How can you tell, if you have lost a twin in the womb?
This is a subject that I have explored for over 10 years now and I’m always fascinated by how much the loss of a twin in the womb can impact our relationships and everyday life. It can show up as inexplicable physical symptoms, such as nausea, digestive issues or scoliosis. And there are a multitude of psychological effects that I have listed below. Knowing where these symptoms come from can bring relief as to why certain things just don’t fall into place or feel like a constant struggle.
On a conscious level, it can be difficult to find proof for the lost twin, because a lot of the time the death of the twin occurs in the first few weeks of the pregnancy. This means that the mother might not have been aware of the pregnancy yet, or there was no clear sign for another heart beat.
That’s why I invite you to trust your own inner knowing. If something in your body responds, if your heart aches, you feel pain or a sense of loss or loneliness, or if you have a strong reaction of dismissing this topic as bullshit, that’s usually a sign that you’re on the right track.
Signs that you are a so-called “womb-twin survivor” can be:
✨Fear of intimacy or fear of commitment (sabotaging relationships so that you are not left by someone you love – or recreating the experience of being left repeatedly)
✨Feeling guilty a lot in your life for no obvious reason
✨Feeling lonely and like no one understands you, even those close to you like your family and partner (because you’re looking for the intimacy and close connection that you had with your twin)
✨Panic attacks or fear of death that come out of nowhere (because you experienced the death of your twin in the womb)
✨Thinking a lot about death or dying
✨Having a fear of being poisoned for no obvious reason (because the death of the twin changed the taste of the amniotic fluid in the womb)
✨Being very clingy & needy in friendships or relationships (because you’re looking for the intimacy with your twin)
✨Finding it hard to set boundaries and know who you are
✨Having a tendency of losing yourself in friendships or relationships
✨Feeling weak and powerless
✨Feeling hopeless, like it’s not worth to put any effort into what you want, because you’ll lose it anyway
✨Not daring to fully step into life (because of the guilt that you survived)
✨Feeling depressed or low on energy (keeping you from living your full potential)
✨Yearning for touch or dreading it
✨Feeling like there are 2 or more souls living inside of you and you don’t know who you are
✨Finding it hard to make a decision, because you are torn between the options
(Please note that this list is only a selection of the most prominent traits. There are many more.)
If you’d like to learn more you can also read my article on how the loss of a twin can influence intimate relationships.
If you got a sense that you might have had a twin (or more) in the womb and have any questions, please feel free to email me or join my free facebook group where this was “topic of the week” and I regularly share insights on different topics like this.
If you would like to connect and gain more clarity on how this is impacting your life or how to make peace with your twin and start to live YOUR life and relationships, feel free to book a free Connection Call to have a chat, get to know me and ask all the questions you might have. If you already know that you’d like support with your lost twin, I invite you to book a private session.
There are also great resources available on- and offline to explore this topic further. I just want to name Althea Hayton, because she was one of the pioneers, who started to research this topic around 2005. Her books were amazing support to me, when I started to find out about my lost twins and I happily contributed to her research back then. She has written great books and there are lots of valuable resources on her website.