Womb twin survivors misdiagnosed: (3) "Obsessive-compulsive" disorder

On the womb twin forum recently there has been a thread about obsessive thoughts about a lost twin - was there a twin or not?   To obsess about anything - some small detail perhaps, or death, or  needing to feel safe or extremely clean - is probably best described as a preoccupation rather than as an obsession.
To obsess is to dominate or preoccupy the houghts, feelings, or desires of (a person); beset, trouble, or haunt persistently or abnormally.
Many years ago, when I began this project, I was accused by a dear friend of being in the grip of a "compulsion" to do this work.    I was hurt at the time by such a profound degree of misunderstanding of my own behaviour and motives, but after a while I began to understand that this said more about the person saying it than me.
A compulsion  is a strong, usually irresistible impulse to perform an act, especially one that is irrational or contrary to one's will.
Both concepts appear to concern the action of some external force upon the will of an individual. To believe that anything can act as some kind of external force  upon the will of an individual is to deny the possibility of choice.

A choice is an act of the will. It may be influenced by such things as coercion or threat, but ultimately is is a choice.  If you feel you have no choice, you are assuming you have no autonomy and possibly no brain of your own capable of independent action.

I believe that womb twin survivors fall into obsessions and compulsions as an expression of a deep sense of failure to have autonomy or control.  I believe that this is yet another example of keeping  alive ones lost beta twin, and in this case the beta twin had no autonomy, no capacity for independent action because he or she never developed a fully functioning brain.

Observe any compulsion on the TV: the shows about obesity (compulsive eating) hoarding, spending, gambling, alcholism,  drug addiction, compulsive caring, self harming, internet porn addiction,  etc etc. The story is always the same: an individual is out of control and heading for the 4D's - disaster, debt, divorce and death.
How to help?  To make progress, the obsessive-compulsive individual requires two opposing energies to be at work:

• Someone to give them intelligent advice (while inwardly they feel patronised and infantilised)
• Someone to take control (while inwardly they feel their personal privacy is being invaded)
• Someone to provide incentives, praise, encouragement (while inwardly they are resisting personal growth with every ounce of their extremely strong will - their Alpha energy.)

The truth of their Alpha energy is in their resistance to change. Obsessive-compulsive behaviour is a brilliant method of using the power of one's will to resist any attempt by another individual to bring about behavioral change in the longer term.  Its a neat way to stay in the Beta space - weak, helpless and beset by forces beyond one's control.  It is a choice.  A stupid, self-sabotaging choice, but a choice nonetheless.

I believe that the best way to help someone with the so called " obsessive-compulsive disorder"  is to discuss the possible reasons why someone would willingly make a series of stupid, self defeating choices.  One reason could be clarified very quickly with a single question :  "Is it possible that you are a womb twin survivor?" 

[Read my new book for more about this]
 

Resistance

Well, I have had two very revealing adventures today with regard to resistance - the psychological kind. That is the kind of stuff therapists meet all the time: it's the unstinting loyalty to, and absolute cooperation with, maintaining the status quo - to continue wantonly along the road to self-destruct and refuse to let anyone even imply that this chosen road is anything other than totally intelligent and appropriate in the circumstances.

A dear friend from long ago, who was a wonderful wordsmith (no doubt still is; I don't hear from him any more, but I shall celebrate his talents here) once decribed his therapy to me:

One of the enlightening moments in my therapy was to understand and to embrace, personally and not just intellectually, the concept of responsibility - the pyschotherapeutic responsibility for oneself and one's condition. I may not have been responsible for the way I was, but I was responsible for dealing with that from now on. Sitting on the pity pot, being a victim, is not efficacious.

But to find the way, mired as one is in so much encrusted, unyielding, hardset, behavioral grime, is not easy. It generally needs a guide, a wise voice who can point out small-step stepping stones along a way. Therapy was of course a revelation. It was an archaeological exercise. Scrape away carborundum-hard crud here, chisel diamond-tough dross away there, get down to a shard of real value lying buried, embedded in the matrix of time; tease it out, or not; go somewhere else; chip away more; see if that loosens the grip here. Build up a detailed picture, replete with revelation and realisation. That stuff is hard. It requires work.

Yes it is hard. Diamond-hard.

So if the person concerned is absolutely determined to remain on the "pity pot"; utterly committed to the idea of being a "victim", that is resistance to owing one's personal power to choose.

If the person is absolutely determined to drink alcohol to excess so the liver fails, the heart begins to wear out and death is imminent, that is resistance to healing.

If a person is absolutely determined to die, that is resistance to living.

What if there was an intelligent rational reason for such a high level of resistance to change for the better? If the explanation for this is that the individual concerned is a wombtwin survivor, what then may we learn?

I suggest that we must look to survivor guilt; to loyalty to one's little lost twin who hever stood a chance; to a desire to be reunited in death to the other dead half of oneself.

So if I don't want to be here and never wanted to be born; if I feel I don't deserve to be here because my twin never made it into born life - why then, I may throw my life away and sit on a pity pot for years, wasting the best years of my lfe waiting to be rescued by a skilled therapist.

My friend made it through therapy and is happy at last with the woman of his dreams. Sadly it is not always so. Hospitals all over the world are filled with patients killing themselves slowly with drugs, alcohol, overeating and other methods of self destruction.

Are you resistant to living?

Try a little thankfulness. You have been given the great gift of life; dont waste it, not one minute.

Would you refuse your Christmas presents? Hand them back unopened?

Un-wrap the gift of your life today and allow yourself to receive this gift. Its free; its here and its all yours. If you don't use it, no one else will. Not even your lost twin.