In December 2025, it will be 3 years since I lost my twin – the deepest grief I’ve ever known. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think of her or our lives together. We both struggled with trauma, different to each other.
It's not that I'm actively seeking to relive pain or carry her loss – but the truth is that all traumatic experiences are etched on your soul negatively. Therefore, it's hard not to carry those experiences.
Couple that with anxiety and depression from autism – and her loss is a constant presence – it's there as I wake up, and as I lay down to sleep. Being forced to live a life without her is its own kind of trauma, one that I carry every day.
I'm lonely. It’s a life I wasn't expecting, a life I didn't ask for and a life I wasn't able to anticipate, the opposite in fact.
Living with the Echo of a Twin Soul is difficult – our lives have been together since the womb. Twin soul loss is an ongoing journey. Unless you're a twin, or part of a multiple, you can't know what that feels like.
My trauma cuts deep. It spanned decades, living with something I didn't know I had, then finding out in my forties it was cerebral palsy, later finding out through medical records, I had been diagnosed at two, and then having to wait another ten years for an autism diagnosis. That's a lot of trauma. Seeking therapy for it, my therapist said: “you've known nothing but trauma” and she was right. Her comment reaffirmed decades of trauma, including now how I carry twin loss.
I live with depression. I’ve never doubted anyone living with depression, and no one should. Depression is not a matter of simply pulling yourself together. Each person struggling with depression will experience it differently – shaping how they see themselves and the world around them. Supporting mental health means recognising these unique experiences with tolerance, compassion and understanding.
