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.
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AnnCeline Dagger | Author 