GEMINI VOICES: email newsletter for October

After a frantic rush through September - yes I'm at chapter five now! - I have sent out the latest newsletter.

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A typical wombtwin survivor

This is a typical response to the questionnaire.

After reading your site, it just makes perfect sense. I always wanted to be a twin, right from a small child; I've always had a fascination with twins. Twins definitely run in my family.

When my mother was pregnant with me, there were problems with her blood and she was hospitalised. I was a month premature and very small. After my birth, I had several severe illnesses. All my life I've had problems with food as well - one other aspect that is mentioned here. I've always been a very picky eater, refusing to try new foods, and in my teens had eating disorders.

I've always been searching for something without knowing what. Throughout my teenage years I withdrew and was very depressed, self-harmed (cutting and burning myself), and developed severe anxiety. When things go wrong I struggle to keep level-headed. I often have difficult relationships with others; they are usually very intense. I much prefer to have close, intimate friendships with few people rather than many acquaintances, but I have always felt alone.

I'm not autistic (to my knowledge), but I have symptoms. I'm an extreme perfectionist, setting myself goals that I'm always surprised to reach. My intelligence has always been significantly above average. I've always been a dreamer, although I am very good at empathy and extremely perceptive.

Do you feel this way? If you do, what other reasons may there be for these feelings? All reasonable suggestions welcomed.

Carl Jungs lost twin sister in the Red Book

Carl Jung sat in his study it seems, and induced a kind of waking dream in which he explored his deepest unconscious. He wrote the whole thing down as a personal illustrated journal in a red leather-bound volume - hence the name.

The New York Times reported this today. It seems that during his inner journey

Jung travels the land of the dead, falls in love with a woman he later realizes is his sister, gets squeezed by a giant serpent and, in one terrifying moment, eats the liver of a little child. (“I swallow with desperate efforts— it is impossible — once again and once again — I almost faint — it is done.”) At one point, even the devil criticizes Jung as hateful.

I wonder how long it will take for the Jungians to realise that this is all a pre-birth memory and includes a lost twin sister?

The snake may be the umbilical cord and the liver is the placenta, all that remains of an identical twin perhaps?

Interesting.

Something missing

A little girl has her twin growing inside her ( this is known as fetus in fetu)
Story here
She will have surgery, the fetus will be removed and she will then become a womb twin survivor. No one will recognise that this loss will have a psychological effect on her. The effect may not be significant and ashe may have a happy life. Probably she will never say a word to anyone but there will always be a strange sense of something missing. Sher may work it out for herself but people will laugh at her when she says she is "missing" a growth that once existed inside her.

No one will suggest that the body parts of her lost twin are disposed of with respect, as now happens after miscarriage. The fetus will probably be preserved in formalin and languish in a lab for decades.

I recently received an email about a woman who had ovarian cysts and a teratoma (which is like a fetus in fetu but less organised and developed into human form) and she said:

I never knew I was one of a twin until about 10 years ago when I had a scan showing ovarian cysts which were later proved to be dermoid and teratoma. I have researched the symptoms of womb twin survivors and I am amazed and relieved to know that there is an explanation for how I feel.....

This little girl may benefit one day from the book I am writing, for that will explain it all. So, back to work at my keyboard and let's get it done soon.....

I have made an entry to Changemakers.

This is how it starts:
The psychological effect on the survivor of the loss of a co-twin before birth is a largely unexplored area of psychology and we have been exploring it since 2002. As far as we are aware, we are the first organisation in the world to work exclusively with wombtwin survivors.

We have created a healing path for wombtwin survivors, in the form of 30 steps, published as an e-book, which has already proven helpful to sole surviving fraternal twins as a self-help scheme. We are working on another related scheme for sole surviving identical twins and a third for sole surviving multiples (triplets and more.)

We are also planning a training course for therapists of all kinds in how to offer specific therapeutic interventions to wombtwin survivors. We have piloted several of these workshops with therapists and wombtwin survivors and with their help we are developing specialised psychodrama exercises. Some of our work overlaps with other various pre- and perinatal therapies but we focus solely on the loss of a twin during pregnancy or around birth, which makes us different. We have three published articles in professional journals so far and two publications, with three more books to come over the next three years. Therapists are beginning to diagnose wombtwin survivors, but there is widespread ignorance about the best kind of therapeutic intervention for this group. We intend to fill that gap with training courses and workshop manuals.

Research has revealed that one in eight people is a wombtwin survivor. Most of these co-twins die in the first trimester and in many cases the mother has a normal pregnancy and delivery. Consequently there are many millions of unaware wombtwin survivors around the world experiencing symptoms of psychological distress, which are often diagnosed as “personality disorders” and invariably, do not respond to psychological help.

We intend to mount a worldwide public awareness campaign to put an end to this misunderstanding.

Comments, anyone?

Open space Event 2009

We are on our way to a highly successful Open Space event in October.

See here.

Last year when we held our first conference at Southwell House it was held over just one day. People who came from far away wished that there could have been more time to talk to the other participants. This is why we are holding this year's conference over a whole weekend.

Also we wondered who we could have for a keynote speaker and we decided not to have one at all, but to let everyone and anyone speak out on any topic that they felt was important. The idea of OPEN SPACE is to give as many people as possible the chance to speak if that is what they wish to do, instead of everyone having to listen to just a few speakers, chosen in advance. To come into an OPEN SPACE space is to be allowed to listen only to what you find interesting and to feel free to wander between sessions or dip out altogether and go for a drink a snack or a walk.

The OPEN SPACE event concept is based on a simple observation, that conferences are as much about the social interaction as they are about learning something new. To be truly creative and enjoyable, a conference must be a free space in which anything can happen.

There will be a public meeting on Friday 30th October at 7.30pm to launch the weekend. Althea Hayton will make the presentation. This will be the first announcement of the results of the online questionnaire completed by 500 womb twin survivors from around the world. These have been analysed this summer with the help of the University of Hertfordshire statistics department. Entrance to this meeting open to all, by free ticket only. If you would like to come to this but not the whole weekend, please use this form to register your interest in the meeting and the tickets will be mailed to you.

On the Saturday there will be four spaces and four sessions of 90 mins in each space, so that is 16 chances for HOSTS to set up a group on any topic they want on a first-come, first-served basis. (The sessions are decided during the first hour of Saturday, 9.30 to 10.30.) Some people will come ready to host a group, with an existing idea of what people may want to do, such as sharing stories, or a workshop on personal issues such as gender energy or hoarding. Everyone else wil just come and go as they please.

We have bookings already from Portugal, Switzerland, Brazil and the USA. It promises to be a very exciting weekend! We do not arrange accomodation, but there are good hotels locally which can be booked online in advance here.

Meals and breaks: There are no set breaks: there will be drinks and sandwiches available on a self-service basis, but a three-course candlelit buffet supper wil be served on the Saturday evening in the school canteen - the cost of this meal is included in the ticket price which is £70 per head for the whole weekend.

Dont miss our Open Space event 2009! Book your place now!

Make your booking now.