In this video this is described very clearly.
(Sorry, there was no way to embed this you have to visit the link to watch it.)
I say that this is the relationship between a DZ (fraternal) womb twin survivor and an MZ ( identical) womb twin survivor.
The doctor in the video says: " This is replicating the difficult relationship you had when you were a child." What rubbish.
1. If you have/had parents who "didn't understand you", for example, its not the fact that they are/were so different from you that made/makes you feel empty inside - you were always going to feel empty anyway, because that is how most all womb twin survivors feel.
2. If you are/were not able to make contact with your parents at that deep, empathetic level you crave so much, its not because they didnt/dont love you or care about you, or cant/cpuldnt be bothered to try, its probably your own fear of intimacy and invasion that made/makes you stand off.
That's not their fault. Never.
Time to reconsider how much your parents, be they with you today or not, ever loved you in the best way they knew how.
Philip Larkin has been a guest on this blog before, not because he is right about parents, but because he is absolutely wrong. He died in 1985 a lonely and bitter man because he never understood why he was born with a big hole inside him that nothing in this life was ever going to fill - not even the most loving and doting parent could ever fill that emptiness. (Yes, he was almost certainly a womb twin survivor, in my view, but very few people knew about them before the 1980s)
"This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
My version
They take the rap, your Mum and Dad-
They do not mean to, but they do.
They fill up with the faults you had
And take the blame - for love of you.
But they were carried in their turn
By folks with quite a different brain,
And half the time tried to be firm
And half the time took on your pain.
Child hands on misery to Mum
And lets Dad carry all the shit.
Then he or she is innocent:
And that's about the size of it..
[All comments welcomed.]
Hi Althea, wow, this is important stuff. One thing I am learning all the time is that we are 100% responsible for our lives, everything in it! There is absolutely NO ONE to blame for how things are in your life.
ReplyDeleteThe sooner we take responsibility for ourselves, the sooner we can have those deeper connections we wombtwins crave. We'll start attracting others with whom we can have those 50:50 relationships with.
And when you own who you are and how you are, you can change it if you don't like it!
With love,
Eloise
A good relationship is 50:50.
Deleteso is responsibility 50% yours 50% the rest of the world to respect and understand
who we are
Yes, but we are 100% responsible for our 50% of the relationship.
DeleteAs for respect and understanding, no one has any right to demand this from anyone. Respect is also 50:50, so we have to accept that people simply do not understand how it is to be a womb twin survivor and treat them with respect as we carefully and kindly explain all about it. Hence this blog and all the books etc.
I don't agree at all with the above comment. Yes, a lot of people who are wombtwin survivors would have problems of some sort anyway, but it certainly doesn't help to have screwed up parents who treat you like garbage! Mental hospitals are loaded with patients who have only learned to hate themselves and then possibly turn that hate out into the world. Yes, it is wonderful to be self-aware and be able to weed through the muck and mire and say "I am responsible for my own life and my own happiness". But it takes some of us a very long time to get there, and it feels like you're in hell. Sometimes you spend half your lifetime on a journey of self-realization. But I cannot agree with the statement that the parents are entirely blameless.
ReplyDeleteMental hospital are loaded with womb twin survivors who remain unidentified because the professionals who admit them do not know how to identify them and know nothing whatever about how it feels to be one. My mission in life is to inform both patients and staff of this possibility.
ReplyDeleteA human person is not a laboratory rat, to be easily programmed like a robot by the style of parenting they happen to receive. Human children are in fact very hard to train, unless they are willing to comply. Ask any parent who has two or three children all entirely different from each other why that may be - nature of nurture? Is it genes or upbringing?
My work suggest that the prenatal experience is the most profound and long lasting influence on personality and self image. Parents receive a parcel on delivery, of a baby who is already formed. They do what they can with what they get. Children filled with self hate are the most difficult to love. Even the strongest and most heartfelt unconditional parental love cannot change a child who has chosen self-hate. Not even therapy can do much - as you say, it takes many years to overcome, but choosing to believe that it's all your parents' fault only serves to delay your healing.
I get fed up with you trying to put everything down to us being womb twin survivors1 Child abuse it not the child's fault
DeleteNot "everything", only what is characteristic of womb twin survivors. That has been my work, to discover what is characteristic of womb twin survivors that is not shared by the other 90% of the population.
DeleteI got fed up too - many years ago, of hearing professional psychologists going on endlessly about how parenting is the reason for many, if not all, psychological problems. On that basis child abusers can say "its their parents fault" that they abuse children, rather than taking responsibility for their own behavior. (Sigh....) Thanks anyway for the comment.
I am one of the last people who would condone abusers ducking their responsibility. My frustration is that I don't know how to move forward when some of the stuff that happened has nothing to do with me being the sole survivor of a twin pregnancy. My twin was stillborn so I do have proof but cannot see that being mistreated was linked to that.
DeleteI see where you are coming from - that you were mistreated as a child and you have to blame your parents for that. I think you have to go back to the original idea that I posted in the first place that our relationships in some way reflect our pre-born life and that we are 100% responsible for our 50% of every relationship.
DeleteNow if you are stuck in a place of hurt and resentment about your own mistreatment by your parents there are various ways to move forward, and these all involve understanding, empathy and forgiveness. I dont have a whole lot of experience in abuse recovery but from what I have learned there are many different ways to respond to abuse by carers and parents. In short, you don't have to be stuck.
Feeling perpetually trapped in a Black Hole of pain, isolation and suffering is very much a womb twin survivor thing. The pain and powerlessness of being the victim of abuse and the pain and powerlessness of being a womb twin survivor can become merged into one body of pain. The healing path ebook is free and may help. If you do the womb twin work, it will help with the abuse recovery. I'm available privately if you want more help - email help is free of charge.
I feel sad for Philip Larkin, pity that he did not live long enough to discover that who we WTS are, is not because of our parents, but because it is that we chose to become who we are. I cannot fault my upbringing, and accept that in the '50s, little or nothing was known about WTSs. What I have learnt from this 'healing' journey is that, I now realize that I was not the only one affected, but because my Mother knew she had lost my twin, she battled for many years to come to terms with her loss, as well as mine, she ended up in a Mental Hospital for a while with severe depression and suicide tendencies. I cannot imagine what she must have suffered. We never really bonded as mother and child, but after my Father's death, and as I got older our relationship improved, but we were never close. Today I wish we had, had the knowledge then that I have now. Therefore I agree totally with Althea that the Medical Profession should be made more aware, informed and educated how to identify those that are or may be WTSs and be better equipped how to deal with such patients. And the most important lesson is to learn to love one's self first, accept who you are and release your twin, allowing her/him to be with you as a loving memory, and celebrate your own life.
ReplyDelete