some interesting (tbh sad) side effects of being a twin:
it is very very common for twins to have individuality complexes, that is feeling the need to establish themselves as an individual and kind of obsessing over it. being an identical twin surprisingly has a lot of negative impact on mental health in my experience.
put aside my relationship with my sister. we are best friends and i love her with all my heart. it’s factors external from us that cause this negative impact.
my entire life, people haven’t been able to tell us apart (my immediate family can, so i’m lucky). this doesn’t seem like the biggest deal, but this causes two things to happen constantly: comparison and grouping us together.
comparison between my sister and i has hurt me many times in my life. for some reason, people think they can say anything to us. when people meet us (or any time we see someone we know who can’t tell us apart, really) in an attempt to tell us apart, they ask What’s the difference. the thing is WE DONT KNOW. we just don’t think we look that alike! we don’t have a cheat code to help you tell us apart. but this causes people to immediately start listing the differences between us. i’ve been told i have a fatter face MANY times, people have pointed out acne MANY times, people have told us that one is prettier, one is fatter, one has a bigger nose, one has squintier eyes, one has dark circles under their eyes, one has a pointy chin, one’s funnier, one’s nicer, one’s smarter. you name it. this constant comparison makes my heart drop every time. it’s like, you would never compare two people like that in any other circumstance because ITS HURTFUL. i don’t exist for people to just pick apart like that. and this can be something that happens MANY times a day, especially at a family event or in a big group.
the next thing is grouping. people group everything we do into the actions of one person. it makes it feel like people just don’t care about me as an individual. and to be honest, a lot of the time they don’t. people always say “you’re basically the same person” or that they just don’t care to tell us apart. it hurts me, because they just don’t care about me as a person, they only see me as some sort of cool anomaly.
people almost never can tell us apart, so they never know what name to call us. this causes people to either call us “X or Y” or just a mix of both names, OR, the most common one, just not calling us by any name. i didn’t even notice it until i was older, but outside of my house i am almost NEVER called by my name. can you imagine how depersonalizing that can feel? i have certain friends who can tell us apart who took years to be able to. at least they tried though!!! they’re my friends because they cared enough to try. they all said they could just tell after a while just by getting to know us.
i have a few friends who have been able to tell us apart since they met us. nothing has ever been so touching to me. i had this one moment when someone called me by my name, just casually, like anyone else’s, and it honestly made me happier than anything else in the world. i could cry at the idea of it. how strange it must seem to be so touched by someone knowing your name.
so yeah, these are things that have affected me my whole life. being a twin is very special, but people honestly make it a struggle.
tldr: being a twin causes identity issues and depersonalization
