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Tributes to Althea Hayton

Althea Hayton, founder of Womb Twin, passed away peacefully on August 13 (sorry for the delay in posting this news on the blog). We are all ...

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Narcissistic womb twin survivors (1) self esteem

Some time ago, I came to the somewhat astonishing conclusion that  the sole survivors of a monozygotic pregnancy ( identical twins)  show signs of narcissism, to the extent that I have come to believe that what we define as "narcissism" is in fact a spectrum of personality characteristics that all monozygotic twin survivors possess.

In other words, I believe that all narcissistic people are the sole survivors of a monozygotic pregnancy.

Now I dont expect you, dear reader, to  agree to this immediately, so over the new few days I am going to set out the arguments one by one to show how they work.

TWO PEOPLE IN ONE
The main characteristic of the sole survivor of  identical twins ( ie. when  one twin dies in born life) is that the survivor takes on some of the characteristics of the dead twin, as if to keep them spiritually "alive".  This is a known effect among live-born twin pairs when one twin dies.  Womb twin survivors show the same effects, the difference being that most of them have no idea why they feel as they do, because every one tells them that "we don't remember the womb".  Every other characteristic of narcissism is related to that effect.

SELF ESTEEM
The most obvious characteristic of narcissistic people is grandiosity, an exaggerated sense of one's own importance.  There is some disagreement among the people who discuss these things as to whether narcissism is driven by a very high self esteem or a very low self esteem.  This is a significant factor because if the monozygotic( MZ) womb twin survivor is keeping their little Beta twin alive in their life by in some sense " becoming their own Beta twin," then  it follows they they will be two people in one. One personality the Alpha twin will be the biggest, strongest and most dominant, the triumphant Alpha survivor, showing signs of a very high self esteem.  The other will be the tiny, weak, compliant Beta twin, who is passive and humble and acutely aware of how small and insignificant he or she is against the Alpha twin - showing signs of low self esteem.

The result is suffering. "I am a worthless individual," says the  Beta personality.  "I am the most important person" says the Alpha personality.  The inner conflict is  painful, so much so that the issue of self esteem dominates the life of the narcissistic person.  The pain of being the only survivor, when you have no idea why you are suffering so much because no one told you why,  seeks an outlet.

As a consequence, the narcissistic person either "Suffers from low self esteem" themselves or visits their grandiosity on others to reduce their self esteem instead.  A painful business indeed.

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