Want to talk about my session

Yeah I know that. But somehow being a twin it makes no sense. My mom always said that my brother was a beautiful gift but that having me was the worst thing that ever happened to her....but we were born within 90 seconds of each other so that just makes my brain skip a few beats

that makes sense to me. you actually were treated NICELY at a hospital!

When i was 3, i ran into the corner of a table and needed stitches (i remember none of this), and it took 2 doctors and 4 nurses to hold me down enough to put me in a baby straightjacket I think it is hysterical, because I was TINY. Clearly i was terrified, that story tells all in my fear of hospitals/doctors. This was my first visit to a hospital since I left after I was born, so it definitely was innate.
Ugh, this is only because your mother is a horrible, abusive person. I am so sorry.

Velcro. Thank you for the name of the book! I've not heard of that one. My C suggested "Parenting from the Inside Out" to me. Not sure of the author. I got it and tried to read it, but it was so much information that I didn't understand at that time I had to put it down. I may pull it back out and give it another try. There was a good bit about attachment in it too. I just wasn't connecting it to where I was at the time.

BayBrony and Velcro... Your experiences you shared related to attachment make so much sense to me and my heart is sad for them, for you!

My heart is telling me it makes total sense for me too. My mom was never supposed to be able to have children. She tells the story of how she prayed Hannah's prayer and God gave me to her. Then from her stories she still loves to share at family gatherings, I seem to have been the most defiant and rebellious child that she had ever seen. She set about to correct that. Many bad memories.

5 years later, there's my brother. Another blessing she did not expect. She says that God told her when he was born, that she wouldn't have him for very long. Hum... It's 46 years later and he is still the "baby she won't have for long."

It appears that he got the attachment that she was too preoccupied with breaking my defiance to give to me. Ouch!!

That's the first time I've really "said" that.

Not sure what I think about it.

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Woah, I suddenly feel a lot less alone! I'm a preemie too, and a twin. Spent a month in the NICU. Doctors called us "miracle babies" and supposedly so did the parental units. But they spent a lot of time trying to break our wills. Twin took out the powerlessness he felt onto me regularly.

How interesting! I spent most of my life thinking i was the "miracle baby," which my mom always said when she told the story of my birth. TURNS OUT, her placenta had burst or something, and her doctor told her she'd never be able to be pregnant again. Four years later, out pops my brother, fat and overdue! lol. When I found out she was told she would never have another child, and then my brother came, I was liek "OHHHHH, so HE is the true miracle child!" It was a joke, but i find it interesting that both of her children were "accidents."

I feel your heart. My brother chased me through the house with a steak knife. . The golden child chasing down the defiant one.

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Omg, I thought it was just my family who had siblings pulling out kitchen knives on each other.

My twin thinks I was the golden one and he's the scapegoat. I think the other way around because males are strongly favoured in my culture and I am female and he got away with a lot as a male.

Perhaps the truth is in between - that the parents alternated among their children. I was favoured in some ways and scapegoated in others, and so was he - because both of us didn't conform to gender roles.

I was 5 years older than him. My parents were very much about getting things done in the garden and outside, and a lot of times I got in trouble because I did not do my job. Heck! I was what? 8. He was 3. What business does am 8 year old have overseeing a 3 year old? Go figure that.

I don't think I was old enough to decide what would be best for him and I really don't think I should be held accountable for things I didn't know how to handle.

Sorry. Rambling.

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I agree - an 8 year old has no business supervising a 3 year old. I grew up with a similar but different dynamic with my younger brother who is 5 years younger too.

You were parentified and that is not ok and not right. So sorry you had to experience such. Children should not have to parent their sibling(s), your parents were not doing their jobs as parents.

Rainbow - that book saved me. I read it during the beginning period of therapy (this first 1 1/2 years) when I was appalled at what I considered my dependency on my T. I hated the feeling, was embarrassed about it, and didn't understand it.

After reading that book and really studying it, I came to understand that my 'dependency' was a useful aspect of my therapy. How I came to see it was that my life was shifting so violently, like an earthquake. And just like during an earthquake we deem it sensible to hold on to something for safety, so also holding on to one's T during emotional turmoil is something to be commended, not dismissed.

Once I gained that understanding, I didn't fight it anymore and accepted my need for my T. When the earth stopped shaking, I didn't need to hold on anymore.

I've read that book more than once and I think it could be helpful for anyone who worries that they're too 'dependent' on their T.

woa- premie here too.a month early, jaundice, not touched

Wow! Beautifully said. I find that same feeling of dependency on my counselor. I then go into the whole "you are too needy/guilt/rejection monkey circus". It's draining.

What you shared makes it feel like acceptable and part of the process.

Thank you!!

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Oh geez. Mine went through a psychotic violent phase where he acted out his feelings about my mom on me and my cat. He was TRYING TO LIGHT MY CAT ON FIRE with hairspray and a lighter . I tried to stop him and he hit me over the head with a board, split my ear in half and fractured my skull.

It was my fault because he was just playing with the cat and I should not have provoked him. Plus I bled all over a good towel. I got sent to school the next day like nothing ever happened .

I have struggled with this a lot. My T said to tell myself.

"I miss T very much right now and it really hurts. This is OK because I never received love growing up.and now that I am receiving love and attention it makes total sense that I'd want more! As much as I could possibly get! This is good because it means my heart is still.open to love AND I'm experiencing the love and attention I need to heal. Its absolutely normal to feel this way. T loves me very much and even if she is not with me she is always in my heart, and I know with certainty I will see her again on --insert appointment time here-- so I don't need to be afraid of losing her love"

I can't express how much hearing her say this and then repeating it to.myself helped me.

This is interesting that so many of you are twins. For a while, almost all my friends were a twin, not that i knew that when we became friends. I thought it might be because of my lack of boundaries, that it would be easier for a twin to accept?

Oh my!! That is what I struggle with.

If this makes sense..backing into affection because there was no bond and you don't want to throw your heart out there under the bus.

I believe that is how I have functioned most of my life. Radar always on to make sure all is well and as best as I can make it....I'm safe and ok.

No words.

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Thank you!! BayBrony!

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Depends on your twinship. I'm a fraternal twin and my brother and I basically hated each other.in part because he was taught that being mean to me could earn him our mother's favor, in part becauae we were lower middle class trying to make ends meet and except for clothes and shoes we were supposed to share everything. We'd get presents for "the twins" and I think there are several times we nearly sliced something in half rather than share it. My brother was also very popular at school And certainly above average intelligence but no genius, whereas I was basically too smart for every school I was in til my very good high school and kind of a nerd so he thought I was bad for his image. We didn't have boundaries so much as a giant wall with a drawbridge we let down once or twice a year.

I don't want to sidetrack Rainbow's thread, but I had to add that I am a preemie also! My mom had a very difficult delivery with me, and I got pneumonia when I was 6 weeks old and had to be put in an incubator in the hospital. Also had surgery on my salivary glands when an infant. I would not be surprised if this has at least some effect on my attachment problems today.

Peaches, thank you for your comment about not wanting to derail my thread. I feel hurt that I didn't get more support when I needed it this week. Not from my T either. In my email I wrote that I felt like dying, and she hasn't even replied yet! Probably because most of email was not as dismal and she knows me so well. Perhaps I don't know how to express myself when I want help. The good part is that I managed to sit with my feelings, and while feeling depressed, managed to get through this week.

As far as this thread, I know threads sometimes go off in different directions, and talking about twins and preemies was very important to the posters. My stuff will have to wait for another thread. That's how life is.

I feel like my preemie situation doesn't count because I was born at 33
weeks and was only in an incubator for a couple of weeks!! Still, my T says they could have not held me because this was over 60 years ago. I can't find anything about how preemies were treated then. There's one 23 page article but it's all about medical treatment and how that changed. I did read that babies born at 34 weeks and earlier did not always survive. Today babies born very early do survive.

It is what it is! My experience was that something was wrong in my infancy, whether due to being a preemie or not. Your situation as a preemie in the hospital and the early illnesses surely affected you.

Rainbow - I feel like you this week. I feel so hurt and I don't even know but I can't express to T how bad I feel or she is ignoring me for my own good? Or I don't know. I hope your T responds to you. I hope my T will figure out how to help me figure out what the hell I need. Just lost and alone. Hope and hugs to you.

Rainbow, I'm confused about why you think being in an incubator for only a couple of weeks doesn't count? That's a long time! I have suffered all my life from being traumatized at the hands of doctors as a three-year old, and that was only for a few days. Id say the impact on a a newborn for a couple of weeks could have been profound.

I completely understand about not being able to cry and the wall you are talking about.

Tears were not a good option for me growing up in my house. The safest place to be was behind a wall of no emotion. I really know what you are describing!

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Hugs and love to you Ellahmae and to you Rainbow!!

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Just want to add. I'm grateful for the hugs I got after one of my posts here. I reread and realized I was not ignored. I always want more than I get. A pattern of disappointment. Learning experience.