Barbara Klein, Ed.D.

Getting over your feelings related to missing your twin is a long uphill journey. Sadness, depression, anxiety and anger are related to missing your attachment to your twin. Everyone close to you will most likely suffer when you feel like you need your twin, or if you and your twin are at odds or at war, depending on the issue in question. Absolutely, loneliness is scary for twins whether or not they want to admit that they are afraid. Here are some examples of how twins deal with loneliness.

“Next door neighbor twins” never successfully separate to avoid being lonely. These are the twins that live together or next door to each other. They have too much closeness and cannot bear life without one another. All of their closeness creates a deficit in language skills that are needed to relate to the non-twin world. Always wanting closeness, “next door neighbor twins” can be disappointed with other people who really can’t understand them like their twin does. Being afraid of their inadequacies with others is very common.

“Fighting twins” fight all of the time but they still need each other for comfort and feedback about life. Angry at one another, these twins can go their own ways and survive without their brother or sister. Fighting twins try to find others to recreate their twinship. They can miss the twin creation that they have erected to replace their twin. Eventually, fighting twins are forced to try to find ways to cope with their loneliness.

“Fearful twins” are afraid of of hurting each other because they have played opposite roles as children and taken care of one another. Eventually these types of fear-based twin relationships have to be understood so that adult relationships can be developed. Self-understanding is only accomplished because of deep feelings of loss and loneliness.

“Silent twins” don’t actually talk to each other but they need to know that the other is there for them at a distance. They are confused about their relationship and have difficulty forming intimate relationships with others.

“Self-hating twins” never want to see one another because they have been pitted against each other so badly that any contact creates pain. These types of twins still suffer from loneliness and have difficulty asserting themselves with other people.

Twin loneliness is painful. You can make your sad and empty feeling more tolerable by finding people who make you feel alive.