This was sent to me anonymously very recently:
If this is your story or you have a similar story, please make contact. I can help.
I am dyslexic. I had insomnia from being a baby and always felt different, alone, mute and like I shouldn’t be here...years before I knew I was a twin. A nursery nurse when I was four described me as ‘a very solemn little girl’. I first attempted suicide when I was eight and failing, told my mum I had done it because : ‘I shouldn’t be here. I don’t want to be here.’ I did whatever I could to please everyone as a child and the thought i had done anything wrong, upset or hurt anyone made me suicidal with despair.
If I saw poverty or famine or war on TV I felt helpless and pointless. I self harmed throughout childhood because I felt constantly guilty and didn’t know why. I thought I was innately bad and everyone else was innately good. I wanted to be good, to fit in, to belong, but I constantly felt not human, like I was pretending to be human, wearing a mask, which made me a fraud.
As I got older the insomnia got so bad I wouldn’t sleep for days on end. I stopped even going to bed. Then I stopped eating. Then I stopped going to school. By the age of twelve I had left school and was smoking, drinking and began using drugs. By eighteen I was alcohol dependant and a heroin addict. I used to attempt suicide by staging ‘accidents’.
All my life I’ve felt in limbo, neither a part of this world and not apart of any other. Then, after getting clean off heroin, getting two jobs, getting a first class degree and getting all sorts of awards in a matter of six months I just went to a bridge and tried to jump off it. I was diagnosed with manic depression and said to have had a psychotic episode.
I work. I succeed at the things i do. I feel love for people. I don’t whinge or blame or hate. I don’t remember ever feeling hate for anyone or anything. I think life can be beautiful and this world too...but I just haven’t ever felt like I should be here. Half of me isn’t even here and I felt that before I knew I was a twin.
I don’t know whether my chronic loneliness, mute-ness and feeling like I shouldn’t be here is anything to do with having been a ‘Womb Twin Survivor’. I’d never heard of it before or thought that might be why I don’t remember a time I didn’t feel like half of me is missing. Just my story.
More about the support I can offer here
When a twin dies before birth, the sole survivor needs help and understanding. Womb twin survivors are the sole survivors of a twin or multiple pregnancy. This group, 1 in 10 of the population, includes survivors of a stillbirth, miscarriage, abortion and a "vanishing twin" pregnancy. It is a story of a twin bond broken by death, leaving a lonely survivor.
Showing posts with label mental illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental illness. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Is this a mental ilness?
Here is a nice list sent to me by an enquirer who had been diagnosed with "mental illness" but found the site by herself and is now wondering......
I have recently come to think that there is a strong possibility I may be a wombtwin survivor.
Here are a few of my reasons:
I have recently come to think that there is a strong possibility I may be a wombtwin survivor.
Here are a few of my reasons:
- My mum almost had a miscarriage 3-4 months into the pregnancy
- There is a history of twins on both sides of my family, but none in my generation
- I am left handed
- I always had imaginary friends as a child
- I think my twin was a brother - I always got on better with boys as a child and preferred their games and toys, although I never actually wanted to be a boy
- I have always been fascinated by and jealous of twins
- I am not at all competitive and would give in to anyone as winning makes me feel guilty
- There has always been something missing in my life - I have been searching for someone like me but never quite found them, I just feel "different" and alone.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
The wombtwin hypothesis can save you money!
On this site I read about K, a young woman with an eating disorder.
K had suffered from an eating disorder for many years. She had gone from therapy to therapy and ended up with a male psychoanalyst, who was prepared to see her five times a week, when she lay on a couch and spoke at length about her inner feelings and desires. When she began the therapy she was in deep despair.
As the therapy continued the eating disorder resolved but was replaced by a series of very dangerous accidents resulting in severe and disabling injury that occurred each time she was betrayed and disappointed by a boy friend. The therapy was very stormy as K began to feel suicidal, and the therapist began to feel as if he was in some sense keeping K alive. He worked hard to keep the therapy going, even allowing her free treatments and irregular meetings.
It was clear that here was a case of self-destructive behavior. The therapist made K promise not to kill herself. Together they traced this tendency to "early and profound childhood disappointments". K felt unlovable and therefore deserved punishment. It was assumed that K's mother did not want her and was not emotionally available, and K felt she should not have been born at all. The therapist became deeply concerned about the unprofessional depth of his involvement with this clent. He had to learn to stand back a little and let her heal on her own and be responsible for her own life. The therapy ended when at last K found a man who loved her, they married and she had children: twins.
This therapy had continued for fifteen years. That is more than 700 hours of therapy.
The report abstract ends with these words : ".... the crucial importance of longterm psychoanalytic therapy as a life-saving procedure in cases where it is appropriate, in spite of the great amount of time and expense involved."
You bet. This is surely a blatant case of an undiscovered wombtwin survivor who lost a twin brother before birth. The therapist - obviously a kind and very empathetic man - made a nice stand-in. Life was liveable for K while he was there for her. When will they learn????
K had suffered from an eating disorder for many years. She had gone from therapy to therapy and ended up with a male psychoanalyst, who was prepared to see her five times a week, when she lay on a couch and spoke at length about her inner feelings and desires. When she began the therapy she was in deep despair.
As the therapy continued the eating disorder resolved but was replaced by a series of very dangerous accidents resulting in severe and disabling injury that occurred each time she was betrayed and disappointed by a boy friend. The therapy was very stormy as K began to feel suicidal, and the therapist began to feel as if he was in some sense keeping K alive. He worked hard to keep the therapy going, even allowing her free treatments and irregular meetings.
It was clear that here was a case of self-destructive behavior. The therapist made K promise not to kill herself. Together they traced this tendency to "early and profound childhood disappointments". K felt unlovable and therefore deserved punishment. It was assumed that K's mother did not want her and was not emotionally available, and K felt she should not have been born at all. The therapist became deeply concerned about the unprofessional depth of his involvement with this clent. He had to learn to stand back a little and let her heal on her own and be responsible for her own life. The therapy ended when at last K found a man who loved her, they married and she had children: twins.
This therapy had continued for fifteen years. That is more than 700 hours of therapy.
The report abstract ends with these words : ".... the crucial importance of longterm psychoanalytic therapy as a life-saving procedure in cases where it is appropriate, in spite of the great amount of time and expense involved."
You bet. This is surely a blatant case of an undiscovered wombtwin survivor who lost a twin brother before birth. The therapist - obviously a kind and very empathetic man - made a nice stand-in. Life was liveable for K while he was there for her. When will they learn????
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Well I began on that article (30 references so far with more to come!) tracing the history of the researching of the prebirth origins of schizophrenia, which began in the 1990s. I came up with a list of associated obstetric complications, and added to them left-handedness and mixed handedness (ambidextrous) , all of them linked to schizophrenia. I then zipped through the 108 sets of answers where there is proof of the lost twin and found all the ones that had at least one indicator of schizophrenia. 81% of them had at least one indicator!
This breathtaking result is illustrated below. They just feel a little bit more different: that's all.
This breathtaking result is illustrated below. They just feel a little bit more different: that's all.
Friday, March 16, 2007
It has been assumed for some years now that schizophrenia is linked in several ways to obstetric complications in the mother's pregnancy. I have found that, of the 108 respondents who have medical proof of their twins existence, 40% said their mother had bleeding in early pregnancy and 45% said their birth was " traumatic." I found 79 references to research into obstetric complications and schizophrenia, but no mention of the lost twin. My research would appear to be unique, so a scientific paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal seems to be the way forward.
So I made a start. I put the search terms: " vanishing twin+schizophrenia" into Google Scholar, expecting that some research worker somewhere may have pursued this, even slightly. But no: the only article linking the two was a desperate blog post written by a mother of a schizophrenic son.
So I made a start. I put the search terms: " vanishing twin+schizophrenia" into Google Scholar, expecting that some research worker somewhere may have pursued this, even slightly. But no: the only article linking the two was a desperate blog post written by a mother of a schizophrenic son.
I have just become aware of vanishing twin syndrome. 30 years ago my pregnancy had all the classic signs of a miscarriage. This went on for over 3 months of the pregnancy,pain, bleeding and bits of tissue loss.
When my son was born there were 2 placentas. I have enough signs of 'vanishing twin syndrome' to now put the picture together. He may have been a twin, and by all the signs I suffered and witnessed he probably was. Twins are on my father's side. One in eight of us apparently start off in utero as a twin, and the classic signs of losing a twin are a perceived miscarriage - everything fits and I've ticked all the boxes.
A very very difficult baby/toddler/teen - in a world of his own, but very very intellegent. Teachers found him non complient, wanting to do his own thing, yet the educational psychologist thought him highly mature and bright - aged six. Then aged 17 he decided to misuse substances and had a terrifying psychotic attack, and soon after was labelled schizophrenic.
He's now almost 30 years old, and has been in and out of psychiatric services all of that time. No one is listening - least of all the medics that my son's pregnancy, birth, early years were cause for concern. No, all that has been cut off, and the medics are treating him like he has always been a schizophrenic man with a ''normal'' medical history before that.
When my son was born there were 2 placentas. I have enough signs of 'vanishing twin syndrome' to now put the picture together. He may have been a twin, and by all the signs I suffered and witnessed he probably was. Twins are on my father's side. One in eight of us apparently start off in utero as a twin, and the classic signs of losing a twin are a perceived miscarriage - everything fits and I've ticked all the boxes.
A very very difficult baby/toddler/teen - in a world of his own, but very very intellegent. Teachers found him non complient, wanting to do his own thing, yet the educational psychologist thought him highly mature and bright - aged six. Then aged 17 he decided to misuse substances and had a terrifying psychotic attack, and soon after was labelled schizophrenic.
He's now almost 30 years old, and has been in and out of psychiatric services all of that time. No one is listening - least of all the medics that my son's pregnancy, birth, early years were cause for concern. No, all that has been cut off, and the medics are treating him like he has always been a schizophrenic man with a ''normal'' medical history before that.
I wonder: are the scientists asking the right questions? Come to that, am I?
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