when the truth started to surface, it didn’t feel entirely new.

It felt… familiar.

Looking back, even before I remembered anything, something in me felt uneasy around him.

There were no natural hugs. Everything felt stiff. Distant.

He often sat far away from me.

When I read stories to my kids in bed, he never joined us.

I remember feeling uncomfortable when my daughter was in the water without clothes. Not because of her—but because of how he was around it.

I didn’t have words for it then. I didn’t have memories to explain it.

But something in me noticed.

Even the way he spoke about things—like when there was a news story about a child molester. He said they should be castrated.

I just knew it didn’t sit right.

I know what happened to me.

I felt it in the way he was around me.

In the distance. The stiffness. The things that didn’t feel natural.

I didn’t have the memory then.

But I had the feeling.

And now, those pieces don’t feel like guesses.

They feel like things I noticed—before I understood why.

It doesn’t all have to line up.

Now, with what I know, those moments don’t feel random anymore.

They feel connected in a way I couldn’t see before.

It’s not about proving anything.

It’s about finally allowing myself to see what I was never allowed to see clearly before.

Not perfectly—but enough for me to stop doubting myself.

Enough for me to trust that what I experienced was real.

It’s not about searching for answers anymore.

It’s recognition.

A quiet knowing.

Not forced. Not pieced together.

Just something in me that sees it now… and doesn’t need to question it the same way anymore.

Little girl with car

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Denial (not a river in Egypt)

Sometimes it’s not that the truth isn’t there—it’s that we’re not able to hold it yet.

Denial is often misunderstood.

It’s not the same as disbelief.

Disbelief comes from a lack of information, proof, or something simply not feeling believable.

Denial is different.

Denial happens when something is too much for the mind to accept—whether it’s true or not. It’s not about evidence. It’s about capacity.

You can be presented with facts, proof, even lived experiences—and still reject it. Not because it isn’t real, but because something in you cannot hold it.

That’s denial.

It can also happen within your own life.

Something may have happened to you—something significant—but your mind rejects it entirely because it wasn’t safe to process at the time.

In that sense, denial isn’t just rejection.

It can look like forgetfulness.

An inability to recall something that mattered.

And that’s where it gets deeper.

Because this isn’t just psychological—it’s biological.

The brain is wired for survival. When something feels overwhelming, threatening, or unsafe, it doesn’t sit there and calmly process it.

It protects you.

Stress hormones rise. The nervous system activates. Fight or flight kicks in. And memory doesn’t get stored the same way anymore.

In cases of repeated or long-term trauma, this becomes even more pronounced. What some call complex post-traumatic stress isn’t just about remembering something painful—it’s about how the brain and body adapted to survive it.

You may not remember what happened.

But your body often does.

You notice it in your reactions.

In the way certain people make you uneasy.

In your sensitivity to tone, noise, presence.

In how quickly you get triggered or overwhelmed.

Your subconscious doesn’t forget.

It sends signals long before your conscious mind understands why.

And sometimes, when the system is overwhelmed enough, it doesn’t fight or run—it shuts down.

Dizziness. Numbness. Even fainting.

Especially in children who had no way to escape what was happening.

That’s not weakness.

That’s survival.

For a long time, I didn’t understand any of this.

There were things in my life that didn’t make sense.

Gaps. Reactions I couldn’t explain. Feelings that didn’t match my reality.

So I started asking questions.

I researched. I reached out—to professionals, organizations, people from my past. I tried to piece together something that had felt incomplete for most of my life.

There was no one guiding me through it.

No one confirming anything.

No one stepping forward.

Just silence.

And over time, I began to see how much had been denied—not just by me, but around me.

How narratives were shaped. Redirected. Avoided.

How easy it is to build a version of reality that keeps certain things hidden.

At one point, I had zero tolerance for denial.

Anger came up. A lot of it.

Things I had pushed down for years surfaced—rage, frustration, confusion. It showed up in my body, in my sleep, in ways I couldn’t ignore anymore.

And I understood something important:

When you try to speak and are shut down over and over again, eventually you stop speaking.

Not because you have nothing to say.

But because it doesn’t feel safe to say it.

That silence… that’s also part of denial.

Not just from others—but within yourself.

And yet, even through all of that, there was always something in me that knew.

A quiet awareness.

Something that didn’t need constant proof, but started recognizing patterns, connections, truths that had been sitting there all along.

That’s when things began to shift.

Denial isn’t always the enemy.

It can serve a purpose.

If we were forced to fully relive and process everything all at once, many of us wouldn’t function. Denial creates space. It allows you to keep going when something is too much to hold.

But it’s not meant to be permanent.

At some point, what’s been pushed away starts to surface.

In pieces. In patterns. In feelings that don’t go away.

That’s where awareness comes in.

You don’t need to remember every detail.

You don’t need everything to line up perfectly.

But understanding how your past shaped your reactions, your behaviors, your beliefs—that’s where real change begins.

Awareness is one part.

Choice is the other.

You can’t build something solid while ignoring the foundation it stands on.

At some point, what hasn’t been addressed will show up again.

Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow.

But eventually.

That’s not punishment.

That’s reality catching up.

I’ve lived that.

I built a life that looked fine on the outside—but it wasn’t built on something stable. And when things started to fall apart, I didn’t understand why.

Until I did.

Denial had been part of it.

Not as a failure—but as a delay.

Over time, I’ve learned to approach this differently.

With more awareness.

Less resistance.

And sometimes even a bit of humor—because being human is messy, and we don’t always get it right.

Denial isn’t just refusing truth.

Sometimes, it’s the mind protecting you from something you weren’t ready to face.

And when you are ready…

It doesn’t need to be forced.

It doesn’t need to be proven the same way anymore.

You recognize it.

Quietly.

And that’s enough.

River in Egypt / Photo by Oziel Gómez from Pexels

Review of A Puzzled Mind

I recently had my book reviewed by Kathleen Bailey, I asked her for an honest review.

A Puzzled Mind

This book is designed for those who are finding themselves recovering traumatic memories from their childhood and who have a new age outlook on life. 

If you think you have repressed memories or have reason to believe you went through a traumatic experience as a child, this book is written for you. It’s especially about sexual abuse and grooming. If someone you know is recovering repressed memories and you don’t understand how that’s possible, the book may be helpful to you as well. 

Why do I say it’s a new age book? There is mention of ESP, angels and such. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on the reader. It’s just something that’s important to note. 

The author goes over how she recovered her repressed memories. She also discusses signs you might see in yourself if you have memories you don’t fully remember. Help is given for self care while recovering these memories. It’s a short book but covers just what is needed for its topic. 

Buy A Puzzled Mind at Amazon.com and help support the blog.

Find A Puzzled Mind at Goodreads.

A Puzzled Mind

Who Am I?

If you are here, you may have read my book or seen a post on social media. I am AnnCeline, but that is not my real name. AnnCeline is the little girl inside of me I had forgotten about, because she was not acceptable and her story was too difficult to acknowledge by myself as well as others. So, I decided, to write from my heart, as her, to acknowledge her existence and validate her experiences.

Sometimes, our experiences are so harsh that we cannot acknowledge that they even happened and over time they disappear into the shadows of a forgetful mind.

Why bring it all back up?

  • Memories resurfaced after decades and wanted to be acknowledged and expressed
  • Our stories often are left untold because the unconscious dismiss our truth

My mission is to shed light on the shadows of our past and our present, to enlighten, to inspire and to empower others on a similar journey.

My goals are to

  • Help you see that you are completely sane and there is nothing wrong with you
  • Help you understand the experiences you have had that made no sense at first
  • Empower you and let you see what is possible when you begin to trust yourself
  • Giving you the tools to transform yourself and transmute your past into gold

Your healing journey starts the day you question your reality and begin to shine your light in places where you had been too afraid to look before.

When I woke up, I asked my guidance what I needed to heal from my traumatic past and I was told; “do nothing at all, allow your brain to heal naturally, give it time, give it time…”

I am so glad I listened.

I love to write about my spiritual experiences that led me throughout my life until the day I began my “remembering-childhood-trauma” journey. My life suddenly looked completely different but made complete sense where before it did not.

And just like that, I was awakening, remembering, healing and expanding into the limitless awareness of a high consciousness being.

AnnCeline

Photo by Joseph Redfield on Pexels.com