I am making movies at the moment : here is one of them.
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 selfishness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label selfishness. Show all posts
Friday, October 14, 2011
Sunday, September 04, 2011
MZ womb twin survivors - inwardly focussed energy
If you are a monozygotic twin survivor, then you are focussed always on that missing half of yourself, trying to fill the emptiness inside. That means your energy is focussed inwardly, towards yourself. Others may call that egotism or self obsession, but to you it feels like the only way to survive. It is as of you are consciously making an effort to keep some part of you alive. It is your lost half, your identical twin.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Self defeating behaviour
(An excerpt from my new book:)
Womb twin survivors have a vast range of self-defeating ways to choose from to sabotage their lives, drive their most intimate relationships to destruction, or both. Self-defeating behaviour is essentially selfish, but subjectively it doesn’t feel that way: the results can be favourable but only for a while. The end result is usually negative and can be devastating.
This kind of behaviour has been included among the symptoms of schizophrenia and it has even been suggested that a new “Self-defeating Personality Disorder” be created, for high levels of distress and personal impairment are involved in this set of attitudes. A study among psychiatrists and clinical psychologists in the USA and Britain found that a very large number of patients were presenting with this set of symptoms, for which the only diagnosis available was “personality disorder not previously specified.” The clinicians may be mystified, but for womb twin survivors there is a perfectly normal and reasonable explanation: this is a specific re-enactment of a pre-birth tragedy. A great deal of personal happiness and fulfillment is being deliberately sacrificed in memory of a lost twin.
If you are a womb twin survivor, it may help you to know that there are good reasons why you have chosen one kind of self-defeating behaviour over another. A personal study of the particular way you have chosen to sabotage your life will take you straight back to the womb and give you a clear rendition of what went on in the womb all those years ago, as we shall see. You survived but your twin didn’t, that seems to be the crucial issue. However, there is a bit more to it than that.
Want help with this? Contact me today.
Womb twin survivors have a vast range of self-defeating ways to choose from to sabotage their lives, drive their most intimate relationships to destruction, or both. Self-defeating behaviour is essentially selfish, but subjectively it doesn’t feel that way: the results can be favourable but only for a while. The end result is usually negative and can be devastating.
This kind of behaviour has been included among the symptoms of schizophrenia and it has even been suggested that a new “Self-defeating Personality Disorder” be created, for high levels of distress and personal impairment are involved in this set of attitudes. A study among psychiatrists and clinical psychologists in the USA and Britain found that a very large number of patients were presenting with this set of symptoms, for which the only diagnosis available was “personality disorder not previously specified.” The clinicians may be mystified, but for womb twin survivors there is a perfectly normal and reasonable explanation: this is a specific re-enactment of a pre-birth tragedy. A great deal of personal happiness and fulfillment is being deliberately sacrificed in memory of a lost twin.
If you are a womb twin survivor, it may help you to know that there are good reasons why you have chosen one kind of self-defeating behaviour over another. A personal study of the particular way you have chosen to sabotage your life will take you straight back to the womb and give you a clear rendition of what went on in the womb all those years ago, as we shall see. You survived but your twin didn’t, that seems to be the crucial issue. However, there is a bit more to it than that.
Want help with this? Contact me today.
Monday, November 16, 2009
An energy economy
I have been giving a lot of thought to why I find it so hard to get help with this project and I think its part of our shared womb story,
There is a script that runs again and again - I ask for some help from someone who seems to be ready and able and they initially respond well. Then they just fade away, not having done very much at all and leave me either chasing them or left alone, feeling disappointed and let down.
It reminds me of the vanished twin, who promises well but then quickly fades away, leaving a sense of disappointment and let down.....
And hidden inside this story is one of two kinds of energy: the one is the energy of self preservation, self care and self healing, and this energy is focussed inwards. The other is the energy of relationship and connection - its a reaching out energy and is essentially depleting.
A critical piece of personal work, in my view, would be to be aware of the balance of these energies on ones life.
If there is too much reaching out and making connections and one becomes depleted, then the result is an inability to cope and often exhaustion.
If there is too much inward self preservation, the individual becomes isolated and devoid of all sense of reward and support from others.
To balance these energies, the altruistic wombtwin survivor needs to practce a little more self care and not try and rescue and heal the world and everyone in it. Their batteries will soon recharge.
The self- protective womb twin survivor needs to reach out a little more and discover what the atruistic womb twin survivor already knows, - that there is a huge reward in helping, and this will be enough to recharge the batteries.
Is that interesting? Do post some comments and lets debate this.
There is a script that runs again and again - I ask for some help from someone who seems to be ready and able and they initially respond well. Then they just fade away, not having done very much at all and leave me either chasing them or left alone, feeling disappointed and let down.
It reminds me of the vanished twin, who promises well but then quickly fades away, leaving a sense of disappointment and let down.....
And hidden inside this story is one of two kinds of energy: the one is the energy of self preservation, self care and self healing, and this energy is focussed inwards. The other is the energy of relationship and connection - its a reaching out energy and is essentially depleting.
A critical piece of personal work, in my view, would be to be aware of the balance of these energies on ones life.
If there is too much reaching out and making connections and one becomes depleted, then the result is an inability to cope and often exhaustion.
If there is too much inward self preservation, the individual becomes isolated and devoid of all sense of reward and support from others.
To balance these energies, the altruistic wombtwin survivor needs to practce a little more self care and not try and rescue and heal the world and everyone in it. Their batteries will soon recharge.
The self- protective womb twin survivor needs to reach out a little more and discover what the atruistic womb twin survivor already knows, - that there is a huge reward in helping, and this will be enough to recharge the batteries.
Is that interesting? Do post some comments and lets debate this.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The paradox of selfishness
I asked some wombtwin survivors how it feels to be selfish. I asked this because being selfish is a self-defeating thing, and it tends to distance you from others and make then react negatively to you or even hate you. Sounds like wombtwin stuff!
I got two sets of answers:
1. "Selfishness is a kind of self - sustaining effort, as if NOT being selfish would put my whole self at risk of failure and annihilation. It's to do with taking special care of my personal welfare in order to be able to function at all in this difficult, often hostile, world."
2 "Selfishness is a guilt trip: having been selfish and left others at a disadvantage, I am left feeling extremely guilty that I have done this awful thing. The most important element is how incredibly hard (even impossible) it is for me to apologise, so the guilt remains and sometimes triggers depression."
It just doesnt wash with me that one has to take such "special care of oneself" or indeed "live a life of perpetual guilt": something else, something much deeper, is going on. What could that be?
The answer eventually came clear: it's a paradox. If you are an identical wombtwin survivor then you are two people at once: one way to live this out is to be a paradoxical person and express two things at the same time:- to be horrible to people and yet feel bad about doing that; to care for yourself at the expense of others, even when you KNOW this is selfish behaviour. This is an aspect of narcissism.
Notice the paradox of addiction: even while you are taking the drug, overeating, starving, hoarding, cutting or whatever, there is a part of you that knows this is harmful and wrong, yet the other half does it anyway. It all happens in the same moment of time.
If you are trying to be two people at once - yourself and your own beta twin - then this would be completely normal behavior. At least it sounds normal to me!
Feel free to comment!
I got two sets of answers:
1. "Selfishness is a kind of self - sustaining effort, as if NOT being selfish would put my whole self at risk of failure and annihilation. It's to do with taking special care of my personal welfare in order to be able to function at all in this difficult, often hostile, world."
2 "Selfishness is a guilt trip: having been selfish and left others at a disadvantage, I am left feeling extremely guilty that I have done this awful thing. The most important element is how incredibly hard (even impossible) it is for me to apologise, so the guilt remains and sometimes triggers depression."
It just doesnt wash with me that one has to take such "special care of oneself" or indeed "live a life of perpetual guilt": something else, something much deeper, is going on. What could that be?
The answer eventually came clear: it's a paradox. If you are an identical wombtwin survivor then you are two people at once: one way to live this out is to be a paradoxical person and express two things at the same time:- to be horrible to people and yet feel bad about doing that; to care for yourself at the expense of others, even when you KNOW this is selfish behaviour. This is an aspect of narcissism.
Notice the paradox of addiction: even while you are taking the drug, overeating, starving, hoarding, cutting or whatever, there is a part of you that knows this is harmful and wrong, yet the other half does it anyway. It all happens in the same moment of time.
If you are trying to be two people at once - yourself and your own beta twin - then this would be completely normal behavior. At least it sounds normal to me!
Feel free to comment!
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