A healing path (5) no worst: not feeling allowed to exist

The worst part of the Black Hole is the way you represent in your mind the fact that your twin ceased to exist.   This is an extract from an article about the so-called "Pre-oedipal psychopathology." (In other words, being a womb twin survivor, but then these people don't know about us) 

Persons suffering from pre-oedipal psychopathology generally are able to function quite well in their work life and in interpersonal relations which are not too intimate, and yet they are prey to attacks of intense oral rage which is directed against others or themselves. Their object relationships vacillate between superficiality and clinging dependency and manipulative demandingness. They have little tolerance for stress and are hypersensitive to criticism. They exhibit an outward calm, while inwardly feeling chaotic and inferior, especially with respect to persons in authority. They tend to suffer from any combination of two or more neurotic, seemingly psychotic, psychosomatic or socio-pathic symptoms and they tend to complain of diffuse free-floating anxiety, of a pervasive sense of emptiness and of existential despair or of a vague feeling that things are not as they should be with them.

 The idea of "existential despair"  is of interest here.  This is not being dead, or a fear of death, or even a fear of being alive.  This is a feeling of not being allowed to exist.

What is a womb twin? (5) A blighted ovum

The research papers I have read suggest that the commonest cause of miscarriage is a blighted ovum. The empty sac is all that ever came of one fertilised egg, and the little shadowy area marked by the arrow, that is almost invisible, is another. The result of this twin conception was no live birth at all.

However if a viable fetus is developing next to a blighted ovum which had promised to become an identical twin, the survivor's Dream of the Womb would have an extraordinary quality to it.

Some womb twin  survivors talk about in some sense not really being here and have a  sense of non-existence.   They never get really started in life; they sabotage all attempts to become fully mature. Are they closely identified with a blighted ovum, who never got started and never made it into human form?

There is so much we don't know about all this. I have made a start, but we have a long way to go.

I am about to create a tick-list for people who have never been told they are womb twin survivors and have only the psychological signs to go by: more in  tomorrows blog on that, and I will put it on my web site too!

Signs of a twin conception: (6) the blighted ovum

The blighted ovum is a frequent cause of miscarriage, and is caused by an embryo failing to develop beyond the very first stages.  


Though a blighted ovum can sometimes be the result of low hormone levels in the body, the major cause of the condition appears to be chromosomal.  A blighted ovum is thought to occur when the chromosomes making up the fetus become defective or disordered, resulting in severe genetic defects. Your body recognises these chromosomal abnormalities and chooses to end the pregnancy.  Chromosomal abnormalities can occur for many reasons. Sometimes, the egg or sperm that are joined during fertilization have defective cells.  Other times, chromosomes can become improperly arranged during division of the fertilized egg. [more]


A blighted ovum is referred to as an "abnormality" for this reason. 
In one study of multiple pregnancies carried out over a period of four years, 41 cases of abnormal multiple pregnancies were diagnosed successfully by ultrasound. These included several rare combinations of abnormalities. The most frequent was a normal pregnancy and a synchronous blighted ovum.  [more]

When thinking about womb twin survivors, and the psychological effect on the sole survivor when the other twin was nothing more than a tiny embryo that never developed and left only an empty sac behind, how would that survivor keep their lost twin alive in their Dream of the Womb?

A sense of somehow never getting going with life, perhaps? Stuck forever in a kind of limbo, with no sense of self, independent life or autonomy? 

We have a lot more to learn before we can be sure of any of this, but some womb twin survivors say they don't "feel here" in this life.......maybe their twin was a blighted ovum, and never had any chance of a life, however short.

Blighted ova, blighted lives?

A blighted ovum- where biology meets belief?

Your wombtwin may have been a “blighted ovum.” Some embryos don’t get past the first few days of cell division because the chromosomes in the egg are flawed. This blastocyst is ”blighted” and will never develop past the earliest stages. There is a little placenta but does not grow or function. There is a sac, but the embryo, such as it is, does not develop much beyond the very earliest stages. This embryo is doomed to die at the start, and all that remains is the sac, placenta and cord.

This is the classic “vanishing twin” scenario. The first scan shows two sacs, the second only one. The first is no longer visible. We do not know what happens to blighted ova, but it is probable that the empty sac that is often seen attached to the placenta at birth is all that remains. Apart from a very brief life, this was an inert, empty and lifeless presence, always alongside. At birth you were separated forever.

Yet were you? By the time you were born you were bonded to this tiny but doomed little being. Is it possible that all your life you have held back, believing that your life must also be blighted by an inability to come fully alive?

If you are a loser, dogged by misfortune, the perpetual victim, could this be the self defeating pre-birth impression you carry?

This is only a fetal assumption, made in the real belief that this little person, who never managed to implant properly and develop into a born child, once had something to do with you. Wrong! It's another little person entirely - your long lost twin sister or brother, in fact.

Time to recognise that the blighted life of your wombtwin does not mean you have to live a blighted life yourself. You are the survivor - life is yours for the taking , if you can only forgive yourself for the sin of being alive at all. A full, rich life is your inheritance - time to claim it. Do it now, and let me know how that feels!