Story 25: Was my dermoid cyst my vanished twin?

I was an only child and always felt lonely and that there was something or someone missing.  I have always been a crowd pleaser, the joker of the pack, doing my very best to keep everyone else happy and then I feel I have fulfilled the point of being here. I love to see everyone happy but it often makes me feel as if I am living a lie and I am not being true to myself. 

I am 65 and only recently realized that I am definitely dyslexic. I get so many things twisted, it is almost as if I choose the wrong answer on purpose to fail which sounds crazy.  It almost feels as if I am kind of wired up the opposite way than I should be and there doesn't seem any way I can switch back again, although I know the right way I should function.  However hard I try, I find it impossible to sort myself out and this makes me feel terribly alienated from other people and quite lonely and sad.

It has always given me an extreme feeling of low self worth - my parents split up soon after marriage. My mother found she was expecting me almost nine months to the day that she married my dad and, although I don't know, I always felt she may have attempted to abort me.

 I have never actually said this to anyone before, but I never really felt truly loved by her, because the fact of my arrival messed her life up so completely.  Although my mother never actually said this to me, even when quite small, I sensed this and felt guilty and sad that my mothers life suffered so much, simply because I was in the world. I always knew that if I hadn't been on the scene my mother would have been able to live her life in a much better way.

 I always kind of felt worthless. Because in those days, in the late 1940's, there was very little child care. I was passed from family and friends and went to many different schools, so never felt cherished loved or wanted by anyone. This is when I started to try and make people laugh, so they would like me.  One thing I realised quite early was that I could dance very well, even at a very young age, and I would dance for people because I knew it pleased them and made them happy.

This seemed to be the start of mainly pleasing others rather than myself which I thought was a selfish thing to do. Other (please specify): I don't feel I am that successful in life with most things, but funny enough I am on the whole liked by people, because I always put other people's happiness before my own.  So although I feel pleased that friends and family are happy, in another way I resent this because it's at the expense of my own happiness.

I would love to be more equal with people, but it's my own fault, because I take the option of always giving and not taking. I have had a rough couple of years as I have been very ill and been unable to leave the house.

I am a very happily married lady and have been lucky enough to meet the love of my life. We have been married for almost 50 years. I have sadly never been able to have children, mainly due to my own fault, as I have been unable to go to others and talk about my problems.  Going to the doctor has always been a nightmare and I have always been a shy person about speaking of personal and physical things.

My mother always gave me the impression that sexual and physical love was dirty and childbirth was so very painful and indeed I was an only child. When I married I found making love very difficult and painful.  It turned out, looking back, this was because I had cysts on both ovaries, one of them being an extremely large dermoid cyst, which had ruptured, joined up again and carried on growing.

Because of this sex was very difficult and painful.  Gradually lovemaking became less and less, which was awful because I dearly loved my husband.  This all went on for years. I couldn't go to the doctor to ask for help and I reached my 40's without becoming pregnant.  Then I suddenly thought I was pregnant.

I got a pregnancy kit and it was positive!  I went along to the GP, who examined me and immediately sent me to the hospital, because she could feel the cysts.  I think the hormones must have given a false reading.  I was operated on very quickly and my uterus was a complete mess, with both cysts having erupted at one stage. The doctor cleared things as best he could.

He then sent both ovaries and cysts etc to the Path Lab. He then told my husband that I was suffering from advanced ovarian cancer and would be starting chemotherapy as soon as possible.  My husband was devastated. The next day the doctor came to my bedside and told me. I was in a daze. All I wanted to do was to get home. He said I could do this until the treatment was set up.

Then the next day the surgeon came back and told me that the Path report was in and they couldn't find any cancer at all and that I would be able to go home.  After this news I just couldn't take it all in and had a nervous breakdown, I think - I had further tests and was examined and told that was that.

But it was very difficult to get back to normal life . I was of course menopausal, so the child I always dreamt of was now something that would never happen.   I was in bereavement for this.

One good thing came out of this - my husband and I discovered a wonderful physical loving life and this almost made up for everything. 

When I look back, I feel resentment to my mother, although I loved her dearly, especially as she died very young, aged 48 of leukaemia.  So I never ever got the chance to build an adult relationship with her.  That was lacking when I was little. Who knows? If she had have lived, things could have been sorted out.

It seems also when I look back I always picked the wrong decision. it was almost as if I did it on purpose and I don't understand this at all - perhaps it goes back to the twin thing, where I needed two of us to make the whole to enable me to pick the correct way.  I just didn't have the strength to make up that other half of me, so that I could function properly. 

My husband is very different to me. He is a perfectionist.  He needs that to function, so I have let him just take over. He makes all the decisions in our life.  I find that way it works out well for us, although I know its not the best for me and our relationship.  It should be more balanced, but after all the turmoil I have had in my life, I have decided to settle for this way.

I just so regret never holding my own baby in my arms. I don't know why, but I feel I would have been the most fantastic mother, because I had suffered all my life from not having the real thing. I knew what emotional love and support I needed from a mother and I wasn't receiving this, so I have always known just what the ideal mother should be.  Ironically, I never ended up being able to give this to my own child, which does seem rather cruel, don't you agree?  and a bit of a waste really. Funny also to think that, although I have never been that good at much in life, the one thing I know I'd have excelled at - motherhood - was never available to me.