The paradox of selfishness

I asked some wombtwin survivors how it feels to be selfish. I asked this because being selfish is a self-defeating thing, and it tends to distance you from others and make then react negatively to you or even hate you. Sounds like wombtwin stuff!

I got two sets of answers:

1. "Selfishness is a kind of self - sustaining effort, as if NOT being selfish would put my whole self at risk of failure and annihilation. It's to do with taking special care of my personal welfare in order to be able to function at all in this difficult, often hostile, world."

2 "Selfishness is a guilt trip: having been selfish and left others at a disadvantage, I am left feeling extremely guilty that I have done this awful thing. The most important element is how incredibly hard (even impossible) it is for me to apologise, so the guilt remains and sometimes triggers depression."

It just doesnt wash with me that one has to take such "special care of oneself" or indeed "live a life of perpetual guilt": something else, something much deeper, is going on. What could that be?

The answer eventually came clear: it's a paradox. If you are an identical wombtwin survivor then you are two people at once: one way to live this out is to be a paradoxical person and express two things at the same time:- to be horrible to people and yet feel bad about doing that; to care for yourself at the expense of others, even when you KNOW this is selfish behaviour. This is an aspect of narcissism.

Notice the paradox of addiction: even while you are taking the drug, overeating, starving, hoarding, cutting or whatever, there is a part of you that knows this is harmful and wrong, yet the other half does it anyway. It all happens in the same moment of time.

If you are trying to be two people at once - yourself and your own beta twin - then this would be completely normal behavior. At least it sounds normal to me!

Feel free to comment!

A film about a wombtwin survivor

This new film "The unborn" is a horror movie. Pity. It really does NOT help wombtwin survivors to be associated with a lot of Hollywood hype.

The twin bond is a loving one, usually positive, but of course there will always be twins who hate each other. However, it is never a haunting. Never that.

Resistance

Well, I have had two very revealing adventures today with regard to resistance - the psychological kind. That is the kind of stuff therapists meet all the time: it's the unstinting loyalty to, and absolute cooperation with, maintaining the status quo - to continue wantonly along the road to self-destruct and refuse to let anyone even imply that this chosen road is anything other than totally intelligent and appropriate in the circumstances.

A dear friend from long ago, who was a wonderful wordsmith (no doubt still is; I don't hear from him any more, but I shall celebrate his talents here) once decribed his therapy to me:

One of the enlightening moments in my therapy was to understand and to embrace, personally and not just intellectually, the concept of responsibility - the pyschotherapeutic responsibility for oneself and one's condition. I may not have been responsible for the way I was, but I was responsible for dealing with that from now on. Sitting on the pity pot, being a victim, is not efficacious.

But to find the way, mired as one is in so much encrusted, unyielding, hardset, behavioral grime, is not easy. It generally needs a guide, a wise voice who can point out small-step stepping stones along a way. Therapy was of course a revelation. It was an archaeological exercise. Scrape away carborundum-hard crud here, chisel diamond-tough dross away there, get down to a shard of real value lying buried, embedded in the matrix of time; tease it out, or not; go somewhere else; chip away more; see if that loosens the grip here. Build up a detailed picture, replete with revelation and realisation. That stuff is hard. It requires work.

Yes it is hard. Diamond-hard.

So if the person concerned is absolutely determined to remain on the "pity pot"; utterly committed to the idea of being a "victim", that is resistance to owing one's personal power to choose.

If the person is absolutely determined to drink alcohol to excess so the liver fails, the heart begins to wear out and death is imminent, that is resistance to healing.

If a person is absolutely determined to die, that is resistance to living.

What if there was an intelligent rational reason for such a high level of resistance to change for the better? If the explanation for this is that the individual concerned is a wombtwin survivor, what then may we learn?

I suggest that we must look to survivor guilt; to loyalty to one's little lost twin who hever stood a chance; to a desire to be reunited in death to the other dead half of oneself.

So if I don't want to be here and never wanted to be born; if I feel I don't deserve to be here because my twin never made it into born life - why then, I may throw my life away and sit on a pity pot for years, wasting the best years of my lfe waiting to be rescued by a skilled therapist.

My friend made it through therapy and is happy at last with the woman of his dreams. Sadly it is not always so. Hospitals all over the world are filled with patients killing themselves slowly with drugs, alcohol, overeating and other methods of self destruction.

Are you resistant to living?

Try a little thankfulness. You have been given the great gift of life; dont waste it, not one minute.

Would you refuse your Christmas presents? Hand them back unopened?

Un-wrap the gift of your life today and allow yourself to receive this gift. Its free; its here and its all yours. If you don't use it, no one else will. Not even your lost twin.

"Survivor" - is this a suitable word?

I have been having a breif but passionate email exchange with someone who strongly believes that "wombtwin survivor" is an unsuitable term, and we should rethink our use of words here.

The problem it seems is with the word "survivor" which seems to imply "victim", or "poor me".

For myself, the term "wombtwin survivor" is shorthand for "sole survivor of a twin conception" which is a term used by Dr Charles Boklage in the book "Multiple Pregnancy". (see here)

It has also been said that the term "wombtwin survivors" is a bit too glib: what about calling them "Castors" (after the myth of Gemini where Castor was the sole twin left here on earth.) I had a problem with this:- castor oil came to mind, which rather spoilt the classical image!

Anyhow, I am open to debate on this: any thoughts, anyone?

Combat ignorance! Tell your story to the world!

It is quite clear to me that if 10% of the worlds population is made up of wombtwin survivors, then 90% of the words population doesn't understand what we are talking about.

One way to counteract this lack of understanding is story telling.

The book "A Silent Cry" has 70 stories, but there are many millions of other stories out there. After all, there are at least 600 million wombtwin survivors in the world, each with their own story to tell. Here is one for today:

The story of my life

If you want your story to be out there, email me and I'll put in on the Wombtwin Survivors Project website, with all the others. Lets see how many stories we can collect!

If you already sent me a story on the questionnaire form, you can just email me with permission to upload it to the site (anonymously, of course, unless you want to be named. )

Its a great story, so let's tell the world!

Hoarding behaviour

Well I have said it before and I'll say it again: wombtwin survivors tend to be hoarders. More than half of the questionnaire responders voted as A to:

There is at least one room in my home, including a shed or garage, that is completely full of stuff.

However, a further 25% of them gave that idea a fat zero. So why are so many wombtwin survivors significant hoarders and yet others not all all? A mystery. I'm examining the questionnaire results carefully to see what I can find but Im no statistician.

BTW: I am almost up to the 300 mark, and scientists say 300 is a reliable cohort worthy of analysis, so if you haven't done it yet, do have a go! (click here to do it now)

So, to take this a little further, I have set up another online form, this time with WUFOO who are completely wonderful and organise your surveys for you in a way I could not have dreamed of five years ago when I first set up the reserach questionnaire.

If you click here you will find a simple little survey asking you to respond to questions about your own hoarding behavior, just to give me a clearer idea. Do try it. If you think you have already guessed why your hoarding is linked to being a wombtwin survivor, then please leave a comment and lets talk about this.

In fact, all comments are welcomed, as always.