Healing (18) Coming in from the cold - healing self isolation

ABANDONED
Some womb twin survivors spend a great deal of time cut off from other people in a world of their own. In their Dream of the Womb, they began their lives in company but the Someone else has now gone. Almost every womb twin survivor I have had contact with feels abandoned. This is entirely predictable, for they have indeed been abandoned by their womb twin.

SOLITARY AND SAD
We can all enjoy being alone, but some womb twin survivors feel very sad when they are left alone. It is when everyone else has gone away that they feel abandoned, yet again. Womb twin survivors who are placed for adoption find this very hard because they have been abandoned twice in quick succession: firstly by their twin and then by their mother.

If you feel solitary and sad when you are left alone, with little capacity to enjoy the peace and freedom of a little time to yourself, then you may have been abandoned by your twin, lost in a miscarriage.

NEVER ALONE
Some womb twin survivors are quite happy being alone, because in the Dream they are still somehow accompanied by a vague Presence. They may spend many days or even years quite alone yet never experience true isolation. In their Dream of the womb there is a fragment of what was once a womb twin, lurking in the back of their mind.

For some womb twin survivors this can feel like a “haunting” or a “voice in the head”. It is in fact a memory of Someone Else who was once there but who died and lay alongside, gradually disintegrating, until the time of birth. A short time later your placenta was delivered and destroyed, along with what remained of your twin. From that moment on you really were alone but you have carried the memory of that nearby Presence.

BEST IN A GROUP
Some womb twin survivors are at their very best in a group, and all their lives they work hard to create groups or join existing groups. They believe in teamwork and pulling together and they don’t function very well alone. In a group they light up and become extraordinary, while alone they shrink into a shadow of what they could be. Because of this benefit they seek out groups. Left alone for too long they pine for human company and being in a crowd.

TIME OUT ALONE
Most womb twin survivors like to be in company, but some of them also crave time alone. They go to considerable lengths to ensure that they get space: they get up very early in order to be alone, or insist on a period of absolute privacy. Time alone is time to recover. Womb twin survivors enter into very deep and intense relationships with whoever they may be with, and that kind of intensity cannot be sustained for very long without a break.

Many womb twin survivors become therapists because of their natural gift of rapport. If a highly intuitive and empathetic womb twin survivor spends time in intense engagement with people in great need of healing and empathy, he or she will become exhausted if time alone is not available. They are at risk of “burn out” unless they recognise this need in themselves.

VOLUNTARY ISOLATION
Womb twin survivors are hard-wired in their earliest weeks for partnership or group living, but they will voluntarily withdraw when a Black Hole beckons. Anticipating the pain of loss or abuse, they will withdraw from intimacy as a pre-emptive measure. Assuming a potentially hostile world, they may remain in a world of their own where it is safe.

ALONE BEHIND A MASK
Some womb twin survivors spend a lifetime putting on an act of being sociable. Under the mask is a very different person who is vulnerable and terribly alone, but very few people, if anyone at all, is allowed behind the mask.

The most tragic womb twin survivors of all are the ones who believe that the mask is all they have. For them it seems that behind the mask there is no one there at all. Only the most intuitive, highly empathetic and persistent person (usually a therapist) will ever penetrate the mask to reassure the person behind it that they do after all exist and they are not alone.

LETTING GO OF ISOLATION
When you let go of the isolation that lies in your Dream of the Womb, then you will recognise a simple truth: you are a member of the human race. You are a social animal, equipped to befriend anyone who comes by. There are many millions of fellow human beings available to choose from, so you need never be alone.