The Twins
Olukayode and Folashade: 1988 During His Call to Bar
Sunday 21 August 2011
Dealing with Grief as a Twin...
I have come to realise that I am not coping well with grief after the loss of my twin sister. I am certain that some, even my nearest and dearest might not understand why after 18 months I can still be in grief. It simply would not occur to many as an issue or they might think its is an unaffordable indulgence. After all am neither her husband or mother. I am also concerned it is taking me a while to cope with the loss of Folashade Feyisara Laniyan. Yes I know and am certain she has gone to the heavenly realm, but it is still hard for me. I hope this blog will help me in my journey to come to terms with it all.
One simple way my grief manifests itself, I think, is in my pronounced desire to withdraw from people, inability to cope with telephone conversations (some might suggest I never did so anyway), I rather now just prefer my own company these days and see little point to many things in life.
It is suggested by Mary R. Morgan, L.M.S.W. in “The Bereavement Process for Twinless Twins” that:
"Twins begin their identify formation in the womb. Whether fraternal or identical, they receive different stimuli and resources in the womb environment and, therefore, have different experiences that affect their fetal development. But from their cellular origins, they are ushered into the womb in relationship, both to their mother and to each other.
And early on, they begin to show distinct, individual, and also interactive patterns of behavior and temperament, which have been observed and documented by researchers with the use of ultra-sonography. These patterns are often repeated after birth. I think it is fair to say that the rudiments of separate identity and relationship formation in twins have been clearly identified through ultrasound during the womb experience."
One question people ask me is: "Were you very close to her", with respect that is not the point, the point is better explained below:
"Twins will often turn to each other for the comfort and nurturing they might have missed. They tend to meet each other’s social needs, and as a result, often experience fewer outside interactions than other children do in early childhood. This makes it more difficult for them to obtain a sense of themselves as separate individuals and hence, to form and consolidate their own identities. Twins, therefore, often separate and individuate in later stages of psychological development; ........."
It adds:
"An effective healing process is an active process. It entails being present for, and actively engaged in, the grieving process as it unfolds naturally within us. Sadly, our culture does not readily support or give adequate time for the healing process that nature officers us. As a result, we must reach out to find ways to engage and support it and ourselves. It is very important to understand and accept that periods of numbness, pain, fear, disconnection, despair, sadness, anger and guilt, as well as the whole range of human emotions, are common stepping stones along the healing path of loss. This path unfolds before us in an uneven, repetitive and seemingly cyclical way. We can feel we have finally moved to being able to cope and be present on any given day, and then be unexpectedly jerked back again by a sight, a piece of music, or maybe a smell, into a memory that holds pain and loss. The up and down emotional waves of our grief are a natural characteristic of the healing path. The psyche knows what needs to be revealed and when. It is as if all the corners of the twin relationship that we lost must be engaged and borne witness to."
I am not sure I agree with all the views expressed but urge you to read this concluding part:
"The very core of effective healing entails listening for and bearing witness to, through experience and sharing, the emotional memory of your relationship to your twin. Your physical or sense experience of your twin was taken from you; but your emotional relationship imprinted in your body, in your heart, and in your psyche, is left behind, clinging to the shadow of the departed physical presence of your twin. In other words, one says goodbye to the physical reality of one’s departed twin in a way that allows healing by bearing honorable witness to the many memories of one’s relationship.
Finally, an effective healing process entails courage, courage to be present for the places of feeling that sometimes seem unbearable. And it entails trust, trust in your own natural process of healing. And faith, faith that if you stay actively engaged in this process, you will integrate the trauma of your twin’s death and heal from the wound.
The healing process begins to happen naturally after the death of your twin. Often in the first stage, the symptoms are numbness and depression. You feel distant and removed from your life. You are without appetite, overtaken by tiredness, unable to engage others, even your loved ones, or to care. Tasks and chores are done mechanically, if at all.
Some twins at this stage lose the ability to function for a period of time. This, to your family and friends, can seem like a further disaster on top of the loss that has already happened. Yet it is not - it marks the start of your healing. It is as if your mind and body must stop in order to deal with the shock and mobilize for the healing tasks ahead. The process then begins to slowly unfold as the body and psyche open little by little in order to take in and integrate the loss. As I have indicated, healing from the death of a loved one is accomplished mainly through the experience of, and expression of memories and/or feelings. They arise naturally in the bereaved one.
They need to be honored and respected and made room for, so they don’t get repressed and buried."
I hope and pray this helps me move forward to a stage where I can cope better.
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Oh Doctor, I understand some of what you speak of. Though my uncle was not my twin some of what Mary describes makes sense of how I felt when he passed. But do you know what I have also learnt dear Doctor? Is that thought our love for lost ones never dies, times really does heal our pain..........Time is truly truly a softener of all pain........I understand you Sir........
ReplyDeleteThank you for your very encouraging comments, it does help tremendously, keep up the work of encouragement.
ReplyDeletewhile I was reading this it descrined a lot of feelings I am still going through my twin passes away a year ago and I find it hard every day just to cope and fuction I was in the hospital for a little while and I remember one of the docyors saying to me you are not fuction you never went back to work it was only 3 months why would I be functioning he made me feel like something was really wrong with me
ReplyDeleteI pray that you find healing and help through this most difficult of journeys you must tread..
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