Alaina Urquhart

The detached nature of Olav and Elizabeth's relationship appears to have filtered down to their children.

And it kind of prevented them not just forming a bond with their parents, but with one another as well.

Oh.

Yeah.

This led to all the Nilsen children, but Dennis in particular, becoming very isolated and withdrawn.

For Dennis, this meant spending hours alone every day, escaping into an increasingly intense fantasy world.

In fact, Nilsen even described himself as, quote, an unhappy brooding child, secretive and stricken with inferiority.

Oh, that's awful.

Horrifying.

Yeah.

It's true that Dennis felt a very tenuous connection to his parents and siblings, but the family wasn't entirely like fractured.

Yeah.

Because his grandparents were such a constant presence in his early life, he formed a very big, like very strong bond with his grandfather, Andrew White.

Yeah.

Unlike Dennis's mother, who is generally detached and permissive, Andrew was actually a harsh and deeply religious man with an incredibly rigid sense of morality.

Well, I was relieved for like one second.

Well, the thing is, when it came to his grandson, he was very warm and compassionate.

And it was really maybe the only connection Dennis had to the world outside his fantasies.

And because of this, Dennis was devastated when in the fall of 1951, 62-year-old Andrew died from a heart attack while he was on a fishing boat.

That is so young.