Don

I got here roughly a year and a half ago. I was living in Summerland, and the CEO from the assisted living community I am at now came to a church I attended. He was telling us about this place, and it stuck in my head. Honestly, I was really bored where I was. Then, all of a sudden, I was given a notice to vacate by the people I was renting from. It came as a bit of a shock, and as I was thinking about where I was going to go, I remembered the place he mentioned and decided to pursue it. I had a really tough life, and I didn’t find the reason for that until about ten years ago. That is also one of the main reasons why I came to Vancouver.

My background is in the oil and gas industry in Alberta. I was born and raised in Edmonton, and I did that work for about 20 years. Then, suddenly, I found myself volunteering in Europe. I lived in Paris and a couple of other places there. My whole purpose in joining was for a cross-cultural mission. I was out of a job and unsure of what to do with my life. One thing I always suggest to everyone is this: do some travelling. You learn so much just by observing people, how they eat, and how they live. I ended up volunteering longer term because I just loved it. Eventually, I went to India, since my heart felt very drawn there. This was in the 1980s, when the only way to reach India was through Iran and Iraq. At the time, the Iran-Iraq War was going on. So we drove through it, all the way from Belgium to India by road, with a group of about 17 or 18 of us. We drove straight through the war. But afterward, it was an amazing experience. I was traveling, learning from people, and living how they lived.

You have to adapt to where you are so you can live and learn. People really appreciate it when you show interest in them, even if you do not speak their language. I was exposed to hundreds of dialects and picked up a little Hindi. I volunteered with that group for three years. I lived in Nepal, India, and Pakistan. I used to think a football game was a big crowd, but then I went to Karachi, which has over 20 million people. After that, a BC Lions game felt like nothing.

When I came back, I worked various jobs. I was a correctional officer in Nanaimo at the adult men's correctional center. I did that for the last five years I worked, and that was pretty tough.

But through all of this, I had a haunting feeling, and my life got really bad. I went through major breakups, which wounded me. I isolated myself because I did not know how to deal with what was going on. Honestly, I did not even know what was going on with me. It was buried deep inside. I had been depressed since childhood, and I did not know why. I remember saying, "God, you say you understand me. You created my heart, you made who I am, so what is wrong with me? Why do I think differently from other people? Why do I feel so crushed all the time?"

I did not get the answer right away, but a few months later, I started dreaming. These dreams brought something back that I had buried deep down when I was three or four. My identical twin brother had died 17 days after our birth. I was told he choked to death, and that trauma never left me, especially since the story I was told did not make sense. There was not any research back then, but a lot has come out since, so I started reading about mental health in twins. I began thinking about my brother, David, and that is when I discovered the term "womb twin survivor," meaning twins who have lost their twin in the womb or shortly after birth.

I will never forget when I found that site, ten years ago this fall. I tried to connect with other womb twin survivors, and that is actually one of the reasons I came to Vancouver, since there are some here. When a twin loses their twin, life becomes very difficult. It is extremely lonely. It feels like being split in two. And for me, it was even more severe because I had to go back sixty years and sort through the damage and everything that had happened. But it made me stronger. The more you explore those hard things, the more you can point yourself in the right direction. One of the first things I did was find out the real reason he died. I tracked down his death certificate.

There are support groups, most of them in Britain and Ireland, but there are a few in Canada as well. They hold a big conference once a year for womb twin survivors. It helps so much to be around others who understand. I eventually went back to David’s gravesite. He never had a gravestone, and that really hurt me, so I put one there. It meant the world to me.

Never stuff your feelings. Try to find out what is really going on, and listen to yourself. Learn to be quiet. I hate noise sometimes. You need to get out and explore. Get fresh air. Unclog your brain. I found life much better when it was simpler; we did not have the stress you all have now. It is mind boggling. I think there is just too much pressure on people today. Live your talents and your gifts, because every one of you has something unique.