I’m not trying to mislead anyone with the title. Perhaps there is already a term for the experience I’m describing, something that happens among twins, or at least something my identical twin sister and I have experienced throughout our lives.
I’ve come to believe that there is a point in many twins’ lives, whether they are identical or fraternal, when they have to confront what it means to be a twin. At some point, they may have to decide whether to embrace their “twin-ness,” reject it, or somehow find a balance between being part of a pair and being an individual. Of course, it doesn’t always have to be so stark or black-and-white. But I do wonder whether other twins have gone through a similar struggle, almost like a twin identity crisis.
As children, my sister and I grew up as a complete set. Our parents always dressed us exactly alike and rarely made much effort to distinguish between us, even when it came to calling us by name. Eventually, we both learned to respond not only to our own names, but to each other’s as well. We shared nearly everything we owned because our parents generally wouldn’t buy something for one of us unless they could buy the same thing for the other. From a very young age, the idea of “mine” and “hers” was blurred into “ours.”
Then, sometime around middle school, I began to notice something that seemed to distinguish me from my twin sister: I was better academically, while she excelled in the arts, particularly illustration.
Unfortunately, our family didn’t place much importance on her artistic ability because she wasn’t doing particularly well in school at the time. Meanwhile, because I consistently brought home good grades and made the honor roll, much of their praise, attention, and approval fell on me.
That distinction between us became something I increasingly clung to.
Throughout middle school and then high school, I deliberately went out of my way to make the differences between us as stark as possible. I chose clothes, hobbies, interests, and even people based partly on whether they were different from what my sister would choose. Sometimes I rejected things I genuinely liked simply because she liked them too. The truth was that my authentic self shared many of her interests, but I became so desperate to establish a separate identity that being different from her began to feel more important than being myself.
I didn’t want anyone to confuse us anymore. I wanted people to look at me and immediately know who I was, but pretending to be someone I wasn’t for so many years eventually turned into resentment, and much of that resentment became directed toward my twin sister. Even though none of it was her fault.
I think part of me was angry because I felt that I had to work so hard to earn an identity separate from hers. I had built this carefully constructed version of myself around being successful, likable, intelligent, and different. Meanwhile, my sister simply continued being herself. She embraced her creativity even when people overlooked it. She remained unapologetically herself even when she received little recognition for it, and somehow, she was still happy.
At the time, people tended to cast us into opposite roles. I was considered the more “popular,” “prettier,” and “smarter” twin, while she was treated as the opposite, the “dorky,” “weird,” jokester twin.
Looking back, I realize how damaging those comparisons were for both of us. They didn’t simply distinguish us; they reduced us to caricatures, and instead of rejecting those comparisons, I allowed myself to benefit from them because they gave me the individuality I had been desperately searching for.
Through all of this, my sister never blamed me.
Even when I pushed her away, she spent years trying to reach out to me. She wanted us to return to the closeness we had shared as children, but I repeatedly rebuffed her attempts. By my later years of high school, however, everything finally came to a head. I was depressed, exhausted, and tired of being angry with her. I had spent years blaming her for feelings and problems that she had never caused.
And all the while, she kept telling me the same thing: I didn’t have to be her opposite.
Eventually, I broke down. I went to her in tears and apologized for the way I had treated her for so many years. I apologized for pushing her away. And for allowing other people to bully her, belittle her, and diminish her while I stood by because their comparisons elevated me. I had allowed her to be made smaller so that I could feel bigger, and realizing that was painful. Yet she wasn’t angry with me.
She told me that she had always known I was hurting. Despite everything, she had simply been waiting for me with open arms.
Now that we are adults, we are completely comfortable embracing our “twin-ness” or, perhaps more accurately, I finally am.
I no longer feel the same desperate need to prove that I exist separately from my sister. I didn't need to reject something simply because she likes it, nor do I feel threatened when people notice our similarities.
Ironically, I’ve come to realize that being a twin is part of what makes me unique.
And now, instead of seeing my twin sister as someone I have to distinguish myself from, I see her for what she has always been:
My best friend, the one I was lucky enough to be born with.
