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!