Beth & Amy

Beth and Amy are identical twins and they first came to me when they were 17. Here they are in their own words:

Beth: “We both always felt that we were not being treated as individuals with our own minds. People would often ask Amy what she thought and assume that I thought the same! It got very annoying. It also made me mad when people didn’t bother to find out which one of us they were talking to. It was like we were both the same person and it didn’t really matter which one they had in front of them.”

Amy: “There was a lot of competition between us. It was like we needed to compete for attention because nobody really knew who we were. Mammy was the only one who could instantly tell us apart, but even she assumed that we discussed everything with each other and I was often left in the dark about stuff because Beth didn’t tell me. It was like people assumed we were telepathic or something.”

Beth “Things got really difficult when we started having boyfriends. You often see in the films how twins can run rings around people and have great fun together, but it wasn’t like that for us at all. I was never sure whether my boyfriend even knew it was me he was going out with. We started fighting a lot and that made things very difficult at home”

Amy: “We really needed to find our own identities. When we started going to Gabrielle she was brilliant and saw us individually. With her support I was able to properly find out what I wanted and also admit to some less than sisterly feelings I was having about Beth. It was a real adventure spending some time on my own stuff and in a funny way it made me appreciate Beth more.”

Beth: “I was able to see where I relied on Amy just a bit too much to do the things I didn’t really want to do. I got to see why she might feel resentful about that. It was also a great relief to find out I didn’t need to keep competing for attention – that I was a person in my own right! I’d always known that of course, but now I really feel it and my confidence has really grown. Amy is now a friend as well as a twin sister.”

Amy and Beth still come to see me from time to time to reinforce their new found independence from each other. They both feel it’s an ongoing process as it’s taking a bit of time to ‘re-educate’ their family and friends, but it’s getting easier as time goes by. The final word goes to Beth: “Seeing Gabrielle has really helped us both, it’s made such a difference to us. Thank God we found her.”