Personality disorders - living out the Dream?

Its easy to explain away the psychological signs of  being a womb twin survivor as " personality disorders".  Over the next few days I will take a look at some common personality disorders and consider them in depth in the light of the womb twin hypothesis.

The whole idea of "personality disorders" is vague and insubstantial, and subject to conjecture and disagreement, even between the experts involved.

Here is an article about the prevalence of different personality disorders,  written in  1992.

Among 452 subjects who were personally interviewed, 9.6% of the male and 10.3% of the female subjects were diagnosed as having at least one personality disorder. Compulsive, dependent, and passive—aggressive personality disorders were most frequent. Significant associations between Axis I disorders and personality disorders were observed; anxiety disorders with avoidant personality disorder, and affective disorders with borderline personality disorder. Due to the lower base rates and the reduced severity of individual disorders, these associations were less stringent than in clinical samples.

(If we recall that, thanks to the work of Dr Charles Boklage we know that at least 10% of the population  is a womb twin survivor,  then the fact that 10% of the population is diagnosed as having a personality disorder may be suggestive.  )

By December 2010 the list of these "disorders"  had radically changed, and in particular "Narcissistic personality disorder" was removed altogether from the list.


(My own thoughts on this are that narcissism is now so prevalent, it would seem to be a nonsense to suggest that people with these specific traits are "disordered". It is also possible that the experts chosen to be in the Work Group that had the job of redefining the DSM  may possess these traits, which are common among people who take a leadership role.) 

The idea that emerged from the redefinition was to replace the concept of "disorders' with the idea of core impairment in personality functioning and specific pathological personality traits.

 My own work, in creating the womb twin questionnaire, has been to discover the personality traits of womb twin survivors by gathering a list of commonly- used  personal statements.  This method is similar to that used by experts to discover to what extent people are "impaired in their personality" or whether they have certain "pathological personality traits."

I propose that these impairments and pathological  traits are no more than a perfectly normal response  to a rather unusual  prebirth situation - the loss of ones co-twin before birth.

Tomorrow I'll look a little more at Narcissism and demonstrate how this set of pathological personality traits perfectly reflects the psychological effects of living out a particular Dream of the Womb.

To find out more about your personality try this test:

Are you a womb twin survivor? Try this questionnaire.

Womb twin kids (3) My parents got it exactly right!

As I have a house full of guests arriving soon to celebrate the wedding of Prince William to his lady love, Catherine Middleton, it is absolutely right to make a truly celebratory blog post today!

What could be better than an interview with Monica Hudson, who is the US Womb Twin rep.and who manages the USA womb twin blog,  with a womb twin survivor is well adjusted to the fact that he is a womb twin survivor - no Black Hole for him.

[Read the interview in full on the World wide Womb Twin blog.]

Here is a snippet for you,  plus my thoughts in relation to the Womb Twin Kids project.

______________________________________________________

As a follow up to Part 1 of this interview (posted on April 7), here concludes this very special interview with a womb twin survivor who lost his female twin at birth, and is quite fine with it. He is convinced he was spared traumatic affect due to his mother's early acknowledgment and constant communication about the loss of his twin.

Consider what he shares - about a subject never spoken about with people other than his mom - an early Mother's Day tribute to the incredible instincts his mother had not to repress the loss. Let this also be a tribute to the current & future mother's of womb twins to overcome their apprehension and fears and learn to talk about it with their children. When you handle it well, your child will too. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away, it makes it much worse.

What advice would you give parents of womb twin survivors on how to handle this well for their children?
I wouldn’t evade it or negate it, I’d definitely talk about it. It’s something that did happen.

How early would you bring it up?
I would talk about it from when you brought the baby home. I remember it was a pretty early memory that I was a twin and my mother was talking to me about it, by doing that she comforted me and that’s what you want to do.

Do you feel that if she told you later in life that it would’ve been shocking rather than always growing up with that knowledge?
Sure because you set a tone with a child in exposing it to any kind of information or knowledge. If you do it later, it could be more of a shock and less embraceable. You might have difficulties developing that knowledge.

Whereas if you get it earlier, it’s just integrated into who you are?
Yes and then you have more of a possibility of developing that knowledge and nurturing it into a positive manifestation.

For instance, my mother was a great artist and she chose not to teach me that when I was very young. She taught me when I was 9 or 10 and it was hard for me to assimilate that information and I was kind of upset because I wish she did teach me earlier. To use an example, prodigies like Mozart who are taught & exposed to information at a young age can assimilate that information much easier, you don’t have to think about it too much. You’re just doing it. It’s like walking and reading and talking.

How would you suggest the subject be brought up?
Just talk. There’s no right way or wrong way…but the wrong way is not doing anything about it all. If parents are fearful and apprehensive… look, a child only wants to share with you and other people, the more sharing and conversing is done, the more adulation and love is created. And the more love and adulation, the more intelligence is developed and the greater the perception. And that’s all that beings want is that camaraderie - all species, that is the first act of communication. Just going through the motions of eating and getting up in the morning, they emulate those things. So when you start talking about things, they’re going to emulate those things.

When you do it while they're young, as a parent to a child, you’re going to do it in a positive way for the most part because you’re enamored by this new being. You make it up as you go, there are no instructions on how to rear children even though there should be, but you know there are right ways and wrong ways of doing things and anything that is done in a positive, loving manner can’t be bad.

If you don’t know what you’re doing and you think you’re doing it wrong, it still can’t be bad because you figure it out as you go. And not only do you figure it out, the child figures it out, you help each other. It goes back & forth. It’s a given that the teacher learns more or just as much from the student. The master really learns from the student if he’s a good teacher. And that is a very high acknowledgment in a very sagely manner, it’s not easy to do and people who are masters and have acquired that sagely manner are aware of that. That’s what you want to manifest in and it can take a lifetime to learn to do that.

Or you can just do it…as your biological being tells you to do. And if you follow those things, sometimes you can learn a lot more than you knew you could.
___________________________________________________

A truly remarkable mother! Bless her!

( And thank you to Monica and her womb twin survivor friend.)

The Womb Twin Kids project is all about encouraging that loving openness between parents and young womb twin survivors.  I am building a special web site, available soon, but in the meantime there are a few pages here, including a contact form for parents of womb twin survivors who would like to help with this project by sharing their experiences.

The Black Hole (3) death, suicide and murder

There can be such a deep black hole for some womb twin survivors that they begin to think of death as a solution to life's problems:

• "There is nothing for me here: I would be better off dead."
• "If I have to do this alone I would rather not do it at all. I would rather die." 
• "I cannot live without the one I love and I would die if he /she left me." 
• "I cannot cope with the pain and destruction I see everywhere : I don't want to be in this world any more."

A good example of how death seems to be a solution is  to be found in Scotland, where a mother murdered her young children ( two of them were twins)  and threw herself from the top floor balcony of her flat.  She should have died, which would have made this yet another murder/suicide, but a neighbour caught her and broke her fall. That was August 2010 and she faced trial recently.




This was related to the fact that the Riggi couple had divorced, and that their father was claiming custody.

But what if this woman is a womb twin survivor? What if she was so attached to her children that she would sooner die than have them taken from her, and if they die too,  then her husband could not have them?

Is this a faint echo of the sense of entitlement that so many womb twin survivors feel,  which makes them hold on to possessions, painful relationships and above all endless, angry resentment, until they will do anything rather than let go?

The womb twin hypothesis says this:

Womb twin survivors spend their lives re-enacting the life and death of their womb twin. Nothing is more important than that, even life itself. 

If we could reach people before they become totally eclipsed by their Black Hole, we may be able to save their lives and the lives they destroy.  All it takes is the Womb Twin work:

Once the real pre-birth scene, which is being constantly re-enacted, is made clear, then the re-enactment tends to diminish or cease altogether, greatly to the benefit of the individual.

It is so very simple, and so very hard to believe, even by womb twin survivors themselves.  It is a sad business to hear about the brutal stabbing to death of young children by their seemingly devoted mother, and sadder still to think how easily this tragedy could have been prevented.

For me, this is very difficult knowledge to have: I get attacked and vilified by many people and told to mind my own business, yet I see so clearly how people may be helped by a single question:

"Are  you a womb twin survivor?"

If the answer is yes (or even seems possibly to be yes)  then the womb twin work can begin.

The Black Hole (2) Negativity

Is this how you feel?

There is a grey cloud with me always. It hovers just out of sight. It does not lie within me, but outside of me. It is Other. It is a brooding, silent presence of mystery, it is sadness and desolation. In it there is no hope, no joy. All my life I have tried to explain the cloud that haunts me by pretending it is part of me. I have walked a way of inner emptiness. I have quelled all desire and yearning. I have used all my inner strength for this sacrifice. I have surrendered all these things and handed over my life. I have become nothing, without feeling, without desire. I am grey. I have become the cloud.

Pride, is it said, is the father of all sin. I would put it differently: it is the father of all negativity. Pride is the deliberate concealment of shame by denial. This careful concealment is a fearful, rigid, negative and deadening place. Sometimes negativity is mistaken for something other than pride, but if we take a close look we will find pride there.

Fearful
If you deny feeling shame then you are blinding yourself to the consequences of your actions. You may do this by pretending that the shameful thing you are doing (or not doing) isn't happening. Alternatively, you may pretend that the thing you are doing (or choosing not to do) is nothing to be ashamed of. Either way exposure is to be feared.

Rigid
The concealment of shame by denial imposes a kind of paralysis. By adopting "standards" as artificial, rigid structures that must be maintained at all costs, it is possible to create a kind of "smoke screen" that conceals the shame beneath. This rigidity, maintained by fear of being discovered, acts counter to
change and personal progression. It soaks up personal power to the point where you are hemmed in by "musts" and "shoulds". Every path towards fulfilment is blocked by some rigid structure that you have
created for yourself.

Negative
If you are always trying to anticipate circumstances where you may be exposed so that you can take avoiding action, that takes up a whole lot of energy.! The first casualty in this war against imagined shadows is trust. Negativity is a deliberate choice. Given the chance to be positive about other people or the world, you probably refuse. Terrible things may happen if you are open, so its best to say nothing.

Apathetic
This negative place is lifeless and static. It creates a state of being "stuck”, but remember: your resistance to change has a very important meaning. This choice to remain helpless and out of control is created in your imagination. It is a sad, lonely and lifeless place with no escape. If you were once trapped in the womb with a dead presence that did not respond or change, then negativity is your way of life. You feel isolated and unseen. In your mind and heart there is a kind of hard, cold "spiritual deadness" that you are deeply ashamed of.

Are you stuck in a place of negativity?  Watch this and discover how you are deliberately keeping yourself trapped in a negative place.....




I wonder why you are doing this to yourself?

It can only be in order to keep alive your Dream of the Womb.

The Black Hole (1) Survivor guilt, anyone?

What is in your Black Hole? If you are a womb twin survivor and feel as if you shouldn't be here at all, here is a lovely reminder of how life itself is a gift.

The womb twin work is mainly about reconnecting with the life YOU have, that is distinct from your twin's little short life. It is entirely yours.   If you don't live it, no one will.

So here is the perfect antidote to survivor guilt: GRATITUDE!!



Matt started out being photographed all over the world and then he started dancing with people.... this is how he explained what became his way of life for a few years...



This just came to me today - I was supposed to write about womb twin kids today and how parents can play special games with their children to help them to speak about the lost twin to each other and along came dancing.

Maybe dancing with your kids to celebrate life is better than worrying about what to say!

Have a great day and when the Black Hole beckons ( watch this if you dont know what I mean) remember always to dance!

My child's twin died (2) How can he or she possibly be aware of that?

Should a parent tell their sole surviving twin about the twin who died? The debate is pointless, because the child will already be aware,  even without being told.

Sad, but true.  Children are aware - more so than adults - of life before birth.  Some therapists who specialize in pre- and perinatal psychotherapy come across the lost twin in therapy. Other therapists may not notice or understand what they are seeing. The womb twin kids project is  my attempt to put that right.

Here is a compelling description of a child remembering her sister and brothers conceived during IVF:

IVF children

One unusual and unexpected characteristic that almost all of these children had in common was that they had some sort of relationship to the fertilized eggs which (or should I say who?) were not used in the implantation and are now frozen. None of the IVF families I worked with had decided what to do with the frozen eggs. 

The mother explained to me that her daughter had been very upset over a dream and had asked to be held for a long time that morning. When the mother asked her to share what she wanted, the girl replied, “We have to do something about my brothers and sisters.” She then explained, “ I have five brothers and three sisters.” The mother then told me that there were seven remaining embryos. The math works out, considering that the living twin is one of the siblings, while the frozen ones are the others. Then the girl went on to say, “My other brothers and sisters are freezing. They are in a cave in the snow and they are crying. We have to do something about them.” 

What can you say about an experience like this? I feel that it certainly deserves serious reflection.

So  womb twin kids are already aware of  their twin: would it not be a kindness therefore to explain those vague feelings of loss in real terms? And how can a parent  or guardian talk to a child about their lost twin?  How can you say it so that it wont be painful and confusing?

That is for tomorrow.......

[Note:  There has been a hold up at the printers where my new book is being printed : if you have ordered it and have been told it is unavailable, do not despair.  I hope to sort it out soon, but our four day Easter holiday hasn't helped..... More news tomorrow. ]

Womb twin kids: (1) Should I tell my child about their twin?

If you are a parent and  you were for a short while expecting  twins, but one twin died during the pregnancy - or was born dead- then should you tell your child? This is how the debate may go:

NO

•  But is it necessarily something your child needs to know ? 
• The whole idea of pregnancy loss may just be too much for a child to understand.  
• As a young child there is no need to tell her. 
• It would be confusing and do much more harm than good.  
• You certainly don't want your child to feel guilty about being the survivor. 
• And you certainly don't want your child to feel remorse or mourning. 
• I don't want to create a sense of loss that otherwise wouldn't exist.

 YES:

•  Telling your young womb twin survivor may be a way for you to preserve the baby's memory and make him/her part of the family in a more concrete way. It may be a way to let your other children know there was another baby. 
•  Maybe if it was a logical time (i.e. perhaps if your womb twin kid is a girl and one day she may be pregnant with her own child.
•  Tell a girl at the stage of having children herself, depending on see how emotionally stable she is at the time. I would hate her to grow up feeling that a part of her was missing. 
•  Your child might overhear or sense it and get it twisted up, best to tell the truth, straight out. 
•  Twins might run in your family. What if your son has a twin one day? Would you then want to say "Well, that's not too surprising as you were supposed to be a twin." 
•  Waiting until the baby is a teenager risks it being a big deal. Telling it to the kid early on (in terms he / she can understand and then explaining in more adult terms when he is old enough to comprehend) almost guarantees it will never be a big deal or a problem. 
• Be sure you know exactly what your want your child to take away from this information, and what you don't.

What do you think?

Learn more about the Womb Twin Kids project  here:


www.wombtwinkids.co.uk

The twin within (6) Opposite gender energy

Some womb twin survivors carry physical signs of their lost twin in the form of ambiguous genitalia or  secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite sex.   In other cases is almost impossible to tell what gender some individuals are, as if they are an evenly-mixed amalgam of both sexes.

          

For example here is an extract from The Healing Path ebook:

FEMALE ENERGY TURNED MALE


There are a variety of ways in which some women (possibly including you) express their female energy in a male kind of way.

The harridan


A woman can quietly dominate and control with absolute firmness, but with too much male energy she will deliver you a lecture if you step out of line. She will shout and harangue you until you are silenced and ashamed.

The shrew


A woman is naturally very good at confronting other people with the truth about themselves for their own sake, but with too much male energy the truth is used to scold and criticise, to belittle the other person and establish dominance over them.

The whore

A woman is always aware of her sexuality, but with too much male energy she may make it much more overt, abuse it and take it to extremes. She may become very active sexually and dominate her partner in an exploitative way, even resorting to bondage, whipping and black leather.

The house proud

A woman is naturally able to focus on small details in order to maintain a household or care for children, but with too much male energy this ability can be take to extremes and used as a form of display. competitiveness and control of other people. The house proud woman is a travesty of a good housewife, because her home, far from being a haven of rest and hospitality, is a public display of her abilities as a housewife. She shows it off much as a man may flex his muscles or preen himself.

The madam


A woman will receive attention if she is attractive as a person, but with too much male energy she will show off, throw tantrums and refuse to comply with any suggestions. This childish behaviour can persist beyond childhood. This behaviour obviously sabotages any chance of her receiving the positive attention she craves, but then that’s a womb twin survivor for you!

Tomorrow I'll update you in the Womb Twin kids project....

The twin within: (5) A mosaic twin

Identical twins, as I have said ad nauseam, are not identical, and for this reason they are best called "monozygotic twins"  -  term that refers only to the fact they they arise out of one zygote and not to how similar they are to look at or in other, deeper ways.  Both sets of DNA are almost identical, but some of the chromosomes in some cells, but not all, have become abnormal. If you have some normal cells and some abnormal cells in your body then you are a mosaic.

A mosaic twin is someone with  a variation in DNA that arises out of monozygotic twinning when the chromosomes in the body of one twin are altered after the zygote has split.  It can happen that one twin is a mosaic, that is the chromosome set becomes abnormal ( such as having 47 chromosomes  instead of 46) while the other twin remains normal.  The twins may share blood with altered DNA because of the shared placental blood supply, and if the mosaic twin dies, then the survivor is left with no other signs of abnormality except the mosaic blood they both once shared.

As one researcher put it:

Postzygotic chromosomal rearrangement may have occurred early in one embryo after the twinning event,.......

How would that feel psychologically to the sole survivor in this case?  To feel as if one is some way "abnormal" or "not properly developed as a human being"?

Is this like having another, less-developed and imperfect version of yourself somewhere inside you?

In  Human chromosomes By Orlando J. Miller, Eeva Therman  they wrote: Given the frequencies of non disjunction and chromosome loss throughout life, we are all mosaics to some degree.

At the risk of repeating myself, we have a lot more  to learn about mosaicism and whether it is a sign of being a womb twin survivor.

Read more in this book

The twin within (4) A chimera

What is a chimera? 

A person who is a chimera is made up of cells from different people. So some of their cells have the DNA of one person and the other cells have the DNA of another person. How do you do that?

Imagine that inside of a womb, instead of there being only one egg, there are actually two. If both of these eggs get fertilized by two different sperm cells, you get fraternal twins. Fraternal twins are no more related than any brother or sister.

Now, imagine that instead of developing separately, these fertilized eggs actually fuse. Then only one baby would develop. This baby would have cells from not one, but two different zygotes.

Remember, every zygote carries its own unique set of DNA. So the baby would have two different sets of DNA-this baby would be a chimera. 


IF you have ever had a transplant you are a chimera, because you have cells of different  genetic makeup sharing your body.  Even a blood transfusion will makes you a chimera for a few weeks, until the blood cells die.

Does the presence of cells of another human in your body make any difference? I hear you ask. Well, it does.

Microchimerism, that is the presence of a very few cells from another human remaining within the body, is common  in women after pregnancy.  ( see article here)
Autoimmune diseases are thought of as disorders in which a body's cells inexplicably attack its own normal tissues.


The physical consequences are that your immune system will attack your own body - at least the individual cells of your body that are "foreign" because of the differing DNA.


The psychological effects are more subtle: a sense of being more than one person, as indeed you are.  For a woman after pregnancy, a sense of being forever bonded to her children, living and dead, as if they were still within her. As a mother myself,  I feel a strong blood bond with my children, now both far away, and even the one I miscarried at 3 months of pregnancy 37 years ago. Perhaps it is possible to feel a sense of bonding and connection to the cells of another person within your body.  If the DNA is not so very different ( a fraternal twin sibling does share half your DNA)  then perhaos your body can learn to tolerate this " foreign body". If not, then perhaps that is the basis of the idea of the "evil twin" who may have become part of your personality.

I have heard of womb twin survivors who have two very different ways of being themselves, and they switch from one to the other almost unconsciously. In one case I regularly visited a woman suffering with autoimmune disease  (MS) over five years.  She was sometimes sweet and rather pathetic and sad but at others aggressive and raging. Two people in one. Was she a chimera I wonder?

The twin within (3) A dermoid cyst

There is a fair amount of controversy about dermoid cysts.  On the one hand it seems like a fairly normal anomaly of the skin cells, which forms a cyst under the skin, but on the other a dermoid cyst may develop far away from the skin, deep inside the body on an ovary or in the abdomen.

Typically, a dermoid cyst contains structures that are related to the outer layers of the body ( fat, hair, teeth.)

They can be any size, and may grow as large as a grapefruit. Here is a picture. ( after surgical excision)

It seems an extraordinary idea to call such an object an "enclosed monozygotic twin"  but if you had such a growth inside you it may feel that way, and you would be right.  I have written about this in my book here.

Dermoid cysts developing on ovaries are a major problem. See here.

Dermoid cysts on ovaries may not be aliens from outer space, but they are aliens to your body. Dermoid cysts on ovaries, more often than not, turn out to be something to be scared about. 

They are similar to teratomas,  being lumps of tissue that partially resemble human form, and  these enclosed twins are named according to how well the tissues have organised themselves into human form. Dermoid cysts don't look like anything much, but sometimes they contain bones, and they should then correctly be called a teratoma. If feet or hands or recognisable organs have formed, then they would be named a fetus  in fetu. Its a spectrum of enclosed monozygotic twinning. 

Recent concepts regarding the origin of FIF ( fetus in fetu) suggest that it is part of a spectrum of monozygotic twinning gone awry, ranging from conjoined twins at one end to fetaform teratomas at the other.

This blog here describes how it looks and what it feels like to carry such a cyst ( dermoid/teratoma) and to have it removed.  Styled as "my evil twin". But was it?  Interesting that this woman named her cyst Maria.  She also has a problem with finishing projects:

I have so many projects in progress that I'm dying to share... yet i keep losing interest in them long before they are finished.

This trait is common among womb twin survivors - I'll write about that later on this week on 23rd when we celebrate the anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, in my view, probably the greatest womb twin survivor in history.

(I know - 23rd is also Shakespeare's birth/death day, but that's another story.  He had twins himself and wrote a lot about twins in his plays........... another womb twin survivor perhaps? )

The twin within: (2) A teratoma

A teratoma is a mass of cells growing in the body - a  benign tumour.  That is, except when it develops in the testis or ovary, when it can become malignant, most commonly in the testis. Cancer specialists know a lot about malignant teratomas.

The medical dictionaries tell us that a teratoma is:

teratoma (ter´tō´m),

n a tumor composed of cells capable of differentiating into any of the three primary germ layers. Teratomas in the ovary are usually benign dermoidal cysts; those in the testis are generally malignant.

Is a teratoma a twin within? Here is what one doctor says:

When a teratoma is surgically removed,  it shows signs of  some development into human form, but not as clearly differentiated as in the fetus in fetu, which we looked at yesterday.

This is the kind of thing you see when you cut a teratoma out of the body and open it up: teeth, hair and maybe a little bone.

The survivors of such surgery do speak about feeling "different" or "lost" after surgery. Even as children the teratoma can be known about -  one womb twin survivor in the USA once told me:

I had an ovarian dermoid cyst (teratoma) removed at age seventeen.  When I was a little girl I used to tell my mother I “had a little man inside of me”.

 There is evidently a lot more to learn about teratomas and the twin within.   If you want to learn more, there is a chapter about the twin within in my new book. 

 

The twin within (1) parasitic twin-a fetus in fetu

When identical twins are formed, one twin begins to develop inside the other, either partially or totally. This is probably the most dramatic example of twinning and  stories of parasitic twins or the fetus in fetu are often to be found in the media.

Here is a study of parasitic twins that has been sensationalised as far as possible:




Here is a good example of how a fetus  in fetu can be made into a good story:



This is a medical anomaly requiring surgical intervention

Yet this is also a sad story of a twin that is not a whole living twin, and therefore the dominant twin will feel a sense of somehow losing out from the twin-twin relationship and also the burden of carrying the weaker twin everywhere with them.

It is important that parents who have consented to have the parasitic twin or the fetus in fetu removed surgically, should bear in mind that the sole survivor, relieved on the physical burden, may still be carrying a psychological burden, a feeling that they have a duty to their twin that is is some way being avoided. Parents should simply bear this in mind and consider the possibility that this psychological effect can be healed, but first it must be acknowledged and understood for what it is.

Surgery is not the end of the story- twinning is a prenatal experience, the effect of which will remain for life, hard-wired into the brain of the survivor.

Same-sex attraction and dizygotic twinning

It doesn't take too much imagination to  wonder if same-sex attraction is related to being a womb twin survivor.  Is the attraction based in a need to find a surrogate twin?


Follow this link to see an example of how same-sex couples resemble fraternal twins:

Opposites don't seem to attract on TV's Brothers & Sisters, where the gay couple played by Luke MacFarlane, left, and Matthew Rhys could be blood brothers.

At a recent gay pride march that I saw in Birmingham it was remarkable how same sex couples so often looked like twins.

For example, here is a picture of a group at a Gay pride march in Bangalore;

And I am not the only one who has noticed this.

Micheal Musto on Village Voice  asks:

This may be a gross stereotype, but more often than not, I've had friends introduce me to their boyfriends and become aghast at the fact that they look like identical twins! Surely this phenomenon is done via some kind of split-screen special effect, because what I'm looking at in these cases is like some early Lindsay Lohan movie with Linds in a dual role. If my friend is wide and steroidy, the boyfriend will be a brick shithouse too. If my pal is scrawny, with wayward facial hair and a tweaked nose, the beau will be a mirror image of the same.

Is it possible that this is the explanation for homosexuality?

Academics have played with the idea of same-sex coupling in literature and philosophy, but it is possible that in all our musings we have missed the point?

Maybe - just maybe - womb twin survivors whose twin was the same sex as themselves, may seek out an  intimate attachment with another person of the same sex, ( who is also a womb twin survivor and after the same level of intimacy)  and that is what same-sex attraction all about. It's the search for the lost twin [ more in this article. ]

As I often say, there is a lot more to learn, but we could begin a debate on this possibility.   We could even do some research, perhaps using the Womb Twin project questionnaire.......

A healing path (7) the love of equal sharing

DEVELOPING THE LOVE OF EQUAL SHARING

Having found that bottomless well of love inside you, you will want to give it away, because that the way love works.  If you don’t want to give it away, its simply isn’t  love. The paradox of love is that the more it hurts to give, the better it will reward you. To give love is how to make it yours. The best way to give love is fifty-fifty. It is the love of equal sharing. It is the kind of love that philosophers have been advocating for years, and  as womb twin survivors we have already found it :- we had our first lesson long before we were born.

Womb twin survivors are hard-wired for equal sharing. If we look at how they love, they are a good model of that kind of love.  If you are a womb twin survivor, you have always known how love works. You were forced by Nature to spend your earliest days in the company of another similar human embryo, so you are hard-wired to negotiate your own space; guard your own boundaries while sharing space and everything that goes with it, in a mutual, negotiated, carefully-managed, empathetic, intimate relationship. That last may seem an unnecessarily complex description of getting along with people, but  I am sure you already realise it is the most difficult thing in the world to get right.

Sharing power
Personal growth is not just about getting clever or knowing more. It is also a matter of sharing and equality with other people. If you always share your power with others, then there will be flexibility and give and take in your relationships. If you chose to make equal sharing your master rather than some fantasy in your dream, then you will be more prepared to negotiate, cooperate and act with fairness and justice.  If you adopt a way of sharing, you will share everything you have with others and never seize or exploit more of those things that are held in common between people than is your rightful portion.

Claiming your entitlement
As you share with others, then you will be able to claim your entitlement. You will see to it that you have what should be yours, and be prepared if necessary to fight for it.  If another person should venture into your life to steal your space or exploit your good will, then you will complain.  Each human being is responsible for making sure that his allocation of kindness and love of others is  given according to his allowance.  If you see the weak being exploited, the your love of sharing will enable you to take up the fight on their behalf.

Cooperation
You will give where giving is due and expect your dues in return.  If you take more than you should from another in any way, you will be held accountable and must make redress.  In the love of equal sharing you will be totally involved in life while sharing gifts among your friends. You will cooperate readily with others to build a better world. You will not stand aside but join in with others and help them, asking for help in your turn. As you begin to play your full part in creation then you will see your inner self grow strong in the presence of others and in relationship to them.

This is how  and why womb twin survivors are very special people!

A healing path (6) Fostering the revelation of life

STAGE 6: FOSTERING THE REVELATION OF LIFE

At birth there was more than just a breaking of waters: it was a parting of the ways. The path your womb companions took lead to death and destruction; the path you took lead to complete development and born life.  Only residual strands of survivor guilt stand between you and living your life to the full.  More and more self forgiveness will be needed, to break each of the guilty strands that tie you into the Dream.

The rewards will be coming thick and fast as you begin to realise that the riches intended for your life are available free of charge, just lying there unused, with your name on, and waiting for you to pick them up.   Step by step, inch by inch, you can take charge of these these gifts and powers and begin to use them for yourself and others.   You are on a journey towards a place of completeness you have always known existed but could never allow yourself to occupy.  It is towards a peaceful place of deep meanings and great goodness - that is your destination.

Life is a place where you are surrounded by un-conditional love but you did not fully realise this before.  The secret of real love is that it is very, very hard and painful.  You will never know what unconditional love truly feels like, until you give it away yourself in abundance, without counting the cost.   Practice random acts of kindness and senseless beauty: This idea even has its own facebook page!

Then the rewards come, for you find that your love arises out of a bottomless space inside you. The more you give, the more there is to give.  Love never runs out. It is always there. It is stronger than death.

This is the lesson I have learned: it is only when you let go of absolutely everything - when you are stripped bare, down to the bone, until you feel there is no more inside you to give - that you will begin to grow.  ( I learned that the hard way, on the Pilgrim Road to Santiago in 2005.  It took me 400 miles to learn, but I understood it in the end...) 

Healing path (5) The death of illusion

ACTING TO BRING ABOUT THE DEATH OF ILLUSION

The phantoms from the womb seem very real and present, because only in the false "knowledge" of that fantasy can you keep desolation at bay.  The heavy price price of awakening from your Dream of the Womb is to re-experience the desolation of being separated at birth from a place of safety where there once was the real presence of the Someone you hold most dear - your womb twin.   For you to be born fully, the Dream must die: you must wake up know that the Dream is over and your companions are dead and long gone.

This can be hard: in the recognition of death and separation is the pain of bleak and dismal emptiness. In parting is the grief of being utterly wretched and unhappy. In isolation from even those dear shreds of memory of your lost womb companions, is the most dreaded state of being totally abandoned and alone.

Letting go of the Dream
This "death" can be enacted in a symbolic way by entering into a ritual of separation from something or someone that you love very much.  It cannot repeat the original separation, but it will feel the same as it once did. It is a way to access the memory of the separation between you and your womb companions that happened so long ago.   You may have tried to make rituals before, but perhaps you were not yet ready to let go of everything.  One by one, the  features of your Dream can be explored and relinquished, perhaps in a series of symbolic acts. ( Like Frodo in "Lord of the Rings" if you are not prepared get hurt in order to achieve your aim; when there is no hope, to keep on hoping and in the end be prepared to destroy everything you hold most dear, then don't bother - stay at home and read the book.)

Once the deed is done, you are separated from the Dream that is holding you back. Now you can begin to grow to completeness.

The paradoxical reward

Then comes the paradoxical reward. By letting go you will get back: by giving away all that you hold most  dear, you will receive more gifts than you never dreamed possible, in an endless stream of generosity in the midst of abundance.

Can there be more? I hear you ask? Just wait until tomorrow!

A healing path (3) From guilt to gratitude

THE PRACTICE OF LIVING IN THE MOMENT - guilt into gratitude


In this stage, you will transform survivor guilt into an awareness that your ability to live is a gift in itself. This great gift of life has been make known to us by many writers and thinkers down the centuries.   


God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. Voltaire


Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third.  Marge Piercy


Read more quotes like this...


Now you can waken up to the gift of life as it is revealed to you.  A life free of shame guilt and anxiety has already been awarded to you but survivor guilt has made you block yourself from receiving it.  The energy and power given to you to enable you to live in this way has always been within you but you have expressed it in a variety of self defeating behaviours. The prospect of a fulfilling life is distributed free,  donated without conditions, handed over for your use without any cost to yourself, but you would not pay the price, which is to let go and let things be as they may.


To live “in the now” enables many things to be visible at last. In the now you can arise from your sleep, arrive in the present and allow yourself to be revealed to others in your whole person, warts and all, without any fear of being ashamed.  Now you can emerge, grow and develop into fullness. 


The feeling that comes when the whole world is yours, and you are allowed to be happy, and succeed, is not so much exhilarating as scary.  As I moved into healing, I recognised that  my twin had gone and the psychic space he had been taking up was all mine. It was like coming into a mysterious inheritance of untold riches, which were revealed, not all at once but gradually.


Piece by piece and one by one, long-delayed projects just arise as an idea and complete themselves.  I began letting the energy of this Womb twin project carry me forward and the speed of forward movement has been breathtaking. 

Its all about making an end to survivor guilt, and letting life be all yours. Simple, but possibly the most difficult decision you will ever make.  

A healing path (2) Resentment into reconciliation

When you decide to open yourself to healing, the most difficult thing is the decision to act: the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life.  The procedure and the process is its own reward.

To awaken from the Dream of the Womb requires that you  become aware of what keeps you asleep. Even when you don’t realise it, you are constantly re enacting your dream.  If you don’t know if you are awake or asleep then you cannot know when you have awakened.  The awakening is the healing:  it is as simple as that.

Letting go of  the Dream, which has been your way of being for so long, will be very difficult indeed.  waking up will be hard. To awaken and heal, you will have to always choose to do the most difficult thing.  If it is very, very difficult, then you can know that you are trying to wake up.

THE PRACTICE OF SELF-FORGIVENESS - resentment into reconciliation

The Dream of the Womb is a treadmill or prison where there must never be change or growth.  Self-forgiveness can change all that. The power of self-forgiveness can stop the treadmill and let you get off. It gets you from resentment  to reconciliation.

Resentment
When you are lost in the Dream, you begrudge others their ability to drink the cup of life to the dregs.  You feel bitter about the hurts and abuses against you in some distant past.  You bear a grudge against the people who have made you feel bad about yourself - anyone will do.  You take exception to any perceived attack on your self esteem.  Perhaps you secretly believe that there is much to be aggrieved and angry about, but no one seems to understand. Trivial things annoy you excessively and you feel indignant about injustice.   You feel jaundiced by life in general and peeved by stupid, irritating people. You feel put out about being ignored.

You would love express your resentment by being spiteful, unfriendly, ungenerous or vindictive, but perhaps you have personal standards of good behaviour so you suppress these feelings in the name of charity and forbearance.  If you do not hold these rigid standards, then you probably tend to get into a rage from time to time where spite and vindictiveness surface and explode from within you.   If not, then it takes very little to send you into a rage......

Whenever you are surrounded by animosity, bitterness and discontent this makes you unhappy and you resent feeling unhappy.  You try to distance yourself from people of ill-will by suppressing all indignation, irritation, jealousy, malevolence and malice towards them and being “nice.’ You are often offended but say nothing and just suffer inwardly.

Reconciliation
If you can forgive yourself of the sin of simply being the person you are, then you can cease to feel resentment.  You can pardon yourself for the rancour you feel when you think of your wasted life;  you can remit what you owe to the people you have let down.  You can acquit yourself of  your imagined mistakes; clear yourself of blame; excuse your fond fantasies, for how else could you have kept alive your Dream for so long?

You can exonerate your self from self-imposed obligations. You can begin to indulge yourself and meet your emotional needs. You can feel pardoned for the things you did not do. You can excuse the way you have often taken on more than was your due.  You can be spared the inner condemnation that you always feel;  make allowances for the foolish things you have believed about yourself.  You can overlook the minor blemishes on your character.

The reward for doing the difficult thing
Truly, the process of self-forgiveness is its own reward. As you forgive yourself, than you will be better at compassion to others.  You will give in gracefully, be lenient to others when they make mistakes. You can become the forbearing person you always dreamed of being.  You will be generous and understanding of yourself and others, as we all struggle on through life.

By deciding to use the power of forgiveness, you are allowing yourself to acknowledge your existing gifts. These are

• strength, potency, efficacy and stamina to get a job done;  
• guts, fortitude and endurance to solve problems;  
• forcefulness, assertiveness and aggression to fight wrong-doing;  
• the ability to be constructive in thought and deed.  
• vitality, cogency and adequacy
• The ability to take responsibility for your own life and your part in relationships. 

All these gifts will be there for you when you awaken from the Dream, so start today!

This may seem like the  final stage of healing, but in fact it is only the first stage in making a beginning - there is much, much more to come, but without this first stage completed, none of that can be yours.

A healing path (1) my story

My story is well-known now.  It's one of the free downloads on my web site and is also the epilogue of A Silent Cry, an anthology of stories written by womb twin survivors and published in their own words.:

Find out more about this book

But there is a little bit more to say about how the healing went for me.

1. Discovery. The first step has to be that moment of realisation. For me it was after some chiropractic treatment that revealed  the bodily memory of  birth trauma.   I once wrote:

Rubber doll

My story begins with a rubber doll I played with constantly as a child.  “Rubber doll” was a naked, sexless baby doll with removable head and limbs. Every day, several times a day, I removed the head and one arm, and then pushed it all back together again. This doll was my  friend and constant companion. I had no idea then that this constant breaking and mending was my way of trying to heal myself of birth trauma. There truly was, as a large breech-born baby, a moment when they pulled at my flailing limbs to remove me and I thought my head was coming off.

Once that trauma was healed (in 2002 it consisted mostly of muscular spasm in various parts of my body and could be relieved by chiropractic treatment) then a quieter message, to do with terror and death, became perceptible.  I realised that I was conceived as a twin.

2. Making the twin real.   I had to put the story together and make sure I was not creating a fantasy. I spent many hours exploring the internet and gleaned scraps of information here and there, but the real direction for my healing was, I realised, coming from within. I  came to the conclusion that my twin was a brother and that he had been aborted, for no better reason than it fitted perfectly with what I seemed to feel deep inside.  I took a course of dramatherapy in London with Claire Schrader and that enabled me to clarify the non-verbal signals that were within me into a real story.

3 Letting go.   I held a funeral ritual for my twin, Ben, in that drama therapy room.  It was one of the most significant experiences of my life. 

4 Allowing.   The next step was once of a kind of wait and see, being open kind of stage. I had never spoken to anyone about how womb twin survivors heal so I had to observe the process inside of me and see it as it developed.  The next stage saw a breathtaking surge of energy and creativity, and all I had to do was to stop blocking it.  Amazing!

5. Delivery.  The result is the womb twin project, three books and more to come a web site and this blog.   I now know that healing can happen and that pre-birth memories can be processed successfully.

Over the next 5 days I will provide some details and stories to illustrate these stages as they happen to womb twin survivors everywhere.

The Womb Twin conference 2011 - all arranged!

Yes I know, there was no blog yesterday but I have an excuse..

I spent the day wrestling with web sites,  online payment portals and other such things and  I think I have ironed out most of the glitches in the online registration and payments for the next WombTwin annual conference, to be held in November.

It will be held in St Albans at the Pastoral Centre, which is on the edge of town surrounded by fields and woodland, and is a very peaceful place.

Visit their web site for more details

Who would want to come to a conference of this kind? Well, we have had womb twin survivors, of course, and also therapists who work with womb twin survivors, and  parents of womb twin survivors.  Also there are trainee therapists and counsellor who want  to learn more and some of our loyal supporters.  Some want to listen and learn others prefer  to be active, in workshops. Therefore we have two rooms:

A big room  like this:

And a smaller rom like this:

So we have a twin conference! Alpha and Beta!

How suitable.

We have pared the prices to the bone this year, so that everyone can afford to come:  £50 a head.

Register now!

Tomorrow I will begin a focus for the next 6 days on the healing path for womb twin survivors. 

Signs of a twin conception: (7) Acardiac twin

In this case a twin develops abnormally so that major organs are missing, including the heart.
This is assumed to be associated with "polar body" twinning, where it is supposed that a single egg is fertilised twice, including a sperm entering the Polar Body:

See SPL image here:

This is a monozygotic (identical) twin pregnancy. 


Polar Body Twins
Most sources emphasize that "polar body" twins are a hypothesis that has not been proven. In essence, polar body twins are "half identical"-- the result of one egg fertilized by two different sperm. The resulting twins share the same genes from the mother but different genes from the father.

In the theory of polar body twinning, a woman ovulates, and as her egg matures, a portion of the egg called the first polar body separates from the egg. Because this polar body contains the same genetic material as the egg itself, theoretically it could be fertilized by a sperm cell (usually, however, the polar body just disintegrates). If both the egg and the polar body are fertilized by separate sperm and two babies develop from this event, polar body twins are formed.


In any case, whatever the cause, an acardic twin develops alongside the normal co-twin, and there are no major organs or even a head.

In the Dream of the Womb what could there be?  Some small part of yourself that remains perpetually undeveloped, a sense of being abnormal, without the ability to think or feel?  We have a lot to learn about what it is like to be a womb twn survivor when one's womb twin never developed a brain or a heart.

Signs of a twin conception: (6) the blighted ovum

The blighted ovum is a frequent cause of miscarriage, and is caused by an embryo failing to develop beyond the very first stages.  


Though a blighted ovum can sometimes be the result of low hormone levels in the body, the major cause of the condition appears to be chromosomal.  A blighted ovum is thought to occur when the chromosomes making up the fetus become defective or disordered, resulting in severe genetic defects. Your body recognises these chromosomal abnormalities and chooses to end the pregnancy.  Chromosomal abnormalities can occur for many reasons. Sometimes, the egg or sperm that are joined during fertilization have defective cells.  Other times, chromosomes can become improperly arranged during division of the fertilized egg. [more]


A blighted ovum is referred to as an "abnormality" for this reason. 
In one study of multiple pregnancies carried out over a period of four years, 41 cases of abnormal multiple pregnancies were diagnosed successfully by ultrasound. These included several rare combinations of abnormalities. The most frequent was a normal pregnancy and a synchronous blighted ovum.  [more]

When thinking about womb twin survivors, and the psychological effect on the sole survivor when the other twin was nothing more than a tiny embryo that never developed and left only an empty sac behind, how would that survivor keep their lost twin alive in their Dream of the Womb?

A sense of somehow never getting going with life, perhaps? Stuck forever in a kind of limbo, with no sense of self, independent life or autonomy? 

We have a lot more to learn before we can be sure of any of this, but some womb twin survivors say they don't "feel here" in this life.......maybe their twin was a blighted ovum, and never had any chance of a life, however short.

Signs of a twin conception (5) attempted abortion but pregnancy continues

When a woman goes for an abortion but is unknowingly pregnant with twins, she may remain pregnant afterwards if both babies have not been removed. Some women in this situation may attempt a claim for compensation to cover the cost of bringing up the remaining unexpected child. One such claim was successful. Kim Nicholls, from Staffordshire in England, successfully claimed £10,000 compensation when she was given an injection to abort her pregnancy yet remained pregnant and delivered a healthy daughter some months later.  As a result of successful claims such as these, doctors are now advised to take particular care.

A 28-year-old Yugoslav immigrant, simply called J.B. in court documents, sought an abortion in October 1997. Sadly and tragically, neither J.B. nor the clinic personnel knew that J.B. was pregnant with twins and that only one of the fetuses was aborted. J.B. returned to the clinic two weeks later and made subsequent calls complaining of pregnancy-like symptoms. Told her symptoms were normal, J.B. finally demanded a urine sample in February 1998. The very same nurse who told J.B. her condition was normal came back horrified with the news that she was still pregnant. By that point, the fetus was nearly six months old so Planned Parenthood apologized and rushed her out the door to a provider who was licensed to do second trimester abortions. An ultrasound revealed that the remaining fetus had only one arm and one leg; the second abortion took three days.  

Stories such as these have been useful to those who would prefer that abortions were not carried out at all ( see here)  but it would seem that little or no thought has been given to the sole survivors. 

It has been suggested that being  womb twin survivor and also the survivor of an abortion  causes separation anxiety ( the fear of abandonment)  plus annihilation anxiety ( fear of being extinguished altogether).

The abortion does not have to be violent, such as with a suction tube or a knife. It can be a miscarriage, induced by a herb, or a drug.

There are many people who survived abortion because they were once twins (see this page)

Many people contact me via my web site and tell me a story of a "failed" abortion.  The dead twin may not be delivered, but remain inside the womb as a dead body. 

For example, Carrie said 

"My mother took the herb ergot to induce contractions and abort the pregnancy at 4 months - my twin died at between 4-5 months but the pregnancy continued - I survived and held myself still in the womb next to my dead twin - afraid to move.  Until 28 years old after my mother had died, I had thought that my twin's death was my fault.

I have tried to understand why a woman (my mother) would feel able to abort the pregnancy. On one level of course I understand her and even thought it a brave thing to do as my parents didn't get on although they stayed together, and they were quite poor so it could have been for those reasons.  On another level I am very hurt and angry by all this - after all she tried to kill me and my twin did die as a consequence.  What am I supposed to do with that?"

The after effects can be subtle: for instance one woman whose twin was aborted but who was never told, discovered the issue of abortion at the age of 33 and became obsessed with it, thinking of it all day every day, and talking of little else. She then decided that more attention should be given to the dead babies that are miscarried or stillborn and spent another 10 years thinking of little else but how to honour their precious little lives.  Then she realised, aged 55 years old,  that she was the survivor of an abortion attempt and that this was why she had been so obsessed with abortion and the rights of the unborn child. She then launched into another project, trying to learn more about sole surviving twins.   She is of course the author of this blog.....