Being a womb twin survivor (4) The death of hope?

Yesterday I spoke to a friend with Bi Polar disorder. We have been discussing the possibility that she is a womb twin survivor and I am about to send her a copy of my new book "Womb Twin Survivors" to help her make up her mind about that.

But one thing she said has remained with me : "I sometimes wish I could just lie down and die." She was at pains to let me know that she had no intention of killing herself, she just wanted to see an end to the suffering she experiences, over and over again, each time she plunges into despair.

The little mushroom was a womb twin survivor!

When browsing the net in my usual way for twins and womb twin survivors, I saw this chapter in a book written in 2005:


The little mushroom and the blighted twin

On the strength of this title alone, I downloaded the chapter and bought the book.

I was astounded at what I read there, and even more astonished by discovering who had written it: a former President of the Royal College of General Practitioners!

Being a womb twin survivor (3) The birth of disappointment

Expectation is the father of disappointment.  That is, when you expect nothing you will never be disappointed.   But going through life expecting nothing to happen, expecting nothing from anyone, feels like the darkest kind of despair. It feels as if because you don't expect things to happen, they won't happen.  There seems to be a deeply held belief that the very ACT of expecting causes things to happen.  But that is complete nonsense : you dont make things happen, they happen anyway.  But to a womb twin survivor expectation  feels like hope - and hope, we are told, does not disappoint.

Being a womb twin survivor (2) Managing the expectations of others

Staying with the parents for the next few posts, did you have a problem with your parents' expectations of you?  How did that feel?

For instance Joanna, aged 24, feels pushed around by per parents, who want her to study law.  But she is only a legal secretary and in her leisure time passionate about hot air ballooning and animal rescue, so the thought of going back to full time study appals her and she is resisting it.  Her mother is a lawyer and  also her grandfather.  Its kind of "in the family" to be a lawyer and because Joanna is very clever and can turn her mind to most things, law seems as good as anything and she has somehow fallen in with their wishes, and is wondering how to get out of it.....

Being a womb twin survivor (1) emotional abandonment

I discovered a new term recently - "emotional abandonment".

This is from a blog by a child abuse survivor: 

The majority of the time when I write about my childhood, I mostly write only about the physical abuse and the brainwashing that I went through. But there was more to my childhood than that. When people think of child abuse, it's always the physical abuse that comes to mind. There are other factors that play into child abuse though such as abandonment and neglect.



It set me thinking, as a parent myself, of how the experience of emotional neglect by a child seems to be a reflection of a particular form of behaviour by the parent.  Thus:

1. The child seeks out connection ( empathy, love,  support, help) with the parent.
2. The parent does not provide the desired form of connection ( empathy love support etc) 

The result is that the child feels emotionally abandoned.

But what if the child is a womb twin survivor?  What if their sense of abandonment lies in their Dream of the Womb? Then, regardless of how supportive empathetic and loving the parent tries to be, the child will push them away in order to keep alive their sense of emotional abandonment.

What if the parent was also a womb twin survivor?

What if they experience the child pushing them away as being emotionally abandoned by their own child? What if a lack of connection is in their Dream of the Womb? The result is a whole family who lacks emotional connection, one with another.

The more I explore this idea the more huge areas of pain and sadness can be explained.  We need to bring the womb twin hypothesis into all areas where relationships are not working.

The hypothesis, formed in 2003 and  backed up by all my research efforts since then. 

There are at least 600 million people in the world who are womb twin survivors, all of whom are trying to recreate their Dream of the Womb in order to keep their twin alive in their lives. That is a lot of people - enough to support a large group of professionals, who, totally ignorant of what is going on, try to help, largely in vain.

There is a lot we don't know, and we should remain open-minded about the possibility that a wide range of relationship problems are related to being a womb twin survivor.  As much as I have been able to discover so far is in my latest book - 30 chapters, 300 references - but I know I am only scratching the surface.

All comments welcomed. Any parents out there? Are you emotionally abandoned by your parents? Let's get talking about this, it might help!

Twins get to know each other in the womb - developing a sense of self?

I  found this article today:

Twins are social, even in the womb.

The Womb Twin Kids project update

Today we got back our internet connection, after  five days of silence!  So a little update on what is going on in my Womb Twin Survivors project.

I have Ben, a new wonderful volunteer, who is helping me to enter the thousands of pieces of data from 631 questionnaires into an Excel file for  statistical analysis, and we have made a start.  We will share the task and believe me, that is going to make a huge difference!  ( That will make a total of 1161 respondents!)

Also finally, and not without various adventures involving laminators and staple guns (not to mention a covey of extremely helpful librarians)   I put up a two week display for the womb twin kids project in the childrens corner of our local library:

The display of twins and womb twin survivors, using twin teddies  as illustrations

 The teddies seem to work well. For example, here are fraternal opposite sex twins:

We have a new logo:

 

Not to mention a new story book with wonderful colourful illustrations, about two little birds, who hatched out of the same egg...... 

Check out the web site, www.wombtwinkids.co.uk as it develops.

More tomorrow - 58 emails to answer now!

What is a womb twin? (8) an abnormally-developed fetus

The saddest story in the Dream of the Womb is when a womb twin never stood a chance - this little embryo began developing, at least for a while,  but it all went wrong, so that organs were misplaced or missing altogether, or some parts of the body developed to an extraordinary degree in relation to others.

The survivor meanwhile seems to carry a lifelong fear of abnormality for it is there in their Dream of the Womb. This fear may be expressed as

Perfectionism - one's person, behaviour, home or lifestyle must be perfect and beyond reproach - nothing must give rise to expressions of disapproval or disappointment by others.

Inflexibility - a decision, once made or not made, it never varied, lest one "do the wrong thing".  One must not be seen as  unable to function normally, so  all choices and behaviours are limited to what is safe and likely to lead to success. Even when a blatant mistake has been made, it is considered better to stay with the original decision than appear weak or inadequate.

Indecisiveness is characteristic of so many womb twin survivors - rather than make the wrong choice, they oscillate between two opposing choices, or ponder on many other possibilities, always weighing up the consequences - but always at the heart of this, is the fear of doing wrong.

Correctness - by extension, all choices, behaviours and attitudes are rigidly enforced by a strong sense of self discipline, to adopt the "correct" stance in all matters.  This outwardly wilful and strong character trait is in fact created out of a character weakness: a deeply-felt fear of being considered in any way abnormal by others.

Self-righteousness - the need to constantly feel reassured that one is "perfect" gives rise to constant comparisons with others whose life does not satisfy the rigid self-imposed  rules by which this womb twin survivor must live.

Authoritarianism - the rigid rules may be implanted on others, out of a belief they they too will profit by trying at al times to be perfect.  What is forgotten of course in this search for personal perfection is that the world is not perfect in a rigid, crystalline  way but build out of chaos and always in process. perfection is a myth,  perpetuated by people with a fear of abnormality - womb twin survivors.

Workaholism - working too hard, trying to build a better world and always attempting to improve on Nature. Being over-conscientious is a good way to attempt to guarantee perfection in your own behaviour, so one will be seen as diligent capable and good, rather than weak and incapable. (Like your own womb twin.)

The end result is a restricted expression of affection towards others and a general lack of personal joy.  All energy is held inwardly, to fight against a deep fear of abnormality and chaos. There is no energy to spare for other people and their needs.

[Note: no blog tomorrow because the Internet connection is disrupted in our area until Sunday 22nd, I am told!]


I'm off to Portsmouth for the day tomorrow 21st May  to meet some of you over lunch!  Hope to see you there!

What is a womb twin? 6) A parasitic twin

If you have a parasitic twin attached to your body, then you are not a womb twin survivor but a twin pair, two people in one.  If your parastic twin has been removed, then you are a womb twin survivor.
One girl in India had eight limbs and the extra limbs were removed. ( watch the news here)

The surgeon discussed the forthcoming operation

She can now walk on her remaining two legs and she will be considered as a normal little girl and no longer some kind of a god or circus freak.

Lakshmi can now walk

But in the night when she is alone, will she feel a strange sense of only being half a person? Will she always have a sense of something missing?   This is the commonest character trait of womb twin survivors.
The 10 most common traits are now available as a simple starter quiz, to help people who have no evidence of a twin to find confirmation  of their lifelong feelings, that defy explanation  - until the idea of being a womb twin survivor makes sense of their whole life.

Not sure if you are a womb twin survivor or not? Try the quiz today.

What is a womb twin? (5) A blighted ovum

The research papers I have read suggest that the commonest cause of miscarriage is a blighted ovum. The empty sac is all that ever came of one fertilised egg, and the little shadowy area marked by the arrow, that is almost invisible, is another. The result of this twin conception was no live birth at all.

However if a viable fetus is developing next to a blighted ovum which had promised to become an identical twin, the survivor's Dream of the Womb would have an extraordinary quality to it.

Some womb twin  survivors talk about in some sense not really being here and have a  sense of non-existence.   They never get really started in life; they sabotage all attempts to become fully mature. Are they closely identified with a blighted ovum, who never got started and never made it into human form?

There is so much we don't know about all this. I have made a start, but we have a long way to go.

I am about to create a tick-list for people who have never been told they are womb twin survivors and have only the psychological signs to go by: more in  tomorrows blog on that, and I will put it on my web site too!

What is a womb twin? (4) a miscarried fetus

When a twin is miscarried, there  are two eventualities:

1)  If the twins are dichorionic, that is they do not share a sac or a placenta, when one twin dies the whole conceptus may pass out of the womb via the vagina.

 2) If the twins are monochorionic, or if the placentas have fused,  the body of the dead twin does not leave the womb but remains as a small reminder of what once was, visible after birth, embedded in the placenta of the survivor.

The death of one twin does not usually cause a problem for the sole survivor unless the twins share a chorion, in which case there maybe some problems related to twin-twin transfusion.   In the questionnaire analysis,  it was clear that the miscarriage of one twin was the commonest situation that lead to being the sole survivor, and presumably these pregnancies were dichorionic, as here:

Womb twin survivors can arise out of a variety of prebirth situations, and each situation has a different psychological effect on the survivor.  When one twin dies and passes out of the womb, there is a sense of abandonment;when one twin dies and remains, the survivor is left with  a sense of being only half alive. The Dream of the Womb is based in real events, and is a real memory, only so vague and inchoate it needs a new vocabulary to access.

My new book "Womb twin survivors: the lost in the Dream of the Womb" is my attempt to put words to deep feeling and try to decode the strange  and seemingly irrational messages that arise out of prebirth memory.

NO - you are not crazy, as perhaps you once thought: you are a womb twin survivor!  

For lots more, full references more diagrams and explanations see my latest book.

What is a womb twin? (3) A conjoined pair of twins

Sometimes  a womb twin is a twin pair in one body,  joined together in some way.

There are many ways to be joined, and there are even babies born with two heads because  the  two bodies almost developed as one,  except for the head.  Here is a newspaper clip sent to me recently:

 If that is your story, that would make you a womb triplet survivor  -  generally known as a "multiple womb twin survivor. "

Here are some of the ways in which twins may be conjoined:

The usual medical answer to such a pregnancy - a normally developing baby with a conjoined pair- would be a selective "reduction" procedure, where the abnormally developing twin pair would be given a fatal injection of potassium chloride.  The tiny twin pair would gradually disintegrate and disappear.   A single baby would be left to develop alone - a womb twin survivor.

Learn more about selective reduction here:

The result for the survivor would be a vague sense of Someone or Something nearby, that may have been moving and twitching quite randomly, and not necessarily in direct response, because the two babies would respond to their partner's movements before anything else, for their joined twin was the closest and any other fetus would be far away by comparison.  The conjoined pair would have been a familiar presence, quite ordinary and a natural part of the Way Things Are. That is, until they stopped responding and vanished.

What is a womb twin? (2) a premature baby who died shortly after delivery

Prematurity is often fatal


It can happen that babies that are delivered too soon  are just not sufficiently developed to  survive. Mostly its because their lungs are too weak. They need intensive special care in the SCBU -  incubation, intubation and so forth -

Premature twins in an incubator

But sometimes one of the twins is just not strong enough  and dies,  while the other survives - a womb twin survivor.



If that is your story, you will have in your Dream of the Womb  a sense of another little person who was always nearby, but is now gone. Moreover, this was a little person who in the womb was once alive and responsive even from as early as 10 weeks.

The psychological consequences of this will be a sense of abandonment, bereavement, the loss of a dear intimate relationship - but did it occur to anyone to tell you? Were you premature but your parents kept quiet about the other twin to save your feelings?  The sadness and sense of loss may be real.


More in this book

What is a womb twin? (1) a full-term, perfect dead baby

If you are  the womb twin survivor, who was your womb twin?  The first step on the healing path is to make your lost twin real, and this series of blogs for this week will look at the various forms that womb twins can take. All this information is there in your Dream of the Womb, and the intention is to help you make sense of it all.

A full term, dead baby
The most obvious form of a womb twin is  a full-term and perfect dead baby - or dead within a few hours or days of birth. (In this case some people also call the survivor an "early loss twinless twin".)  The causes of stillbirth and neonatal death among twins are slightly different from those in a singleton birth,  in that there are two babies to be delivered.   Perhaps the second baby is at risk because of being left in the womb after the delivery of the first,  plus very often being in the breech or transverse presentation , which makes delivery very difficult.  However I have heard stories of womb twin survivors whose twin was born first and still dead at birth, so this does not necessarily follow.

We never knew there were twins!
There are also stories of twins who are delivered unexpectedly because no one realised that there were twins - where the twin hearts beat as one, in the absence of ultrasound there can be no clue - except perhaps the fact that Mum is very large.  In this case, where the first twin is born alive,  it all seems to be over and the baby is here, only for there to suddenly be another baby, born dead but un-looked for and therefore never fully acknowledged.  This little baby may never be named or mentioned again - that is, until the survivor comes asking questions!

If the first baby is born dead, then the second arrives as the unexpected "redeemer", a miracle, a living second twin! 

The twin bond remains
If your twin was there with you and alive until birth, then the bond you have with him or her is as strong as any twin whose twin sibling is still alive.  For a twin, the primary attachment is the twin because that was the first relationship - the first lesson in love.  This is no less the case because the twin died at birth.   You had nine months in the presence of another living, responsive little person and that experience is hard-wired into your memory.  It has become the template for all your relationships in born life, as you seek out your twin, and your sense of twin-ship, in others.

More in this book

Vanishing twin - the movie, the book, the wiki page, the confusion....

The movie:

I don't know how I missed this movie!  It's called "Vanishing Twin" and was made in Korea in 2002.

'Vanishing Twin' is the medical term for a twin that died in the mother's womb. But it also has the psychological meaning of a basic fear-the other half to disappear. Following the traces of her sister's death, 'Yu-jin' finds herself yearning for her sister, whose charisma differs from Yu-jin's comfortable life. As she does this, Yu-jin begins fighting with herself. There might be, inside ourselves, a different self already dreaming a different dream. This different truth, which we cannot remember, is the motif for the film, "Vanishing Twin."
 
Yu-jin is a successful museum curator who leads a satisfying life with her husband and beautiful daughter, Min-ji. One day, she hears that her twin sister will be coming to town from the United States. She feels both excitement and trepidation at the same time. Seung-jin, her twin sister, is quite different from Yu-jin. She possesses a special charisma that Yu-jin and many other people find attractive. Yu-jin even admires her. As her arrival date approaches, Yu-jin cannot help but feel nervous. Her feelings are justified when her brother-in-law arrives alone bearing horrible news of her sister's suicide. Unlike Yu-jin who is devastated, her husband and friends are unusually calm.

And when her brother-in-law tries to seduce her, she feels a strange physical familiarity to him. Suffering from the aftermath of her sister's death, Yu-jin meets a stranger on the web who calls himself an art lover. He alludes to the suspicious circumstances surrounding Seung-jin's death and Yu-jin finds herself discovering her sister's past. Art lover awakens physical and psychological memories within Yu-jin that she never knew she possessed. Is she the vanishing twin? The answer to the puzzle lies within her.

The book:

We have books about vanished twins: here is one:



The wiki page

Vanishing twin seems to be a reasonable page, and you do see these words duplicated throughout the Internet:

A vanishing twin, also known as fetal resorption, is a fetus in a multi-gestation pregnancy which dies in utero and is then partially or completely reabsorbed by the mother or twin.^[1]

The occurrence of this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as twin embolisation syndrome or vanishing twin syndrome (VTS), since the 1980s when twin pregnancies were made visible early on by means of ultrasound.

Occasionally, rather than being completely reabsorbed, the dead fetus will be compressed by its growing twin to a flattened, parchment-like state known as fetus papyraceus.^[2]

If the fetus is absorbed completely, there are usually no further complications to the pregnancy, other than first trimester vaginal bleeding.^[3] However, if the event occurs in the second or third trimester, serious complications may include premature labor, infection due to the death of the fetus, and hemorrhage. Even at the end of the pregnancy, a low-lying fetus papyraceus may block the cervix and require a cesarean to deliver the living twin.

The vanished twin can die owing to a poorly implanted placenta, a developmental anomaly that may cause major organs to fail or to be missing completely, or there may be a chromosome abnormality incompatible with life. Frequently the twin is a blighted ovum, one that never developed beyond the very earliest stages of embryogenesis.

The confusion

But when you read the discussion pages on Wikipedia you see the confusion:  (There was a page about womb twin survivors once, placed there by me,  and complete with references etc, but was soon removed and some of the detail merged with the vanishing twin page)

Read the discussion and notice the confusion.

Please will some one else put up an edit on the discussion page and maybe mention some of my books and articles, ( see bibliography here, just copy and paste) so it doesn't always sound like me plugging my own web site? 



Thanks!

Womb twin survivors misdiagnosed: (5) "Borderline " personality disorder

If ever there was a random, catch-all term to "diagnose" patients with a bunch of wide-raning self-defeating behaviours and attitudes, this is it.


The term "Borderline personality disorder" is so wide it is almost meaningless:

• Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
• A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation
• Identity disturbance, such as a significant and persistent unstable self-image or sense of self
• Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)
• Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
• Emotional instability due to significant reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)
• Chronic feelings of emptiness
• Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
• Transient, stress-related paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms

People who live with some of these symptoms ruminate endlessly on "what is wrong with me?"  This form is a good example: Paranoid, Schizoid, & Schizotypal  They desperately fling psychiatric terms about, trying to find one that will stick and make sense of their lives.  But the statements on my questionnaire,  which are real statements made by real womb twin survivors, reflect this list of " symptoms " perfectly.


How about this? People who have the symptoms of Borderline personality disorder are womb twin survivors and that's all there is to it.  If that is your diagnosis, take heart.  This is what you can do now.   Just to make sure this is not a hasty decision, stay sceptical -  because it's not good to be impulsive with these important personal issues.

• Read this blog (there are only 350 posts!) 
• Maybe some others blogs too
• Browse the womb twin books
• Read the whole womb twin research web site
• Join the womb twin forum. 
• Come to a womb twin workshop
• Come to a womb twin event
• Contact me for an email  or skype conversation
• Check out the list of physical indications
• Read the questionnaire statements carefully.

When you have done all that carefully, if none of it seems to resonate with you,  then I wish you well in your search for  answers.  If this does seem to make sense, then perhaps after all you are a womb twin survivor!   In that case, this is the day to start the healing path, which will lead you gently into a new way of life!

Womb twin survivors misdiagnosed: (4) "Schizophrenia"

When you think of schizophrenia, the idea that one has a "split personality", it's not such an enormous leap of the imagination to think of a sole surviving twin, being two people at once.  On my web site there are many stories, and one of them details the experience of a womb twin survivor who was misdiagnosed as "schizophrenic".

I had the feeling of being so far removed from reality. It felt like a memory from long ago. I think because the doctors in the hospital had never heard somebody telling a story like this, they just needed a label they could put on me for their records. They diagnosed me "schizophrenic" and "psychotic." Despite the fact that I was diagnosed as such, I had the feeling that something else was going on but I didn't know what that could be.

What a terrible tragedy, for someone to be labelled in this way at such a young age, and left with the feeling for the rest  of their life that they are "mentally ill".

Its time for the people who make these diagnoses to consider that there may be a normal explanation  for some seemingly " pathological" character traits.  It is possible that people who show these traits are reacting in a perfectly normal way to a rather unusual prebirth situation?  Would that not be good news, worth shouting about?

Or is professional opinion so entrenched and inward looking that they do not want to know?

When I had the extraordinary experience last year of offering this idea to the sceptics forum to see what they made of it, one person made an illuminating remark which suggests that some mental health professionals may indeed not be open to new ideas such as this.  I had told the story on the forum of a young woman known to me who was quickly and  permanently cured of her "eating disorder" by discovering that she is a womb twin survivor.  One of these sceptics, who had many years of experience working with eating disorders, answered sardonically :

10 years of being a psych nurse, working with a lot of eating disorder patients and personality disorders, trying all those old fashioned non womb twin therapies, when all this time I could have easily cured their suffering by making up some [unprintable]  about "womb twin survivor guilt". I feel like I've wasted so much time....

Very funny I'm sure, but seriously, if this is a hint of how defensive people can be,  it is going to be a very long time before we get the professionals to listen.  Of course, 90% of the population do not understand - we womb twin survivors must not forget that!

Womb twin survivors misdiagnosed: (3) "Obsessive-compulsive" disorder

On the womb twin forum recently there has been a thread about obsessive thoughts about a lost twin - was there a twin or not?   To obsess about anything - some small detail perhaps, or death, or  needing to feel safe or extremely clean - is probably best described as a preoccupation rather than as an obsession.
To obsess is to dominate or preoccupy the houghts, feelings, or desires of (a person); beset, trouble, or haunt persistently or abnormally.
Many years ago, when I began this project, I was accused by a dear friend of being in the grip of a "compulsion" to do this work.    I was hurt at the time by such a profound degree of misunderstanding of my own behaviour and motives, but after a while I began to understand that this said more about the person saying it than me.
A compulsion  is a strong, usually irresistible impulse to perform an act, especially one that is irrational or contrary to one's will.
Both concepts appear to concern the action of some external force upon the will of an individual. To believe that anything can act as some kind of external force  upon the will of an individual is to deny the possibility of choice.

A choice is an act of the will. It may be influenced by such things as coercion or threat, but ultimately is is a choice.  If you feel you have no choice, you are assuming you have no autonomy and possibly no brain of your own capable of independent action.

I believe that womb twin survivors fall into obsessions and compulsions as an expression of a deep sense of failure to have autonomy or control.  I believe that this is yet another example of keeping  alive ones lost beta twin, and in this case the beta twin had no autonomy, no capacity for independent action because he or she never developed a fully functioning brain.

Observe any compulsion on the TV: the shows about obesity (compulsive eating) hoarding, spending, gambling, alcholism,  drug addiction, compulsive caring, self harming, internet porn addiction,  etc etc. The story is always the same: an individual is out of control and heading for the 4D's - disaster, debt, divorce and death.
How to help?  To make progress, the obsessive-compulsive individual requires two opposing energies to be at work:

• Someone to give them intelligent advice (while inwardly they feel patronised and infantilised)
• Someone to take control (while inwardly they feel their personal privacy is being invaded)
• Someone to provide incentives, praise, encouragement (while inwardly they are resisting personal growth with every ounce of their extremely strong will - their Alpha energy.)

The truth of their Alpha energy is in their resistance to change. Obsessive-compulsive behaviour is a brilliant method of using the power of one's will to resist any attempt by another individual to bring about behavioral change in the longer term.  Its a neat way to stay in the Beta space - weak, helpless and beset by forces beyond one's control.  It is a choice.  A stupid, self-sabotaging choice, but a choice nonetheless.

I believe that the best way to help someone with the so called " obsessive-compulsive disorder"  is to discuss the possible reasons why someone would willingly make a series of stupid, self defeating choices.  One reason could be clarified very quickly with a single question :  "Is it possible that you are a womb twin survivor?" 

[Read my new book for more about this]
 

Womb Twin survivors misdiagnosed:(2) "Bipolar" disorder

Bi polar disorder is in my view not a "disorder" of any kind.

I think it is one of many ways in which womb twin survivors keep alive the deep prebirth impression of their womb twin.

When they are UP, cheerful, positive and full of creative energy they are in the Alpha space, being the strong Alpha womb twin survivor.

When they are DOWN  they are sad, weak, overwhelmed, unable to cope, and they are in the Beta space. They may cycle through these changes rapidly, within a few moments, or over many years. it is as if they cannot feel whole unless both sides are equally expressed in some way.

Here is an example: Jennifer has been called obsessive compulsive, ADD, and Bipolar. She believes the extreme verbal and mental abuse she received in her youth caused her to continue reliving the past in her mind.  When her mind was  obsessing on some negative notion of the past, she could not focus as she should.  She would erupt with great anger, as if she were  reminded by a similar incident of her past.

Constant resentful rumination on past hurts is a good antidote to Alpha energy.  Keeping negative energy, resentment in particular, alive is an excellent way to sabotage your  personal growth.

For a womb twin survivor who displays the symptoms of bipolar disorder, life has a balance and a kind of rough justice - that  one can be two people at once and never grow up or make anything of life. Never growing up is a good way to assuage survivor guilt.

Beta energy says NO

• N - Negative
• O - Overwhelming

Alpha energy says I CAN

• I - Intelligent thinking
•  C - Calm in spirit
• A - Alpha energy
• N - Newness of life

Leonardo da Vinci - the greatest womb twin survivor ever?

It is often said that Leonardo da Vinci was a genius, that he had a modern mind and invented machines far ahead of his time, even though  he lived 500 years ago, between April 15, 1452  and May 2, 1519. So today, being the anniversary of his death, I though he deserved a mention. Not just because he was so gifted as an engineer and artist but because it seems that he was a womb twin survivor - probably the greatest womb twin survivor in the world, ever.

Leonardo was born the illegitimate son of  Ser Piero, a notary. He grew up in the tiny vilage of Vinci, near Florence. 

Today in Vinci you can find

Museo Leonardiano

Leonardo Museum. This museum is considered to be one of the largest and most original collections of machines and models of Leonardo the inventor, technologist and engineer. Each model is shown together with precise references to the artist's sketches and annotations.

The machines exhibited exemplify various fields of interest: there are military machines, machines for construction, scientific instruments and machines for moving through air, water and on land. Palazzina Uzielli, a newly added section of the museum, houses the temporary exhibitions and an educational center which offers cultural programs.
BlBLIOTECA Leonardiana
A complete and specialized documentation center for the work of Leonardo da Vinci, that has facsimile reproductions of all of Leonardo's manuscripts and drawings.

His most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, hangs in the Louvre. Millions of people pass by every year to gaze at this  little painting, almost lost among the other pieces and now behind glass, but its attraction is hypnotic.

.

It has been said that the painting relies on optical illusions to do with the action and reaction of light and shade ; it has also been said ( in February this year in fact) that the face in this painting is a man, dressed as a woman.  The assumption is that the face is Leonardo himself, but female.

So now lets look at what evidence has come to us down five centuries that may explain this man in terms of being a womb twin survivor:

1. Same sex attraction. ( An early idea on this blog, 2008) There has been much speculation about this. Sigmund Freud had a great time revealing Leonardo as homosexual and wrote about it.  (Not unsurprisingly, Freud blamed his mother, but then that says more about Freud himself than anyone else. )

But what if Leonardo was the sole survivor of an identical twin pregnancy?  He was left handed and often used mirror writing, which is clear enough as a sign of monozygotic twinning, but  this idea would also explain how he sought after men much younger than himself and formed a deep bond with one of them. - the first  and most significant was "Salai"

Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno (nicknamed Salai (Little Devil). Gian entered Leonardo's household around 1490 at the age of 10. Leonardo himself has recorded in MS. C the precise date of this event. "Giacomo came to live with me on St Mary Magdalene's day (22 July) 1490, aged ten years.

Salai as Saint Sebastian by Leonardo

Salai  has been  described "as an adoptive son, protégé, companion, or servant."  But it may have been a deeper need than that- a deep spiritual bond, made at considerable personal cost to Leonardo because Salai was a compulsive thief as a boy and required constant supervision.  There was no sexual union here, but the presence of Salai  seemed to be essential it seems to Leonardo's mental well being.

2. A love of the feminine?

Although he drew naked bodies often, for he studied anatomy, he seemed to know little of the female form other than the face. His men as depicted in his art were always beautiful and clearly Salai was a pretty boy.  Leonardo himself was very good looking, with  an aesthetic kind of face, and a long nose that was to be found in almost every portrait he made. 

It has been suggested that he painted pictures of himself, again and again.

As a young man

And that the Mona Lisa was a portrait of himself too.

A self portrait and the Mona Lisa superimposed

So why women? What was it about this man that he made such feminine images of men? That the one picture he never finished and kept until his death was one of himself but as a woman? 

What if, along with a lost identical half of himself there was also a sister, just a faint touch of oestrogen from another embryo nearby who was there for a while and soon gone, leaving a vague but profound impression? 

That would make Leonardo da Vinci a multiple womb twin survivor and as such  the greatest womb twin survivor in the world - ever.

 ( ...........and I didnt mention his inability to finish things, his self sabotage and his narcissism - that will have to be another blog, another time!)

Womb twin survivors misdiagnosed: (1) "Narcissistic" personality disorder

 Here are some of the so- called " symptoms" of what some experts call "Narcissistic Personality Disorder":

• Self-centered and boastful
• Seek constant attention and admiration
• Consider themselves better than others
• Exaggerate their talents and achievements
• Believe that they are entitled to special treatment

That doesn't sound like a list anyone would want to admit to! It makes such people sound really arrogant and unpleasant.  Not nice to know at all......

A narcissistic person captivated by her image in the mirror

But I think that we need to take another look at these "symptoms".

I dont think there is anything "pathological" at all in these characteristics. I think what we see as "narcissism" is in fact nothing more than the normal character of the sole survivor of an identical twin  pair.

If you once had an identical twin, long ago, before you were born, would you not be focused absolutely on an image of yourself?  Would you not focus your energy inwardly, in order to maintain a weaker, less adequate part of you, of which you are exquisitely conscious and which is infinitely delicate and in need of special treatment?

Would you not seek out others just like you and  want to see yourself reflected in their eyes?  The Greek myth of Narcissus reflects this so perfectly that I am sure that this is the deepest meaning of this ancient myth.

Narcissus captivated by his image in the lake, ignoring poor Echo, who loved him so.....

 Echo and Narcissus

I, Echo, stand unheard and voiceless -
Save the last fragments of your voice in the air.
Yet what a language there is in the looking and feeling; in the isolation and repudiation!
Here is a silent story of unimaginable pain, of rejection and loneliness
Of hatred and love in equal measure.
I don't see your face but the back of your neck as you gaze endlessly upon your reflection
Seeking and never finding; lost and always out of reach.

Over the long years I have watched you fading into something insubstantial;
I have watched the stillness of your grief, transfixed upon tragedy
Yet rejoicing in your own triumph over death.
I see Someone is there for you,
But for me he is not there, he lures you away from me
He consumes you, he repudiates me.
Each moment is a moment of utter contradiction.

Surely you live a life of confused imaginings where life can be death;
Where love can be hate; where continued being can be total annihilation
And birth must mean death.

That world is not mine. It is your world
Created out of perpetual re-enactment of a primal tragedy.
Amid the wordless language of your still gaze upon the lake, communication is complete.
I too am grieving for you, my heart's desire. I too am searching for you never to find you.
I too am repudiated yet I too still remain loyal, I also have been annihilated -
Yet I manage, by inches, to exist.

For myself, only love and desire remain in an echo of what once was.
It is desire that consumes me, yet desire helps me to survive.
In eternal loyalty I resolve to stand sentinel at your grief
'Till death us will unite.