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!