The Same but Different by Joan A. Friedman PhD

Author:Joan A. Friedman, PhD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rocky Pines Press

Signs That You May Need More Separation from Your Twin

In interviewing adult twins for this book, people often said they were having certain problems in their twinship—or in their life in general—that they didn’t fully understand. A young woman wondered why she became increasingly irritated with her twin over seemingly trivial issues. A man in his thirties couldn’t see the connection between his panic attacks and his twin brother’s impending marriage. What I explored with these individuals, and many others, was how a lack of separateness from your twin can have consequences ranging from irritability and anger to depression and, in the case of one interviewee, attempted suicide.

When you haven’t had the opportunity to experience life as an individual, you don’t have the chance to form a secure sense of who you truly are. The constant presence of your twin can be both an irritant and a security blanket. On some level you may sense the need to separate, but rather than make that happen, you may find yourself getting upset with him or her for almost no reason. Or, you may be aware of the fact that your lives are overly connected, but when your twin takes steps to separate you may develop panic attacks.

The following comments from various interviewees indicate the need to create more space between oneself and one’s twin. Perhaps you will find that some of these experiences and feelings mirror your own.

• “All our fights are really about nothing, but we know how to get to each other where it hurts the most.”

• “I want to tell her to go find her own friends and stop homing in on mine!”

• “When he got engaged, I joked around saying he had somebody and I didn’t. But then I got pretty mad and started lashing out in anger.”

• “We brought out the worst in each other.”

• “I feel mean because my twin is too clingy and wants to hug all the time and I told her I don’t want to.”

• “You can love your twin as much as you can hate him.”

• “I’m tired of this relationship … we are too true to each other.”

Feeling that you bring out the worst in each other or that you hate your twin as often as you love him or her are not signs of a healthy relationship. Fighting with your same-age sibling occasionally is normal, but lashing out in anger upon hearing that your twin is engaged, or arguing constantly for no good reason may signal a need to create more space between the two of you. It is important to recognize that fighting with your twin may be a way to get distance from each other, a way to separate from each other by expressing—albeit in an angry way—that you feel very differently from him or her and that you are your own person.

Every person wants to experience his or her individuality. As twins, you may love each other and feel extremely connected to one another, but if

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