The database is complete at 1200 responses!

Today is a very important day and I'm reeling slightly.  Quite simply, I have finished collating the data from five years' worth of questionnaire respondents. It's taken two full days of work but I have done it, and I emailed the file today to be analysed.

I shall tell you the story of the analysis.  It has been an uphill struggle until very recently, when everything fell into  place as if it was all meant to be.

It started in February 2007, when I  decided to upload a truly professional-looking questionnaire, in a form of my own creation, compiled for me by by friend Rob (but that is another story!)  and the responses began to come in almost at once.  I thought I needed a nice big group to analyse and that 500 seemed OK. That took 2 years and by June 2009 I had my 500.

But who was to analyse it? I searched high and low for statisticians and found nothing.  Then I had an idea: the local university - they did the analysis, but I had to complete a 25-mile sponsored walk to raise enough money to pay them.

My home-made form was too full of glitches and often all the data didn't come through to me, so I decided to use a more reliable, online survey. I chose Survey Monkey, and that is where the questionnaire has been - until today!

Information for womb twin survivors : a psychological profile

By 2009 I had more than 500 completed questionnaires, ready for analysis by the University of Hertfordshire Statistical department. Once I had collected that all-important list of physical signs and symptoms of a twin pregnancy, I could sort out those people who definitely are womb twin survivors and those who may indeed think they are, but they have no proof.

In the data set used for analysis, only people with some  proof of a twin pregnancy were included, and of this answers made by this group only the questions that received the strongest answers were counted.  This gave us 250 people.

10 weeks! Twins reacting to each other in the womb!

At 65 days of gestation, twins can be observed interacting.   That's  9-10 weeks.

Beautiful coloured photo image link here  of 65 day foetus in the sac.

"Twin pregnancies provide us with the opportunity to observe first reactions towards touch in utero, and this study illustrates the onset and development of these contacts. Forty women with twin pregnancies volunteered to take part in this study.

Between 8 and 12 weeks' gestation, ultrasound examinations were performed transvaginally, and from 13 weeks onwards transabdominally, at weekly intervals. 

Primary contacts followed an action-reaction model, and usually lasted < 3 s. These contacts were initially slow and then became fast. 

The first reactions of the co-twin towards touch were observed at 65 postmenstrual days. Contacts of longer duration between both bodies including extremities, or contacts initiated by sucking movements towards the co-twin were defined as complex contacts and were observed from 85 and 92 post-menstrual days, respectively. 

Nearly all contacts occurred significantly earlier in monochorionic compared to dichorionic twins. Female/female pairs seemed to develop complex body contacts earlier than male/male pairs, but for the onset of other contacts we have not yet found significant differences between gender combinations."

Here is the article

Wonderful.  We knew, didn't we? I  knew that I could remember my twin, somewhere nearby twitching around. I certainly knew when he wasn't there any more.....

BUT this article was published FIFTEEN YEARS ago. Who talks about this? We should be shouting it to the world!

The time is NOW !!! If you are reading this, please spread the word......

The womb twin questionnaire - the sixth version reaches 1000!

All about the womb twin  research project questionnaire, which reached 1000 responses today! 


See it here


Creating a questionnaire

The original purpose of the questionnaire was to clarify the subjective experience of womb twin survivors. This developed into an attempt to produce a psychological profile. At first, there was no way of knowing whether womb twin survivors felt any differently from the rest of the human race.  Until then, the only feelings that had been mentioned in other research with the sole survivors of a twin or multiple pregnancy were “loneliness” and “a sense of something missing.”  That does suggest that the missing twin in the Dream may after all be a real memory, but there was much more to discover.

Part of the work of this project has been to try and put the Dream of the Womb into words. To do that has required a great deal of intuitive guess-work and negotiation, with many hundreds of womb twin survivors over many years.

The emails were a written testimony of how people felt about being a womb twin survivor - this was rare and precious material. If anything useful was to be learned from these emails there were just two options: one was to create a list of the most commonly-used statements in the emails and form them into a questionnaire, in order to find the statements most often agreed to and therefore most characteristic of womb twin survivors generally.

The other option was to collect all the emails and analyse each one to discover the most commonly-stated ideas, according to a style of research known as “Critical Interpretive Research.”[i] This kind of research applies particularly in areas where the use of questionnaires with fixed responses may be limiting. This kind of enquiry aims to characterize how people experience the world, so it is necessarily open-ended.

The first step in this style of research is data collection, which is then interpreted to formulate an hypothesis. In 2003 when the womb twin research project began, it was the only possible way forward, for it was immediately clear that, however much good data was collected, the traditional scientific method of testing an hypothesis was not going to work in this case. 

Testing by the scientific method would have required a significant number of people to come forward voluntarily, who were definitely not womb twin survivors, to complete the same questionnaire under the same conditions, in order to act as a control group. The main problem is that in an unknown number of cases the loss of a twin before birth is symptom-free.  As a result any control group, however recruited, would doubtless include an unknown number of womb twin survivors.

The only reliable place to start was a questionnaire to rate a list of statements commonly made by womb twin survivors.  This was going to be the simplest and least expensive option - but not to fix the questions too soon.  Over five years, six versions of the questionnaire were created and tested on womb twin survivors.

Two types of womb twin survivor

As the emails arrived and a small group of 15 womb twin survivors began to share their stories, it had become clear that much of what they were talking about related strongly to co-dependency.  But this was not the whole story: there were also womb twin survivors with a view of themselves that was almost opposite. For example, one group spent a great deal of time looking after other people, while the other were preoccupied with maintaining their personal welfare. The prevailing feeling for the first group was “abandonment” and “mourning”, but for the second group it was “prevailing anxiety” and “a desire for personal freedom.”  The Mourning group was called the “M-type” (for mourning) and the second group was named the “C-type” (for captive).

Questionnaire Type One:  making a start

To establish the relative size of these two groups, a list of statements was created. They were presented as an online form as a series of 48 statements in a so-called “diagnostic” questionnaire.  For the M-types, some were taken from a list of the characteristic traits common in co-dependency[ii], and there were an equal number of statements that seemed to be characteristic of C-types.  For example, there were two opposite statements about change: “I frequently make resolutions to change my life” (M-type) and “I resist change - sometimes for a very long time.” (C-type.)

Each respondent could vote “yes” or “no” to each statement if they agreed or not. Over the space of one month in 2003, just 10 people completed it. The preliminary results revealed that some statements were particularly popular:

·      I feel different from other people

·      Some degree of personal privacy is very important to me

·      It feels like I am searching for something but I don’t know what it is

There was also another quite unexpected result - half of the respondents checked equal numbers of M-type and C-type questions. It was assumed that this meant that a third type of womb twin survivor existed. After some further consultation with each of them, this group was called the D-type (death), because they seemed to be preoccupied with death and dying.   It was time to test out this new idea.

Questionnaire Type Two: identifying three “types”

A new form was created with ten sets of three statements, in each set one statement for each “type” of womb twin survivor. They were: deep feelings; being normal; attitudes to intimacy; self-esteem; being heard; ways of grieving; the management of anger; shame and guilt; searching and the balance of power.  

For example, the Shame and Guilt set were:

·      I experience a prevailing sense of survivor guilt (M-type)

·      I often feel that when things go wrong it’s all my fault (C-Type) 

·      I hate it when other people make me feel ashamed  (D-type)

·      None of the above seem true for me    

12 people completed this second questionnaire over several months. The results clearly showed three types of womb twin survivor, with the D-types dominating.  Work began on trying to find a set of statements that would reflect the specific D-type experience, but with no particular success. The set of questions that fitted best with the D-Type already existed elsewhere in fact: it was for the “Indigo” children.

“Indigo” children were also called “Millennium” children in a book that relates the existence of these special children to “vanishing twin” phenomenon.[iii]  The so-called “indigo” people certainly do exist as a distinct group and have been studied by experts, because they are hard to educate.[iv] They are in fact of all ages, not just children. There is a questionnaire on a special “Indigo Adults” web site to which the D-type womb twin survivors were referred: they found that most of the statements applied to them.[v] It has been assumed therefore, that there is a strong connection between the D type womb twin survivors and the “Indigo” people.

Finding proof of a lost twin

In the meantime, increasing numbers of womb twin survivors, parents of womb twin survivors and therapists were contacting the womb twin survivors web site and sending in emails. The concept of “proof” became an important consideration, for any one of the respondents could have been fantasizing about their womb twin.  The respondents could have been responding to the existing material on the web site, which at that stage consisted of a brief description of how M-type and C-Type womb twin survivors feel about themselves and how they may move towards healing.  

However, because of the open and sincere tone of the emails and the increasing consistency in the ideas put forward, it was determined to take every email seriously and respond accordingly.  This policy has helped the visitors to the site as much as it has developed the research.

Questionnaire Type 3:  gathering stories

The third version of the questionnaire was given a more sophisticated look.  Some space was allowed for respondents to add as much additional information as they wanted.  34 people completed this version of the questionnaire in eight months.  The stories and additional remarks proved a good resource for extending the number of questions in the next version.

Questionnaire Type 4:  adding more statements

Now that the three “types” had been identified, it was time to develop the questionnaire a little more. The first step was to increase the number of statements to include more feelings, behaviors, attitudes and beliefs. Consequently, the fourth questionnaire had 74 statements. It was completed by 100 people in six months.  On analysis, the favourite statements were found to be:

·      I have a strong inner life, which I use as a coping mechanism

·      I need a lot of personal space

·      I feel restless and unsettled

·      I have been searching for something but I don’t know what it is

·      People think of me as an unusual person

Again, as was shown in the first questionnaire, the issues of “personal space”, “searching” and “being different” were obviously very important. 

It was noticed that many womb twin survivors did not know what medical signs there were that could prove that their mother was carrying twins at some point in the pregnancy.  An extensive literature search was carried out to put together a complete list of the physical signs of a twin or multiple pregnancy which ended in a single birth. [1]

Advice was sought from a database expert, a psychologist and others about how to formulate a set of questions that would produce more reliable data. It was time also to expand the responses from a simple Yes or No to allow for shades of opinion.

Questionnaire Type 5: pregnancy details included

Type 5 gathered the pregnancy data and in addition there was a list of 70 questions about relationships; a sense of self; behavioural problems and mood and motivation. The questionnaire was left in place on the web site for two years. During that time, 200 responses were gathered.

The results showed that, regardless of whether or not there was medical proof of the lost twin, the top 10 most popular statements were:

1.       Deep down, I feel alone, even when I am among friends

2.       I know I am not realising my true potential

3.       I have been searching for something all my life but I don’t know what it is

4.       I fear abandonment or rejection

5.       I grieve deeply and for a very long time after someone close to me, or a beloved pet, has died

6.       I feel different from other people

7.       I have a problem with expressing anger - either there is too much or too little

8.       I feel the pain of others as if it were my own

9.       There are two very different sides to my character

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

The “loneliness” and “feeling different” were still there, but some additional, unexpected effects were beginning to emerge, including a tendency towards hoarding, which was of particular interest. These results were presented at the 12th International Congress on Twin Studies in Ghent, Belgium, in 2007.

Questionnaire type 6: the final version

As the questionnaire seemed to be producing helpful results, it was decided to keep it as it was, but refine the questions. Two other frequently-mentioned statements were added, which were, “All my life I have felt something is missing” and “All my life I have carried deeply felt emotional pain that persists, despite all my efforts to heal myself.”  This was to be the final version of the questionnaire, to be made available online until 1000 completed questionnaires  had been received.

The first 500 of the completed Type 6 questionnaires were sent in 2009 for analysis to the University of Hertfordshire.  A preliminary professional analysis of the results was carried out by the Statistics Department.  These were the ten favourite statements:

·      All my life I have felt something is missing

·      I fear rejection

·      I know I am not realising my true potential

·      I feel different from other people

·      I have been searching for something all my life but I don’t know what it is

·      I fear abandonment

·      Deep down, I feel alone, even when I am among friends

·      I have a problem with expressing anger - either there is too much or too little

·      I always feel in some way unsatisfied, but I don’t know why

·      All my life I have carried deeply felt emotional pain that persists, despite all my efforts to heal myself.

We now have 1000 questionnaires completed.

It is now time to explore in detail the results of this four-year research project and examine each statement in more detail. Many thanks to the 1000 womb twin survivors who have been honest and open enough to reveal their innermost feelings about their lost twin to a compete stranger over the Internet by email.  It was a huge act of trust, which I will try not to betray by being very careful about what I say, and maintain anonymity throughout. Without these wonderful people, this research would not have been possible.  Without them, the womb twin hypothesis would still be only an intuitive guess and my new book "Womb Twin Survivors - the Lost Twin in the Dream of the Womb" would have no substance. 

The questionnaire will stay there, but it may be changed a little to include new discoveries.  Its a very good way to make a start on the healing path, so feel free to complete it. I reply personally to every entry.

Three characters and their signs!

I did set out for you the three characters I discovered in my research ( the identical, fraternal and multiple womb twin survivors) in a previous post, but here is a bit more; an extract from the new book that you may like to see :




Gemini: the dizygotic womb twin survivor. If you are a womb twin survivor of this type, then your character is dominated by a sense of “Someone Out There Gone Away,” leaving you alone and forsaken. The sign suggests two entities linked together.

Narcissus: the monozygotic womb twin survivor. If you are a womb twin survivor of this type, then your character is dominated by a sense of “Something Wrong Inside Yourself.”  The sign suggests a split entity, with two very different halves.

Chiron: the multiple womb twin survivor.  If you are a womb twin survivor of this type, your character is dominated by an acute consciousness of “The Group of People Out There.”  You feel a deep pain inside you and you are acutely aware of the pain of others and take personal responsibility to try and heal that pain.  The sign is like an upturned key, which can be used to open doors and solve ancient mysteries.




Thought you may like to see this. Comments welcomed.

More on the new book here (and to order your copy in advance at the pre-publication price!)

I now know what kind of research I am doing!

Reading a (very rare) study of bereavement reactions in twins for the forthcoming book,  I found a description of the kind of research that lay behind this study, and in every respect it echoes the methods of my Womb Twin research project. 

At last I have a name for the kind of research I am doing! 

It's a new paradigm, in fact it's known as a "critical interpretive research" paradigm.

This is how I am working: I am doing "qualitative work in an interpretive paradigm. " And all the time those sceptics (and myself) thought I was going about it the wrong way!

Obviously, I can't quantify people's reactions, beyond their own subjective assessment of levels of severity of those statements. I can't find "representative samples"  or a "control group" for a situation that is largely unknown - even to some of the people involved.

Instead, I am exploring personal meanings at an individual level, that may be especially valuable to other researchers in fields of human experience like personal development or bereavement.

Critical interpretive research applies particularly in areas where there has been limited empirical research, where the use of questionnaires with fixed responses may limit findings or where a particular theory (in this case psychoanalytic theory) has dominated thinking and new ideas are beginning to emerge.

A design involving open-ended interviews  by email, enables new or revised conceptualisations. These play a crucial role in identifying the dimensions of interest for further research. The design of my research, using the questionnaire based on the statements made in the stories, and using the stories to create the questionnaire, is a perfect example of this kind of research -  what a relief.

More from Martin packer's  logic of enquiry:

Here is a quote: This framework distinguishes between quantitative and qualitative techniques of data-collection and analysis, on the one hand, and empirical-analytic and interpretive paradigms of inquiry, on the other.

Generally speaking, empirical-analytic inquiry seeks objective metric or categorical descriptions of phenomena, and aims to provide causal explanations of their interrelationship in the form of formal laws tested through statistical measures of association among variables.

Interpretive inquiry aims to characterize how people experience the world, the ways they interact together, and the settings in which these interactions take place.

By and large empirical-analytic inquiry employs quantitative techniques and interpretive inquiry employs qualitative techniques, but the exceptions to this rule of thumb are illuminating. 

See also GROUNDED THEORY  (that's almost exactly how I have been doing this! ) 
Quote:  It is a research method that operates almost in a reverse fashion from traditional research and at first may appear to be in contradiction of the scientific method. Rather than beginning by researching and developing a hypothesis, the first step is data collection, through a variety of methods. From the data collected, the key points are marked with a series of codes, which are extracted from the text. The codes are grouped into similar concepts in order to make them more workable. From these concepts, categories are formed, which are the basis for the creation of a theory, or a reverse engineered hypothesis. This contradicts the traditional model of research, where the researcher chooses a theoretical framework, and only then applies this model to the studied phenomenon.

I dont do the coding thing, I'm  too busy writing and developing the project, but I have always noticed when people say the same things again and again, often in almost exactly the same way. One day  when I have time I will code the thousands of emails - then I may come up with something really excellent that the sceptics will actually believe!

So I have always been on the right track!   Keep sending those emails and completing those questionnaires! Thanks!

Twin research - new article on the wombtwin survivors site

Twins are unusual. They are interesting because they are so rare. They have always been a favourite subject of myths, folk tales and drama. Identical twins in particular are objects of great fascination and their similarity has caused us to ponder the deepest questions about the nature of human identity. (1) Few people are indifferent to witnessing the birth of twins. The womb, which is clearly designed to carry one baby, manages to carries two, and they are both born alive. Of course the twins we see are always in pairs. They are often, if not always, together. They seem to be bonded by a connection that goes back to their time together in the womb. A lone twin is a sad sight, for in the public eye this person surely is no longer a twin, because twins come in twos, we all know that.


A short history of twins

The scientific study of twins and twinning, as far as we know, is relatively recent when compared to other branches of obstetrics. One of the first publications to consider in detail the biological nature of twinning in humans was published in 1883.(2) It was written by Francis Galton, who was one of those remarkable nineteenth century English thinkers who laid the basis for almost all the later theories on twinning - that is, until the development of ultrasound and artificial methods of reproduction a hundred years later. He gathered his material by “sending circulars of inquiry to persons who were either twins themselves or near relations of twins.” He wanted to discover if the obvious similarity between twins was due to “trifling accidental circumstances” or something much more profound and as yet unnoticed and un-remarked.

Galton was aware from animal studies that twins arise out of two very different events. One is where two or more are born, each developing from a separate ovum. The other is caused by the development of “two germinal spots” in the same ovum, each of which becomes baby. Galton noticed that if the ovum divides, the twins are wrapped in the same membrane – the chorion - and invariably of the same sex. He was puzzled that all twins were not alike, and that boy/girl twins in particular were never alike. He also noticed the phenomenon of the Alpa and Beta twin in many twin pairs but, lacking our modern vocabulary, he described them thus:

The one was the more vigorous, fearless, energetic; the other was gentle, clinging, and timid; or the one was more ardent, the other more calm and placid; or again, the one was the more independent, original, and selfcontained; the other the more generous, hasty, and vivacious. In short, the difference was that of intensity or energy in one or other of its protean forms; it did not extend more deeply into the structure of the characters. (3)


Galton was the first to name the Nature - Nurture debate as such, and saw that twins who were very alike in their youth “…continue their lives, keeping time like two watches, hardly to be thrown out of accord except by some physical jar.” It was clear to Galton and others at that time, following the publication in 1858 of Darwin’s Origin of Species, that these twins had similar genes. The science of genetics - and its dark twin eugenics - was developing rapidly......[more]

Hoarding

I am going through the research study, ready to give my report on Friday 30th. Once again, hoarding is there, just as it was a couple of years ago. More than half of the people who  complete the questionnaire  give a strong YES to.....

"There is  at least one room in my home, including a shed or garage, that is completely full of stuff."

Are you a hoarder? Did you do the questionnaire and give that question a strong YES?  Maybe you have just happened upon this blog and want to explore the idea that hoarding is an attachment disorder.  Whoever you are, if you have a hoarding thing do complete my special questionnaire and let's see what we can learn together about this mysterious and self sabotaging compulsion.

Here

Two weeks to go!

Click here to listen to my podcast about the Open Space conference.

DATE: Friday 30th October to Sunday November 1st 2009

VENUE: St Albans Girls School, Sandridgebury Lane, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL3 6DB,

PRICE: Members £55, non-members £70

FRIDAY October 30th 7.30 - 9.30pm Public meeting

Open to all by free ticket only - please use booking form below to apply.

SATURDAY October 31st

9.30am–6pm OPEN SPACE EVENT ~

6-7 candelighting ceremony

7pm-10pm Three course buffet supper

SUNDAY November 1st 10- 2.0 pm

10-11am Annual General Meeting of Wombtwin.com Ltd

11-12.30 THE HEALING JOURNEY for wombtwin survivors

12.30 Sandwich lunch

2 pm Departures

Register here, pay later.

Some statistics

I have been counting. It's all because my address book crashed and I had to rebuild it. It made me realise how many people have now come forward in relation to this project, almost all of them wombtwin survivors.

Here are the statistics to date.

1. The present website went up on February 2007. I started the hit counter at 1000. It reads 14817 (that's new hits, not re-visits) today.

2. I have been making questionnaires since the Spring of 2003. To date, 716 forms have been completed and received by me.

(The sixth revision was launched Feb 2007, and 268 people have completed it. It will remain exactly as it is with no revision until 1000 people have completed it. We are about to start building a database from this data, so we can get some good statistics. Any experts on using SPSS with Access, who are willing to help, please email me! )

3. I have 268 email addresses on the list to receive GEMINI VOICES, our monthly email newsletter.

4. Since July 2007, 20 people have joined us as members, and 14 people have joined as associates of Wombtwin.com.

(It's free, so if you believe in what we are doing here, click here to become an associate!)

Clearly, we are growing.

Well, we have spent an age analysing and thinking and here at last is the psychological profile of a wombtwin survivor:

• Deep down, I feel alone, even when I am among friends (70%)
• I have been searching for something all my life but I don’t know what it is (64%)
• I fear abandonment or rejection (62%)
• I know I am not realising my true potential (62%)
• All my life I have felt in some way "incomplete”(61%)

Feeling alone
A deep-rooted sense of isolation is the commonest response among these respondents. The wombtwin survivor can feel alone even among others and may find being physically alone very hard indeed, yet paradoxically they deliberately keep themselves apart from others. They may avoid intimate relationships and may even re-enact the Dream of the Womb by sabotaging good relationships until they are left friendless and alone.

Searching
Some adult survivors report feeling restless, always changing their jobs or moving round the world and never staying anywhere very long. The search continues for Something that will make things right again. Sometimes some short-term respite is found, such as a satisfying job or a loving relationship, but very soon it is time to move on. To settle down and be “loved” feels like a prison. There must always be the chance to keep on moving. This is the search for the lost twin - who is lost and can never be found.

Abandonment or rejection
Nothing causes more pain to a wombtwin survivor than to feel abandoned or rejected. This is just a bit to close to that original experience of being left alone in the womb and losing the closest relationship that Nature can provide. To pre-empt rejection by others, the survivor will constantly seek to appease and will risk becoming a victim of abuse. Rather than experience abandonment, the survivor will work hard to maintain a large group of loyal friends who will always be there, whatever may befall. Rather than be abandoned and left to manage alone, the survivor will remain in a relationship long after all hope is lost of any reconciliation.

Potential
The reenactment of the Dream involves the lost “beta” twin, who didn’t develop adequately but was too weak to survive. Incredibly, the surviving Alpha twin takes on the characteristics of the twin who didn’t make it and remains in some way undeveloped and unfulfilled. Some wombtwin survivors do not learn from their mistakes and do not get the best out of their situation in life but remain a shriveled fragment of the person they could be. It was in fact their wombtwin who ended up as the shriveled fragment. The survivor guilt that many wombtwin survivors feel acts as a drag on their personal development. They remain in a childlike state, acting like a petulant adolescent, depending on their parents yet yearning for autonomy. The hypochondriac wombtwin survivor lives like a helpless infant, terrified of illness and death yet unable to articulate what is wrong.

Incomplete
Many of the emails I receive mention a feeling of something missing. The sense of something missing requires a pre-existing sense of something there, which is now gone. The search for some way to fill the sense of lack - the space left by the missing twin - may take the survivor into an eating disorder or an addiction, both of which are common among wombtwin survivors. These activities are an attempt to heal the primal wound that lies in the Dream of the Womb, but they are also a gradual form of suicide. 57% of the respondents admitted that they regularly and willingly take part in activities that are potentially damaging to their health, wealth or well-being.

So there it is. It make sense, I must say.

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.

I have spent that last week buried in various excel files and have some interesting results. I carefully divided up the respondents on the basis of whether or not they have some medical proof that their twin did once exist. 110 had proof and 88 had no proof, but most of the "no proof" group had a lifelong feeling of being a twin or had always thought they had a twin out there somewhere. My run-in with the sceptics raised the issue that "vulnerable and impressionable" people may read the website and suddenly become convinced that this was "the answer to all their problems": in fact for all these people that feeling of being a twin had been there all their lives and this was the first time anyone had taken it seriously.

Also in this no-proof group are those who did not have a feeling of a twin out there until they were diagnosed as a survivor by a therapist, or their mother told them about their twin. I did not include 5 individuals, either because their twin lived for more than 6 mths after birth, or they gave me too little background information in their questionnaire and did not append a story either. The spread of answers and the sincerity of the stories satisfies me that all respondents are genuine.

So on that basis I carried out a detailed analysis of the "attitudes and feelings" section to see what were the questions most likely to be answered with an A. I did not include any other levels of response in this analysis.

Here are the top 5 responses in the "attitudes and feelings" section of the questionnaire, divided into the "proof " and "no proof" groups. Each question has a choice of answers from 1-5. 5 is an A response, that means that the statement is true for that person.

The top five questions were:

1. Deep down, I feel alone, even when I am among friends
2. I know I am not realising my true potential
3. I have been searching for something all my life but I don’t know what it is
4. I fear abandonment or rejection
5. I grieve deeply and for a very long time after someone close to me, or a beloved pet, has died

The graph shows that, despite the lack of firm medical evidence of the lost twin, the "no proof" group seem to be responding in a very similar way to those who do have evidence. I think we may safely take their claim seriously that their feeling of "being a surviving twin" has some basis in fact after all.

Well, the first result doesn't include the "being alone" question, because that question had a glitch and I have some missing data. It's just a quick calculation of how strongly everyone felt about all the questions, and gave them the highest score. A=5, B=4, C=3, D=2, No longer =1

Apart from the loneliness thing, these are the top ten. All very close, but this is the order.

1. All my life I have felt in some way "incomplete"
2. I fear abandonment or rejection
3. I feel different from other people
4. I have been searching for something all my life but I don’t know what it is
5. There are two very different sides to my character
6. I tend to hold on to things
7. I have a problem with expressing anger - either there is too much or too little
8. All my life I have felt restless and unsettled
9. I feel the pain of others as if it were my own

Do these describe the character of a wombtwin survivor? I wonder. They sound predictable enough. The "incomplete" idea sounds very appropriate! The hoarding isn't there as I thought, but the "holding onto things" is - which is part of hoarding, after all. The anger is a surprise, but then wombtwin survivor children are prone to tantrums (including me!) so maybe that just goes on into adulthood. I used to be angry about absolutely everything until I understood what I was wrong - most of my anger wasn't mine. I was being a "lightning conductor" for other people's unexpressed anger, trying to diffuse a difficult atmosphere.

More later.

The question "There is at least one room (including shed or garage) in my home that is completely full of stuff" has produced an unexpected result. Surviving twins, whose twin was stillborn or died close to birth, are very likely to be hoarders, more so than other wombtwin survivors. Hoarders collect multiple, identical versions of the same kind of thing and gather the whole collection in their home and hold on tight, never to let go. Is this some kind of symbolic behaviour, related to not wanting your twin to be taken away? I put this question in because it was being mentioned quite a lot in the stories but it seems that there is a lot of hoarding going on, and it usually gets an A. Not a teeny weeny bit of clutter, like a glory hole under the stairs: this is a whole area of the home sacrificed to the stuff. Now I have over 200 forms returned the research is getting more and more fascinating!

A nice little break, thinking abut this. How back to data entry. Only 40 to go now.Then there will be silence while I analyse it all. More on this later.

Today I have begun the mammoth task of entering all the data from the questionnaires. I now have 198 questionnaires, and I await that magic 200 number and expect that to be reached today.

I have got a new database management programe, FileMaker Pro, but it looks like good old Excel is the way to start. I put in 14 data sets last night and I am wondering how many sets I can do in a day to get the 200 sets of data all in there. Then of course I have to analyse it all.........

My thoughts so far are these:

I can easily find out the most commonly answered question. ( I already know that, its "Deep down I feel alone, even among friends" and about 95% of respondents have made this an A answer. )

I can break the groups into five:

1. Twinless twins whose twin died after birth
2. Wombtwin survivors whose twin was stillborn.
3. Wombtwin survivors whose twin was miscarried and expelled from the womb
4 Wombtwin survivors whos twin remained alongside, gradually fading
5 Wombtwin survivors whose twin (or the stem cells at least) was taken up into the body of the survivor, "the twin within".

Within these groups I could compare monozygotic twin survivors with dizygotic twin survivors and also triplet survivors. However not many people are sure of the zygosity of their dead twin and even doctors tend to guess, so that would be a problematical division to make accurately.

An unexpected result is how many wombtwin survivors collect stuff, hold on to things and find it hard to let go of unfinished projects. That's a pretty clear womb story: lets hold on tight and not let go. I await that statistic with interest!

As for those statistical correlations , I'm stumped. Any mathematicians out there ready to lend a hand?