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:
- The child seeks out connection ( empathy, love, support, help) with the parent.
- 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.
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| The hypothesis, formed in 2003 and backed up by all my research efforts since then. |
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!
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI felt emotionally abandoned by my parents and had to battle with this and my childhood very long and often, and of course therapists go to that place too, just when I was convinced it was time to move on.
Knowing I was a wombtwin survivor (and one or both of my parents probably too) helps me a lot to understand my childhood and to finally get over everything, to be able to leave it in the past and to forgive everyone including myself that things went the way they went.
In conclusion; for years and years I tried to solve my issues with thinking about my childhood and the first really reliev and solution was brought to me when I was at your conference and the topic of parent-issues was connected to being a wombtwin survivor.
That is a wonderful comment! Thank you. It does sound like we are on to a good solution, doesn't it? So glad that it has helped.
ReplyDeleteI was and am emotionally abandoned by my parents. For years it bothered me out of my womb twin disappointed expectations that noone will ever be enough, but as I grew and healed and try to heal things with them, they continually rejected me. It didn't seem natural or right so I tried every way to make things ok with them with no success. I thought I'd eventually break through and find new ground with them, since I produced their only grandchild, but that wasn't to be. Once I accepted they didn't want me in their lives and gave up, several years went by without contact proving it had been a one-sided relationship which dried up when I stopped giving. It was very painful and confusing having living relatives that seem dead, when my dead twin seemed alive!
ReplyDeleteTo them, I was an "accident" and then brought all that twin grief too, it was just too much so they shut me down. They pretend they love me but make no effort to show it directly, they do it for show which conveniently makes my other siblings think I'm "the problem" to distract it from the parents since they are emotionally shut down. One sibling believes it but the other sibling who is a womb twin survivor doesn't and hears my side of things. He is the only "family" I have now because I've disowned the rest much to my relief and happiness. I spent too many years yearning and aching for their love, I needed it so bad beause I was a womb twin, but breaking out of this cycle was healing and freeing since I didn't have to stay trapped in unrequited love, like I had done for my twin too. It was a dynamic which got imprinted and kept attracting the same energy until it broke and I could get out from underneath it.
I learned that strangers treat me better than family - perhaps an echo from my attachment-bonding days in the incubator where human bonding came from nurses with changing shifts for the first 2 months of life. It's not that I regressed and wanted to create that, I wanted bonding and love and a real family and to have it all come together but it never did. I'm ok with it now because it probably would've never been enough anyway, so I just work on that in myself and create a better family for my son because you can't change the past, you can only change the future. Though, I suspect if I had "good enough" maybe it would've come together and I wouldn't have suffered so much but that is now an outdated fantasy.
My mother once ridiculed me for always following her around when I was a toddler, upon hearing this my heart broke twice - once for her lack of love and twice because she was just a consolation prize for the twin love I couldn't find and I couldn't even have that.
In my case and many others, it seems the parental neglect & abandonment is a combination of disturbances around the womb story (and parents inability to handle it well) and also a result of lack of bonding from this as well as being premature and in incubators, as so many womb twins have endured.
The trauma of the contrast from being crammed in a womb with a twin and a mother's heartbeat, then alone in a box with inconsistent contact for an unending amount of time with no understanding and feeling vulnerable and alone was very damaging.
The neglect was also a sign of the times - pregnancy & birth issues were "women's problems" and people didn't share openly such personal information back then so much got repressed for social & cultural reasons.
I know that much less damage would've been done if I was shown even a little bit of the love I needed. I have never heard my mother say she loves me, ever. My dad said it once but out of guilt. I never heard "at least one of you survived" I only heard "you were an accident" "you beat your twin up in my tummy" "look how much we spent on oxygen for you in the hospital" "you weren't supposed to be here in December, you were supposed to be born in March"...with nothing positive to counter it or ever feeling wanted and accepted - plus feeling completely misunderstood - all extremely painful and could've been so different.
ReplyDeleteLuckily I have a transformative personality that has allowed me to rise above this and pass on to my son what I didn't get - parents who show love through actions and words, who want their children and honor their sacredness. I sure am lucky to be his Mom and I let him know that. Life is a miracle and an opportunity that is to be celebrated and revered rather than taken for granted.
It would be interesting to know how many womb twins, through their twin compassion, are able to transform the love they didn't get into "good enough" love for future generations. Maybe that is the larger theme here, it certainly is for me.