Interview with a Well Adjusted Womb Twin Survivor - They do exist!

How rare to meet a womb twin survivor who is well adjusted - I had to know more about his story ... what is his secret? He and his family handled it well and it made all the difference.

This is an interview with an adult male whose fraternal twin sister was lost during the birth process, although it was understood she would go from early on (most likely due to twin-to-twin transfusion) as she was undernourished. I just happened to meet this person and discover we both lost our twin sister at birth. He is not involved in the womb twin community and has no awareness of the healing path or that there are others like him who are on it.

He struck me as a rare example of a womb twin survivor who is well adjusted and accepting of the situation and therefore free of many problems associated with the syndrome, largely in part due to the healthy way he and his family embraced the loss. There were many generations of twins in the family and this was simply his version of the twin story which was acknowledged and had its place in the family history. Unlike so many families in our culture who repress lost twins, usually out of grief and ignorance which causes further damage due to mishandling, he and his family handled it well and therefore it sits well in him.

Tell us about your mother’s pregnancy while carrying you, whatever you may know, as well as your birth experience?
I think she didn’t know she was having twins at first, this was in the 1950’s when they didn’t have the technology, one was behind the other. Then towards the end they realized. I was 2 ½ months premature and my mom was going thru some weird stuff in her life and was suicidal. She told me she was on the verge of jumping in front of a subway train but she had stopped herself because of myself and my twin sister within her. That was always interesting later, there was a close bond thing between us. But during birth she told me this story about these three spiritual people, wise men, saying as she was giving birth “One has to go back” and I could sort of sense it when she was talking about it.

Do you think that was the first time she became aware that she was carrying twins?
I think so, I think it was pretty close in time.
I always thought about that – especially during teen/young adulthood, that my sister decided not to come onto this plane. This is a crazy world and there have been times I’ve been a little jealous that she went off onto great adventures, especially now, I mean, I’ve always known this intuitively before it was known in astrophysics, how huge the universe is and it gets bigger everyday as we see more into the great beyond. I think there’s a lot out there and I’ve always thought how ironic I can almost see us together sort of looking at planet earth coming in, as energy sources and she is sort of skidding off the atmosphere saying “No!”

So she was already skiddish before she even went in?
I wonder – it’s all so fast, the inception of life, so it’s questionable. They say you are an intelligent being at 8 weeks into conception, whether or not you are actually a part of this biosphere or not is to be questioned.
I had a friend who had a near death experience and left his body, he talked about this white cord that kept going in the atmosphere..so l don’t know if, as a spirit entity that tether comes toward the biosphere and hooks onto it, I don’t know but I always thought it was interesting that she didn’t…when I was young I missed her [referring to his twin]. My aunt had fraternal twins male/female a year older than me, also when I was a teenager she told me my grandmother had a twin also but lost it before birth.

So you had a mirror image of a fraternal twin pair growing up?
Not really – she had a foot/skeletal problem and was frail, and the boy was fine, he was big – bigger than me.

Do you know who was born first?
I don’t know, I assume she was because she was more mature but she was physically frail so it’s hard to tell.
Anyway, back to my mom and the three men during my birth, so the story was my mom would have to put one [twin] back and I have a hard time remembering her decision (she’s deceased now) but I sort of pushed myself out. I had a want to come out here. My sister wasn’t born alive, I don’t know when she died but it was during the birth.
What happened was, my mom didn’t know she was having twins and she wasn’t eating enough food for two and apparently I was eating all the food and my sister wasn’t nourished properly. I don’t think she knew there were twins until she went into labor. It’s hard for me to recall all of it exactly but I was 3 lbs 8 ozs and in an incubator for a good 2 months and it was kind of odd because they realized about a month before I was born, because I was born in February, that the oxygen had been blinding kids. They figured out how to do it right – that’s what happened to Stevie Wonder, the oxygen was too strong and it burned his eyes out. That’s what I kind of remember, my mom was struck by that and it was sort of a premonition that she was going to have to put one back.

So she knew in her soul that she’d have to put one back even though the medical doctors hadn’t yet confirmed she was carrying twins?
Yes.

Do you have any pre-birth memories you can personally recall?
I remember things very vividly from 2-3 years old whereas most people don’t.
But I don’t know, I remember her and I took it as a given – because these stories I didn’t know til later like age 9 or 10 (even though I was always told I was a twin from the beginning).
I always took it as a given and wasn’t really upset about it, I missed her and there was curiosity.
My mom used to talk about it a lot, so I guess any of the trauma that might have occurred she subdued by acknowledging it, talking about it. It would be a curious thing if I had a mother who negated it and tried to act like it didn’t happen and I could definitely see that as being a very traumatic experience. But I took it as a given, that everything was more or less ok and that this was just something that happened and was part of the experience of Being. My mom was very good at that – embracing this experience of Being. She always referred to us as Human Beings, and that concept of Being had a profound understanding.

(I refer to the “Be” heart image I posted on this blog this past Valentine’s Day as it relates to Being a Self)
Yes, but it’s not just a Be, it’s the act of Be-ing.
It’s not just a noun, it’s an adjective, it’s an act. It’s very much this living expression. With humans there is some kind of weird difference from animals, and that difference is Human Being. This presence of now. Not only now, but the linear time frame. Animals are mostly in the present and really don’t have a huge concept of linear time, I don’t necessarily agree with that I think it’s shorter maybe, I know from my experience of dealing with animals they do have a history of understanding but they don’t have this act of Being that we have.

What I was once told about this is, that humans differ in that they have capability of Story. They have a sense of story, and ability to pass that on, that animals don’t.
That’s an interesting way of putting it, yes, my mother was very much an oracle, a storyteller and that was a very big part of learning from her – through the stories. Anyway, she quelled the trauma that might have been superceded…

So you know that in your bones?
That how she handled it definitely affected how you handled it?
Yes it’s that weird innate connection/bond that we had, because when she said she didn’t jump in front of that subway (train) it was because I was helping her, and we maintained that throughout our lives. This camaraderie, nurturing and helping the sustainability between us.

Would you say she was like a twin to you in a way?
That maternal bond is extremely strong – no, my mom wasn’t my sibling or my friend, we were very close but she was my mother. She wasn’t your stereotypical mother but she was my mother and she made that clear. I sense my twin and her being is a different entity. It’s a distinct character.

So you never saw your mother as sort of like a twin consolation prize?
Never, never. I always sensed my [twin] sister’s presence, sometimes even now.

Going back to the subway incident, can you personally recall that in utero?
It’s hard to tell…here’s a sidebar analogy:
He then recounts a memory from the age of 3 in Mexico where he was standing on the bay intrigued by the small island in the distance. One day a woman came and put him on her back and attempted to swim out to the island to fulfill his dream of going there. On the way she grew tired and frightened that she would not make it. He calmed her down and told her it was going to be ok. Then a boat came and rescued them, but he connected this to being a similar situation to his mom in the subway where they comforted each other to survive.

I wonder if this could be a repeat of your womb story with your twin? Sometimes these dynamics repeat in order to bring them to awareness.
Yes. That’s why this was such a profound moment in my life.

You had to trust a stranger!
Well, no, she was actually trusting me!

But you were only 3 and that’s amazing a woman would take a 3 year old out into the ocean…
But she got tranced into what I was doing with this thing (meaning his wanting to go to the island) and then she got scared and this boat came and pulled us out of the water. The boat literally came out of nowhere from my perspective, all of a sudden it just appeared.

Do you have that in other parts of your life, this comforting other women to get where you need to go?
Yes with my mother, my younger sister, my nephews as babies, when they’re babies there’s no gender really. So in that sense it sort of repeated many times.

How much younger was your sister and were you always clear she was your sister and not your twin?
Yes, she was 10 years younger and always my sister. To her I was kind of a father also, because of the age difference.

Did your twin have a name and if not, what name would you give her?
Before my sister was born, my mom would talk about my twin sister, and she was going to name my sister Afrika and she said that was the name she wanted to give my twin [chuckling happily] so I guess that was her name.

So for you, that’s her name too?
Yes.

Getting back to when you were coming in and seeing earth, and this tether thing..
Did you and your twin have an agreement or pact between you and if you could put that into words how would you say it?
I don’t know, you know, yes…I guess there was this unity in the womb. We were spiritually going into this form of living, this – what do you call it – you know when you come into this plane and you go into a womb and you become a living entity, I seem to remember we were doing it together and I kind of sense that…
It was always a curiosity when my mom said I was the one who was nurtured the most, it was really hard to figure out how that happened but in a way I kind of sensed that if one wasn’t gonna get it then both of us would’ve probably died. If we split the nutrition, we probably both would’ve died. I don’t think there was enough for two so one had to get the greater amount and I get the sense that she [my twin] said “ok”…

Did you ever feel guilty about that?
No, not at all.

Thankful?
Yeah, but sort of beyond that though…

How did you feel?
It was sort of like a given, it was something that needed to be done and maybe because I was the one. I mean, if she was the one, then I would’ve probably died. So it wasn’t really like a sense of obli…I don’t know, not like a material thing, like “it’s mine, I’m going to take it” you know but this obligation because of nature and nurture, survival. I sort of sense her moving on, and that was a given too, she went back to the continuum.

Do you have a sense of when that was?
I do, it was during birth…and it was a given. It was what was supposed to be done. There was no hierarchy involved but later as I got older I got a sense of jealousy towards her that she…in a way it’s kind of strange, I always had a sense of her being the stronger spirit. I don’t know if that’s the influence of the matriarchal bond and knowledge, not only from my mom but my grandmother and women in general and just as females in general, as a gender with the species. I don’t know if that was the case or if it was just that she, I always had reverence towards her because of that, that strength. Even though she was the weaker one, there was a great deal of strength for her to make that move and sacrifice. There have been many times that I’ve missed her and thought she would help me through these weird situations. She would have a clear stable mind and give me advice and understand.
This is kind of weird, these feelings are old feelings that haven’t really been talked out…but as I’m expressing them, I know them instinctually to be very old feelings.

So how often to do you think about your twin?
A lot actually.

Would you say daily or more than daily, weekly, monthly….?
I don’t know, maybe weekly, bi weekly, sometimes daily. I’d say frequent, often. I’d say more often than not.

So she’s really still very much a part of you?
Yeah, yeah.

So can you distinguish between her energy and your energy as a twin?
Oh yeah. Not only that, but the sub-entities within myself. I guess there are one or two of them. But that’s separate than her also. It’s a distinct entity that I’ve always sensed, it’s not me, you know.

So about the sub-entities within… Do you feel like you have a dual personality yourself? Do you feel an alpha/beta thing or how would you describe it?
I wouldn’t call it like a dual personality per se, I would say there is some kind of weird polarization and I think that’s pretty common in most clear healthy human beings. You know in mythology, I was very enamored by Pinocchio and Jiminy Crickit and this other entity within yourself speaking to you and when I was younger it was very loud. Very loud.

Was it masculine or feminine?
It’s masculine I guess.

So it was you, it’s coming from you?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, it was me but it was very separate at the same time.

So there’s a duality right there.
Yeah, but I remember I would have these dreams when I was young that started around 6 or 7, maybe earlier but I started having these dreams of flying and I could never really do it. I was afraid, I wouldn’t get too much lift and this would go on for years. Then I’d get a little more lift, I could get to the 2nd floor of the library on 10th Street between A& B. I was a little scared of flying, this would go on for years and I wouldn’t get much higher than the second floor. Then later, I’d get a little higher and get a little more control. This went on for decades. Then I might’ve been in my 20’s…
My life in the outside world prior to 6 or 7 yrs old, 1st grade was ok but in 2nd grade I was in an inferior school and the teacher thought I was smart so assigned me to a smarter class. My mom transferred me to another school where the learning curve was way too high and I didn’t have academic training even though I was with people at the same intelligence level. The point being, it turned out I had dyslexia and when I got to 2nd grade I cheated on a spelling test to avoid embarrassment and she humiliated me in front of the whole class. That left a really bad…it was a really bad experience. My school experience with other people and friends – I lived on the East Side/they lived on the West Side, rich people/poor people, hipsters/straight and all these dualities..in that environment with friends & relatives, brilliant brilliant people, I was on par with them but in the normal social environs & activities were exceedingly uncomfortable. I didn’t live in the same neighborhood, but I understand why my mom did it and I don’t necessarily regret it, but it was very difficult to navigate through.

So you had a lot of anxiety?
A lot of anxiety. And then they took me out of the smart class and put me in the lower class because I cheated on that test and was put with the inferior people that weren’t as smart and I was bored to tears but I didn’t have the academic wherewithal and luckily I went to some private schools for dyslexia. But I could do a lot of things that no one else could do plus my mom was always teaching me things and I was always learning things so it was a weird dichotomy and I didn’t know til much later – I didn’t read my first cover to cover book til I was 16 or 17 and it was Hesse – and I remember reading ‘A Stranger In A Strange Land’ and I identify with that stranger so much, I still do, feeling like on this planet and not being able to fit in properly. Being a person with a big heart and kind and other people not understanding it and even castigating you behind it. Anyway, I really identified with that. I thought about my sister again and if she were around, I mean, my mom helped a lot but it took a really long time until I had friends per se. There were always interruptions for a lot of different reasons. It would get really good and then something would happen and they would get taken away or move or all these pretty heavy scenes.

Did you feel lonely?
No, I was never lonely per se but was very disheartened because of these interruptions.
I remember we moved around a lot and we didn’t have a steady continual environ until 5 or 6 yrs old and we stayed in that place until I was 13. Best friends would move, another came to live with us then he was taken away and we were really close and that was a huge break up.

Is it repeated abandonment?
Not only abandonment but you find somebody you gel with and then it almost gets to a point of familiarity, a comfort level, where you’re not guessing anymore and it’s this nice comeraderie and you start to work on that kind of magic - which is a whole other thing to perpetuate and when it gets interrupted, it’s like you’re suddenly floundering in the ocean, you know.
I would try to connect with fellow pupils and it was very difficult. I was always kind of an outsider.

So you’ve always felt different?
Always. I mean, yeah, always. It’s always been hard, I’ve led a very difficult life. I’ve always feigned a sense of complacency or chill or whatever…to fit in and not call attention to how different I am and also to maintain a level of sanity. I used to make these really deep reflections and go through thoroughly what happened over the past 6 months or year, biannually maybe more, thorough inspections of what I had done. I did that for 15-20 years but it hasn’t happened in a really long time but I used to sort of be my own therapist. That’s why I have had trouble with therapists, I am my own therapist because I do a better job.

As we conclude Part I of II of this interview, I offer some information about being a womb twin re: boundaries, navigating the world as an individual, hypersensitivity, Self awareness, duality, black holes – all which he agress with and finds very interesting. He said:
Talking about this like we’re doing is not only airing it out but bringing it back up so you can see it and identify with it, relate with it, embrace it and be part of it again. I always refer to this act of Being as Nativity. It’s a word I got in a weird altered state, my mother was very much a visionary, a seer, an oracle, an untrained shaman. She didn’t like it sometimes, she didn’t want to know, it was a burden. She didn’t have a lot of control because she wasn’t trained at it and it would scare her. My level of perception is acute in many ways, I don’t call it an extrasensory perception, I call is an intelligence, i.e. intelligence = perception. The keener your perception the more intelligent you are. I’m not necessarily academically intellectual in all levels I’m not a master of math but I understand physics. My friends, who are brilliant, say “It’s ok, you communicate that anyway” without knowing the language of mathematics. Talking about this starts to open up the perception and, as you said, dealing with these uncomfortable navigations.

It’s all about maintaining the species, Darwin called it survival of the fittest. But it’s like, life wants to live and if one has to die for it to live, that’s what it does and that’s not an act of violence it’s an act of kindness actually. That’s what I see. For some reason, human beings get it confused, I don’t know exactly why.

I look forward to Part II of our interview and beyond!
Thanks for reading...

Monica