Tales for the journey: The Store - (Compulsive caring)

My secret storeroom was full of old and dusty things.  Some of them had once been very valuable indeed, while others were just junk.  It was so crowded in there that it was hard to see which was which.  The room was small, dimly lit and musty, and for as long as I could remember it had been my job to look after it.

I knew what the others would say to me if they knew about my secret store.  “This store is messy!  You have not been minding it properly.  You must sort it all out so that you can throw out all the junk!”  I did not want to be ashamed of it if anyone saw inside, so I set about cleaning the store, sorting it all, cleaning out the boxes and ordering all the items. 

There was a lot in there but gradually I got a sense of what was in there, and I even created my own filing system.  I kept changing the system as I discovered more and more in there. For a small room it contained a lot.  The others never asked me what I was doing.  They just went on playing out in the sun while I was busy organising the store.

After many months of ordering and sorting I became impatient, and I decided to spend all day, every day in the store.  I foolishly believed that if I managed to sort it out, then I would be free of my obligation and would be able at last to play outside in the sun.  Day and night I worked, sorting and ordering and creating a dozen new filing systems each day.

A healing path (2) Living the Dream: clutter

I am sure that the whole issue of clutter, hoarding and messiness at home is a reenactment of the Dream of the Womb.  Five years ago, when I  asked the local university statistics department to analyse the first 500 responses to the research questionnaire, I was amazed to find that  over 45% of the respondents with evidence of their twin agreed strongly with the statement:

"There is at least one room (including shed or garage) in my home that is completely full of stuff"

This  result was a complete surprise. This statement seemed to unearth a group of people who were not necessarily "compulsive" hoarders, but who at least had a strong tendency to hoard, to the extent that  at least part of their home could not be used for  its original purpose because of the accumulation of stuff in it.  There are various definitions of hoarding:

Definition: Pathological or compulsive hoarding is a specific type of behavior characterized by acquiring and failing to throw out a large number of items that would appear to have little or no value to others, such as notes, flyers, or newspapers. Compulsive hoarding can, though does not inevitably, lead to severe cluttering of the person’s home so that it is no longer able to function as a viable living space, causing significant distress or impairment of work or social life.

The Medical Definition

In 1996 Randy O Frost and Tamara L Hartl defined compulsive hoarding with the following:

• The acquisition of, and failure to discard, possessions that appear to be of useless or of limited value.
• Living spaces so cluttered that using the room as intended is impossible
• Significant distress or impairment to function.

 But the mystery is, how would this be related to being a womb twin survivor?

Healing (12): Sorting out the clutter

In your dream of the womb there is Someone Else who was once alive and responsive. If there was no miscarriage, then the Someone Else turned into Something else. If you have a cluttering problem, then you are trying to reconstruct a lost dream of your wombtwin who died but remained there alongside as lifeless human flesh.

There are three aspects of the Dream that are reflected in this style of symbolic behaviour: the body of your wombtwin is reflected in the things you gather around you; the relationship that once was and is gone for all time is now an impossible dream; the tiny life that was so soon snuffed out is reflected in the projects that remain unfinished.

The amniotic sac: bags in the midst of hoarding

So. Clutter. Hoarding.  So much of this is about bags and containers generally.  This is a quote from a hoarder:


I collect bags (sacs) because I am worried I might need one and be out of them.  I can't throw them away.  Sacs are so symbolic,  I am horrified when someone throws an empty bag out and I sometimes rescue them to avoid the anxiety.  


I have had a small insight recently about hoarding  (over half of the people who complete the questionnaire give the strongest response to the statement:


"At least one room in my home (including a shed or garage) is completely full of stuff."

I have been observing an extreme hoarder for five years now. He goes out every day, puts things into bags or boxes, carries them home and NEVER looks at them again.  His whole house is full of bags  and boxes of stuff.  It's the containers that matter, not the stuff inside.

Now I am beginning to find a slight connection with identical twinning, but it's not that clear and I have been mystified as I think: if hoarding is to do with being a womb twin survivor, then what if the bags are the amniotic sacs? What if the identical twin developed in a separate sac? That happens in about a third of twin pregnancies that make it to birth, but we don't know how many lost twins are created in that configuration.  If this is the hoarding scenario and if this is how you were in the womb, then we truly do have a bag that was once half of you - you would be bonded for life to that bag!


Is this the hoarding scenario?

I am working with someone who is learning how to teach others to overcome hoarding. If we can find the true reason why people do this, then we can help them to heal. That would be wonderful! So if you are a hoarder, please make contact, as we need all the stories we can get! 

New Year resolutions for womb twin survivors?

What could they be?


To decide that this will be the year you begin, or make progress with, the womb twin work:

• Acknowledging that yes, you are a womb twin survivor and yes, it has been a problem all your life
• Deciding to do something about that
• Finding out about twins and twinning, the "vanishing twin phenomenon", dermoid cysts and all the other signs and indications that you once had a twin

(See the whole list here)

• Recognising how the way you feel about life, your whole world view in fact was formed before you were born and the loss of your womb twin was an important aspect of that
• Letting go of resentment and bitterness over past hurts - see how you hold on to that pain
• Clearing clutter from your mind, your heart , your life and your home
• Honouring your womb twin in some way

 Make a memorial, perhaps?


What will your resolution be? Leave a comment to let us know,  let's encourage each other!


( What is mine? To put up a post for every day of 2011 on this blog. Will I make it?  Follow this blog and see! )