SisterSister

These thoughts were triggered by competition between identicals…

Being a twin is nothing like I thought it would be. I had a preconceived notion that it involved inside jokes and a bond that nothing could penetrate. Yea…no. We grew up on SisterSister and my young mind automatically assumed that what I was seeing was what we would experience. But the older I got, the more I realized…my twin and I don’t like each other. And after watching the reality show that the SisterSisters had some years back…I realized that my experience with my twin is not abnormal. There’s so many comparisons between those who share a womb…at the same time. The first time I experienced being compared to my wombmate was when we were kids. This why-he-tay lady in the neighborhood came over to talk to my BM and my twin and I were in the yard. She turned to my twin and complimented her on how “thin” she was and when she looked at me she didn’t say anything. I became insecure before I knew the definition and that summer I wore shirts over my bathing suits. That garden tool knew what she was doing. I wasn’t even plush but compared to my twin I was the chubby one. After that I started paying more attention to our differences and it’s been downhill ever since.

I feel like if we weren’t raised to subconsciously go against each other, we’d probably be closer than we are now but the damage has been done. Which is what I feel happened with the SisterSisters. I‘ve always compared the one that just got divorced to my twin because she’s always seemed like she secretly despises her sister. On their reality show she came across having an undertone of micro aggression towards her twin and it felt very familiar. If I were to give my reasoning for why I believe one twin ends up being more antagonistic to the other…I’d come off egotistical. So I’ll attribute this aggression to a sense of inferiority. Still egotistical? Oh. This sense is why I feel like my twin needs to feel like she’s doing better than me financially because that’s the only upper hand she’s been able to have over me…after I grew into my shape. And when I started taking my stability seriously…she showed how far she’ll go to keep herself positioned in a way that allows her to look down on me. Honestly speaking…when the financial comparisons left me with the disadvantage…I reacted with the same jealousy. I still make a lot less than she does but I’ve learned to compare myself…to myself.

I just watched a gossip vlog about one of the SisterSisters announcing her divorce on the same day as her twin’s book release. That’s the kind of one upmanship that I’ve experienced in my own twinship. My twin has always gone out of her way to be the center of attention…even though I’ve never craved that position…ever…in life. Because the older we got..the more attention I seemed to naturally attract and her reaction to it made me feel guilty. So I learned to shrink myself around her because I started out wanting to be her friend. But after a while…it just made more sense to put distance between us. Just like what we’re seeing with the famous set of twins. A lot of people don’t understand how this kind of separation is possible but unhealthy competition between twins breeds division if there isn’t a psychological intervention early on. Because the desire to be first…for the one who comes in second…can lead them to do the unthinkable. After so many emotional attacks…the bond has to be broken in order to stay from behind twinemy lines.

Love,

Choosy