Living With An Identical Twin | Two Of A Kind | Spark

that's me leora on the left at least i think that's me and that's my twin sister linda on the right it's a strange sensation not being sure who you are [Music] but that's what happens when you're part of a pair it's hard to tell where we end and me begins [Music] to wonder if being one half of two adds up to more or less than a whole that's what i'm about to find out [Music] our mother actually didn't find out she was pregnant with twins until her eighth month if you can imagine in those days they didn't have ultrasound so the doctor would use a stethoscope but when he listened to her stomach he only heard one heart she was sort of overpowering yeah i look at it as we were perfectly in sync even then before we were born we were born in june 1961. geminis the sign of the twins the yin to my yang my very own real life reflection when we were little it was very very difficult for people to tell us apart if you look through our photo albums you can't find a picture of linda and i separately we were always photographed together we were inseparable it was the start of a relationship that is magical for most troublesome for others and mysterious to all especially me [Music] all my life we've been stared at pointed at and asked what it's like to be an identical twin how does it feel not to be a twin put yourself in our shoes it's not always easy to be on display singled out for being double [Music] yet every summer they march two by through montreal a parade of pairs showing off their similarities even i think it's strange and i'm one of them it is a bit freaky well people are a little bit scared of they're a little bit scared of twins nature's clones dressed as clowns maybe it's a metaphor for the way society sees us [Music] how many times do i get recognized as you and then they apologized and i go no it's okay i actually like her i don't mind look-alikes carbon copies mirror images these are our people so i'm leora and i'm linda so a few summers ago it seemed like the perfect place to start a search for what makes me what makes us who we are you can't beat them join them people are always asking us what's it like to be an identical twin i don't know anything different it's like asking somebody who has two legs what it's like to walk with one how would you know we're kind of a fluke of nature only three out of a thousand births the result of one egg that splits into two with the same dna sharing your genetic blueprint with another human being is well complicated we get very jealous very competitive do you fight yes yes we do i was about to say no my husband says you're the giver and she's the taker let her give you tape givers and takers leaders and followers that's not how we define our relationship and we certainly don't define it the way hollywood does double your pleasure [Music] popular culture tends to portray twins in black and white terms we're either twice as innocent or the personification of good versus evil montez queen of technicolor twice as lovely twice as exciting playing a dual role as twin sisters of the tropics vying for love one through power the other through pleasure we've always been fascinated by double identity but why about this to find out i've come to los angeles big smiles land of make-believe and twin psychologist nancy siegel okay one more hold still when we encounter two people identical twins who look so much alike and act so much alike at some level it taps into what all of us really want in the sense that we're all looking for somebody who is just like us so i think that there is an envy among many many people when they see identical twins okay hold still they're jealous they're jealous because we have our soul mate it sounds like one of those cliched words but yeah you are my soul mate i don't have to say thank you but um that's very lucky maybe people are jealous because twins are just so damn cute next to cat videos babies are the most popular stars of the internet times two they're guaranteed to go viral apparently as babies we had our own special language gugu gaga meant past the pablum or something i don't know um no one else could understand but they could tell that we understood each other you can look at pictures of us in our high chairs and you can tell that we're communicating [Music] it may sound like gibberish to you and me but 40 percent of twins develop their own unique language [Music] this phenomenon called cryptophasia is still a bit of a mystery to researchers but to me it makes perfect sense human beings need an audience when you are roommates and soul mates it stands to reason that the person you want to impress the most is each other i think we still kind of have our own yeah special language but it's silent i just need to look at it we're thinking the same thing most of the time [Music] when someone's going through something emotionally the other knows i can't even describe it you can actually communicate without talking because you're thinking you're reacting to things in the same way [Music] the notion that we share a special sensibility intrigues me i'm heading to kingsville ontario to meet sisters whose bond is even closer than ours [Music] even though we're two individuals we're very much connected whether we want to be or not it's just how we were born whether it's what we do or what we think or so in sync just makes sense that our soul is one because we're so interconnected like even just now we're pressed up against one another it feels like we could be one body i think it's my turn to wear the maroon today that sounds good watching lauren and alison knight it's almost as if they ended up as two separate people by mistake that somehow they were meant to be conjoined twins what about our new blue jeans we kind of wish we were one person and if you're one then people can't make as many distinctions between you and it would make some of our life experiences much easier when they were born they put my girls in the incubator together and then they came to me and said oh we have to separate them one's sucking on the toe of the other and they're just really very close in there so they each had their own incubator after that it's a pattern that hasn't changed in 30 years no matter how hard their parents ray in rosalind tried to break it we actually tried to put them in different classrooms and that did go for a semester or maybe one whole year didn't work out very well i dressed them differently when they were little and it wasn't until they got to the point where they could choose their own clothes that they wanted to dress similarly and they wanted to be alike because i think they always recognized that the other person was a part of the other they were that close do this article here that's good so close that no matter what they do they have to do it together measuring everything down to the tiniest details so that each twin is equal i think i have my own identity it's just kind of her identity we only feel like half a person and i think together we make our best self [Music] i remember when we were younger we had separate rooms but i would always go over to lauren's room at night and stay and sleep there until we ended up just moving in together completely because our dad every night would carry the one back to our room that happened to us i used to sneak into linda two bodies one soul two halves of a whole those are phrases i've used to describe my own twinship except we thought our parents didn't know like it was a big secret and i would hide in the closet and of course they knew but this is something else entirely a relationship built an obsession like the two of us having each other lauren and allison have never spent more than four hours apart ever what do you think it is about being separated is it fear and worry is it your own emotional need what is it i think just the feeling of absence within um it almost feels like you're not whole on your own and i think a lot of people look at us and they don't understand where we're coming from which is understandable um but they're drawn to it almost like a car accident like where we'll be walking down the street and they'll pass and they just have to look around again to see and that's why we feel like a freak show at times because it's always that second look or that that stare or that comment that makes it so that you feel you oh i'm not normal and yet you choose to dress alike you choose to have the same hair you don't even have different colored nail polish so in a way are you bringing that on yourselves i think that you could say that that we do bring it on ourselves um at the same time we're kind of stubborn in that we feel this is who we are and so we don't want people to change us might seem odd but just accept us for who we are [Music] but how do you know who you are when your lives are so intertwined okay switch up yeah my turn when your emotions your thoughts even your memories belong to both of you good girl good job we're almost home sometimes we can't tell whose memory is whose i remember being in a restaurant reaching for my dad's hand and looking up and it was a stranger it was the waiter i think and freaking out and it was my memory no no that happened to me oh it happened to me we each think it was our childhood and supposedly this is very common with twins where you you take on each other's memories like many twins we share much more than memories we both became journalists we each had two children within months of each other we had identical hopes even dreams [Laughter] [Music] every person growing up that they have a dream that they want to fly [Music] and for us it's like we go into that dream that we are flying and we're flying together [Music] and we're just working together and feeling each other's movements and it's so beautiful and it's almost like a ballet dance on [Music] straps [Music] 50 feet high in the air british cirque du soleil performers kevin and andrew atherton make it look so easy there's no tricks no wires just the bond with each other to keep them aloft it takes us into our own little world and the fact we trust each other implicitly helps immensely [Music] kevin and andrew worked together trained together and now in montreal as they prepare for the next show they live together each step each breath seems to be in sync but looks can be deceiving from earlier they were very different i was a bit more the extrovert you know like i was more open i was more expressive kev was more the introvert the more the thinker kevin the thoughtful one andrew the troublemaker and by three minutes very much the bossy older brother i do remember one story where i wanted to be with all my friends playing and kev would be by himself reading a book things like that in the playground i would always get into trouble and the teacher would grab me and take me to the they called it like a bad wall put me on the bad wall and i would just give a nod to my brother he would come to my place and i would go back playing again i don't that didn't happen for too long because i think they figured out quite quickly the game we were we were playing so you're manipulating the little twin the way i would the way i would put it is like i would say yes i'm the boss only when he allows me to be [Laughter] yeah there was one place where they were equally dominant the gym we always said okay if anybody's going to beat me personally i would like it to be him and that always happened he would win one competition i would win and that continued from being young up until when we retired at 2024 in 1998 kevin was ranked number one looking forward to competing at the commonwealth games with his brother but that dream came crashing down at a warm-up competition i heard a song that i'd never heard before so i ran up i ran over and i just saw his leg in the position it shouldn't be and it brings like tears to mention it and it was straight away then i knew that um you know he's not going with me [Laughter] it was it was about a very difficult moment and i remember being on in the hospital bed and just just crying because it was important for me but i remember it being important for us you have such a strong bond to someone you're so close so i think to see suffering and pain is the hardest thing yeah and it always always will be i was 14 when i went skiing for my first time and on the last run of the day i fell down and both my legs killed and the bindings didn't release so i ended up in the hospital and overheard a doctor in the hallway tell the nurse that there's a young girl in there who has two broken legs so i was in bed for three months with casts from my toes to my hips couldn't move couldn't go to school couldn't go to the bathroom the whole deal i was on bedpan duty at night thank you she used to ring a little bell and when when she would ring the bell um i would come with the bedpan and you know 14 year old girls probably wouldn't do that for too many people yeah i don't think it's because i was a murderer i think it was because i felt guilty that something horrible had happened to her and not to me and so this was kind of penance to alleviate my guilt somehow um it wouldn't make you better but it made me feel better to do the dirty work essentially [Music] guilt is a very common dynamic feature i think in all sibling relationships but specifically in twin relationships people don't seem to understand that the level of that kind of connection is so close just like a mother and a child which means that oftentimes one has to be accommodating one has to be more compromising maybe one is the more cared for twin or one is the caretaking twin i'm five minutes older and i've always felt like linda's my baby sister even though we're the same age i've always felt protective um so when we would go out for halloween i would ring the doorbell first and she would kind of hide behind me uh when we were asking for candy i think i was a little bit more assertive you were maybe a little bit more shy um and that can has continued with me to this day that i somehow feel like i i need to take care of her i'm not sure why but sometimes that's a big responsibility sorry all these other things feelings ideas that maybe non-twins have which is being authentically angry getting mad being critical being overtly competitive being envious oftentimes that stuff is kept under wraps so i i was looking getting some as the author of several books on twinship psychologist joan friedman has devoted her career to bringing those buried feelings out in the open i remember just now about having to share a birthday do you remember how we used to go into different rooms and open our eyes i've talked about that but first she had to come to terms with her own complicated relationship with her twin jane most twins will tell you that everyone comes up to them and says what's it like to be a twin i've always wanted to be a twin and many twins answer you know what you really don't it's there's some parts of it that aren't so great it was so annoying because we got the same gifts and you opened it first you always got there first i think we were just together too much for too long without having any of our own sense of self and our own separation no i don't remember that i mean identity that's certainly that's been an issue for me for my whole life the idea of you know being looked at as a unit as opposed to an individual was there a time in your life when you did have a sense of more of your core identity yeah once we separated um who knew there was such a thing as twin therapy dr friedman's entire practice consists of troubled pairs neil i'd like to start with six months ago mark and neil lowenthal could barely sit on the same couch we have these sort of indirect debates about everything and anything some of which can get kind of heated twinship can be a dysfunctional marriage because you're trapped with someone that you didn't choose that you didn't ask to be a part of your life 24 7 that you have to learn how to get along with and that you kind of really can't get rid of that sounds horrible well there is there's there are a lot of twins who feel that way as adults also this this is i don't know if this is really workable or not neil and mark are struggling comedy writers who try to outdo each other with better one-liners so historical events that would have gone differently had they been packing heat what was the but i get the sense that most of the time they're not laughing he wheels around lincoln does and bond style bond style and and pops in okay the idea i really have kind of determined that i just have not been honest um about our relationship for fear of hurting him and that's a lot of what we do which is i think dysfunctional um which i guess twins do to varying degrees but is we parent each other yes and that is a really really destructive thing to do [Music] you and i got assigned the same bunk because they thought joan didn't really understand her own conflicted emotions until she went into therapy herself and began to examine her childhood when we were younger we looked a lot alike and people couldn't tell us apart it was really very upsetting because we wanted to be known and seen and identified as joan and jane not the twins and i think as you approach adolescence that's really when it begins to bother most twins when they're really trying to feel their own way through things it's the mid 70s [Music] and it's the junior high dance the dreaded junior high dance [Music] linds and i weren't exactly the prom queens in junior high we were more the wallflower type um i'll never forget this i don't know yeah it's it's embedded in my memory it's the last dance of the night i think it was my world or stairway to heaven one of the two and we're sort of you know up against the wall as girls were in those days yeah and this awkward pimply boy comes over to us and you know your your heart skips a little beat oh my god somebody's actually going to ask me to dance oh so sad and he comes over and he says does one of you want to want to dance it doesn't matter who you're both the same that's not what you want to hear that's when i went and got a horrible perm i went to the hairdresser and i said i just don't want to look like my twin sister do anything and i got one of those poodle berms and then we really did look different for a while i just looked uglier but um because i needed at 14 you it's all about establishing your own identity so we separated a little just i would say for one or two years in junior high and that was it but we were devastated i still can feel that lump in my throat [Music] it's one of those kind of defining moments where being a twin can be difficult you were lumped together you were one and the same and it didn't matter and then secondly you would have both felt upset either way if one or the other had been chosen because it would have caused some sort of feelings of difference between the two of you an identity crisis is par for the course for twin teenagers but what if double identity is something you've been missing all along [Music] it's been three months since they've seen each other that's like an eternity for jillian shaw and lily macleod so they make a quick escape to jillian's bedroom lily for like like most 14 year old girls on a sleepover all they need is their phones and their privacy [Music] it's cool having a person that knows you that well and you can understand each other because you're like really the same that's so cute that smells horrible the same well not exactly lily and jillian are identical twins who've been raised apart in two different homes by two sets of parents separated by a four-hour drive and circumstance adopted as babies from the same orphanage in china these twin sisters are a remarkable rarity [Music] i can understand how people think it's a big deal because it's like an unusual story like not a lot of people go through this we went to adopt the child and now we've got not only twins but we've just married into a huge family now [Music] it's thanksgiving weekend the shaws have come to the small rural town of amherstburg to spend it with the mcleods bless the lord and these against you're about to receive from thy bounty through christ the lord amen god bless us all and god bless julian and lilly for being together again today amen [Music] there guys want to just start the lily do you want the legs [Laughter] happy thanksgiving [Laughter] they have a lot to be thankful for but mike lynette kirk and allison share something else grief we'd been through infertility treatments and uh lost two babies through miscarriage the second at 20 weeks and we just felt like we didn't want to go through that process again and finally came to adopting through china we had lost a son at 17 days old he had many heart defects and everything and we just we had two healthy kids and but we still wanted at least another one the mcleods and the shaws were part of a group of canadian families using the same adoption agency the first clue that something might be amiss arrived in the mail with a photograph of their prospective babies we received our photo uh took a look at it and then when allison and kirk emailed their photo lynette and i were looking at them and were like wow this really looks like the same baby the same birthday yeah same birthday so i put the photos together and that and then we said let's email this back to kirk and alison and our immediate response was are they the same baby because we didn't want to get into some salami you know child with two parents and um and they contacted the orphanage and said no they are two separate children but nothing could prepare them for the moment in china when they first laid eyes on lily and jillian whose chinese name means twin the elevator door is open and there's five nannies that come walking out holding these babies and right away we looked at each other and we said that one is yours that one is yours you automatically could tell it was like they're twins so we're gonna have to deal with that and you have to compartmentalize that put that to the side for a moment and let's get to know my daughter yeah let's enjoy it tonight was our first child so i think we were just overwhelmed to have a little baby in our arms and and holding this little girl who was now ours [Music] two little girls destined to live apart but designed by nature to be together i can barely imagine a childhood without my sister right beside me every day [Music] what was a matter of policy for the orphanage in china was a heart-wrenching dilemma for the shaws and mcleods [Music] we just said could the girls be put together what if one family wanted the twins yeah and they basically said that that wasn't a possibility that the girls would then be put back in and then re-adopted out yeah and we would be provided with two with two other children and then the girls would be adopted just denying that child one of us or both of us was just it wasn't an option it was just despicable to even think that way [Music] before we left china we kind of sat together and said no matter what right you know we have to keep these girls make this work [Laughter] you guys both had like the pudgiest cheeks ever that's the cutest picture i've ever seen for the past 13 years the shaws and macleods have crisscrossed the province visiting every few months hoping lily and jillian would develop a deep bond as twins did you see this picture here you two like staring at each other babies back when you guys were cute [Laughter] [Music] and i can still remember them looking at one another and just astounded at looking into one another's eyes they tried rolling all the time towards each other to look at each other almost like let's be like if you're looking at yourself in the mirror it's i guess that feeling that's me [Laughter] jill you always have like the action laughing shots jillian and lily are still trying to figure each other out and carve a special relationship thanks to their parents decision to let the twins be twins [Music] it was really unspoken and innate i think in all of us we just had a feeling that now we have this obligation to do what's right for both of the girls and what's right is to keep them together [Music] i wonder if there's such a thing as too much togetherness just an hour down the highway i'm off to see the night sisters who paint a very different picture of twinship [Music] can i see that green the darker one thanks our techniques are the same to us we can't distinguish so it's very much like one hand has done it i think that we do have an individual expression i think in this sense it's more like a twin individual expression this one almost needs some watery stuff here too allison and lauren sign their artwork with one combined name they've written a joint memoir and planned to enter teachers college together adult twins depending on how long they've been over dependent and how old they are it becomes a very sad and upsetting kind of dilemma because it's almost as if they've given up it's almost as if they've come to some again conscious or unconscious realization that they are not going to be able to move on in life without one another [Music] i noticed at the high school that they seem to be apart from their peers and once i noticed that i noticed them isolating themselves it seemed to me a little bit more and that was really hard as a as a parent to see that i think that their twinship has been challenging for them but it's also been a gift i mean it's the double-edged sword [Music] some people would look at your lives and say blessing or curse yes in a way it is an albatross just because i'm constantly concerned about allison and she's always on my mind and so it can be wearing but at the same time i wouldn't choose to have it any other way that's only way i know but there's the good far outweighs the bad in my mind the bad began to surface around the sixth grade as classmates began to notice that the cute little night twins were kind of different and suddenly it was cool to make fun of us for dressing the same and of course at that age or at least we were still defiant um and we didn't want to change then just as we don't want to change now for other people uh so that the bullying of dr because we were dressed like isolated us and then people bullied us because we would separate ourselves and we just kind of exacerbated the situation my heart aches for what these two have been through they've been diagnosed with and treated for depression eating challenges and ocd [Music] we were in first year university and we were suffering like quite severely from our obsessive-compulsive disorder and we were at the stage where even if i like went up to eat something she would follow and we'd have to have it the same number and as close to the same time as possible and one day we were seated having lunch i think it was in the cafeteria and one of us who was facing this couple could just tell that they would like simultaneously bringing their arms up to eat and when they were having a drink they were having a drink at the same time and it was horrifying because we realized that we'd been discovered and they were laughing about it and it and we were just burning up inside because i remember feeling like completely exposed that the whole world knew you felt like it it was over is what i wrote in my journal it was the year 2001 i guess it was in their last year of high school at that time i felt kind of sad for them this is prom night for most senior students i can understand that attending prom is not their thing still i can't help but wish that they had some friends i can't help but wish that my daughters were more mainstream i worry that they'll never fit in though i also know that that shouldn't matter right now as always they're doing school work on a saturday night and that was the prom night i vaguely remember our prom linda and i weren't exactly popular but we had no problem fitting in apart and together we were even buddies with another set of identical twins and larry deveret for a laugh we decided to dress alike and go to a twins convention in toronto next thing we know the four of us are pseudo-celebrities featured on the inside cover of a book eventually we lost touch but as far as i can remember they had a close relationship just like us i wonder what happened to [Music] them i live on a golf course in a gated community in a beautiful home the life i live is what is depicted as the american dream lifestyle as a matter of fact we're sitting at the entrance to the temple here as you can see we're at the sixth hole on this beautiful golf course this is the holy of holy places spending a lot of time in your life trying to put a little white ball into a hall is a waste of time religion isn't a sport it's not a hobby it's not a recreation religion is the fundamental of how i live in fact so much so that i moved to israel to uh to live a life that's closer to where i found my jewish roots were and i made the opposite move i moved to california to live the ultimate secular life so the the challenge is what you are living for you know when we break it all down the core is what is the purpose of life play or pray remember that time we played for the torah remember we played for it remember that shot you hit on 17. i had an incredible shot so one plays and one praise because god wanted me to have a tour in the show they couldn't have chosen more opposite paths yet growing up they were the mirror image of each other all right with my right hand he writes with his left hand i'll have a dimple on one cheek has a dimple on another cheek i have a pudgy left thumb and a thinner right thumb and jeff has a pudgy right thumb and a thinner left thumb we put them together and we make two sets and my father has these and my mother has these so genetically i mean i don't know how much closer you can get to mirror imaging jeff has four boys larry four girls they share the same iq the same sense of humor and of course the same parents which one's jeffrey this looks like jeffrey i don't know this is larry right yeah who's larry this one it's just jeffrey okay you know better than me because i don't know i can't tell i don't either uh okay this is larry you can see that i've come to millie and howard everett's florida condo to see if they can give me some insight into jeff and larry's relationship i found out i was having twins when larry was born and the doctor said there's another baby coming and so three minutes later jeffrey was born and they looked like little chickens they were small five three and five five and they were so cute they were very good friends i mean they always did things fun things together yeah they were good they drove their older brother a little bit up the wall they did not bad not bad that's even just unbelievable actually that's a pretty good shot really enjoy each other sometimes when we go on vacation there's one bed we actually sleep together and we're 52 years old now but uh but we have a very good camaraderie okay this is going down baby all the way look at that look at that putt oh nice try i can't believe i missed that i don't know where the bond comes from but it's a beautiful thing you know jeffrey just because i don't play as much as you doesn't mean i'm not as good a player oh you're clearly not as good a player that's definitely like the case listen you're born as a twin you don't really have any option that's uh that's mother nature's work you come in as twins and then you have the option of being connected with another person very much connected or you can decide if you want to move apart you know around age 30 i would say i started to take a a right turn so i'm the one that changed jeffrey didn't change i changed [Music] they grew up in a fairly non-religious household but when larry and his wife had their first child they decided to explore their jewish heritage and became more and more observant when larry became religious it was a huge deviation and it was that's why i call it sort of cult-like it was almost too dramatic i thought he was crazy in some ways i still think he's crazy i i i respect him and you know it's his life he can do what he wants but i just don't see it being a fit i don't i don't see it being honest i really don't see it being honest as to who he truly is and you're being dishonest to yourself i'm sorry to say to yourself and your family saying hey the only pleasures i'm looking for in life are physical pleasures when you can have a connection to a higher you know foundation in life which comes through religion how long have you guys been arguing over this 20 years 20 years at least so jeffrey and i first met in my mother's womb thank you very much we were womans and we've known each other the same womb and the same corny jokes jeff and larry have taken their stick on the road to their parents synagogue in florida we're as identical as you can get as human beings but we're our ideologies are so different so the question is if you had to be one of us which one of our lifestyle would you choose okay i get far more comfort knocking that white little ball into a hole and testing myself to see if i can get it in one stroke or two or sometimes four unfortunately then i do i'm sitting in this uh synagogue and studying torah and that's why i've chosen the life i have the good news about being twin brothers is it's okay for one of them to be wrong [Laughter] ultimately they have agreed to disagree because even if they don't share the same lifestyle their bond is unbreakable we like to end like this okay there's no way you're draining that yeah that's going down there's not a chance that is going down in one chance we we love each other and uh we respect each other okay here we go i'd say the core foundation we have pretty much the same soul we're the same person down the hatch look at that look at that look at that not bad that was a good question okay who do you think numbers with this whiskey one is you right which one is that look at how identical you are look at that i mean you don't only see this one is it no you had a 50 50 chance yes and you're wrong oh my god that's me there oh my gosh isn't that beautiful isn't that beautiful how many years later many years you know people say what can the rest of us learn from twins i think it's automatic that you put your identical twin first you want them to be happy because if they're happy you're happy we say we do that with our spouses with our kids um i'm not sure that we do all the time uh but i think being an identical twin teaches you not to be selfish true i think that's very very true champion gymnasts the atherton twins had to learn that lesson the hard way in 1998 with kevin sidelined by an injury andrew vaulted to a silver medal at the commonwealth games alone i think it was the hardest time of both of our lives but at the same time it was the proudest time i got to sit and watch him do probably the best competition of his life as soon as he finished the first thing he said was this is for my brother that was a very touching moment [Laughter] yeah that moment threatened to repeat itself when there was only one spot on the british olympic team and two athertons so we knew that only one of us would likely go would have been such a great thing a highlight and we wrestled with the decision very hard but at that time also certainly approached us [Music] you know gymnastics was individual sport suddenly we're thrown together in certs like the age of 24. the first three months we would we fought like cat and dog and we hated it fight separate come back work again fight separate after maybe three months something happened it was a click and we started to feel the other ones movements and we essentially became one but one soon became three for andrew after falling in love with gasia another member of cirque du soleil [Music] nice yes he was just following in his twins footsteps yeah we both have families very very different families [Music] i was married first to michelle my husband i am the gator in anderson straight actually andrew didn't know that i was gay until maybe 23. i had kind of like suspicions and at that point when kevin told me for me there was no issue straight away i was like you know you're my brother i love you whatever whoever you are that's that's you and i i really should have discussed it with him but i simply couldn't so yeah i would look at him and i was like okay why can't i be like my brother it's i want to be more like here can we switch i was comfortable in that lifestyle with him when i went out to bars and i was almost more gay than my brother when i was on only because it wasn't a case of me just trying to make him feel comfortable or anything for me i was i was just happy and i was more happy the fact that no he was happy twins often develop different tastes linda hated oysters i can't stand champagne but how can such a fundamental part of human nature our sexuality be so different we've had arguments with people because they are convinced it's not possible you're identical twins you've got the same genetics surely you must both be either straight or gay one of you is lying maybe the truth comes down to that old debate nature versus nurture whether dna or the environment determines who we are hi ladies how are you hello in london one genetics researcher has spent more than two decades looking for the answer professor tim spector with 12 000 scientific guinea pigs a big warm welcome to all of you all the twins here this is your party five six seven okay right the volunteers here at king's college have helped professor spector understand the role genetics plays in everything from heart disease to humor it's always the funniest thing i think when seeing them come in isn't it like noah's ark having these twin volunteers here is an amazing experience he find all the boys off i think i'm looking for your disgraceful behavior i feel i have like a special bond with them having done this work for so long they're giving themselves for science and we're hopefully contributing back to the twin world as well and we're measuring the focus of your machine and then the length of your eyeball with the other machine twins are the only real unique natural experiment we have in humans lovely you can sit back well done the identical twins share 100 of their genes in every cell of their body and the non-identical twins share on average 50 of their genes at every cell in their body [Music] and if you compare the two sets you can tell what proportion of their behaviors their traits the disease is due to genes or due to their lifestyle and upbringing and that's something you just can't do anywhere [Music] else so what are we looking at here this is a photo montage of uh a large number of our twins and what's really interesting is how they've they've all posed pretty much how they want it and it turns out to be very similar whether grumpy or smiley you see pretty much the identical image in the other twin professor spectre looks at this poster every single day but about five years ago his perception changed well i'm looking now is i'm looking for the tiny differences rather than saying oh yes isn't this amazing you know they're all looking the same you can just pick the one in 10 where they're not smiling exactly the same way and i said oh i wonder what's going on there one thing i got to was longevity in twins because we're old you know that don't yes unlike the press stories which show that twins often die within a few months of each other or a few hours if you believe the newspapers they're often dying years apart of completely different diseases so something must be altering those genes in these clones to make one die much earlier than the other and of a completely different disease that's tough for a twin to understand too i've often pictured linda and me ending up as roommates again in our old age like 97 year old sylvia and edith there's a picture of us this baby see that wow that's me that's you and that's yeah she had a little plumper face look at these gorgeous girls before we met our husbands we had one fellow who used to call and ask which one is available for a date that was a long time ago [Music] these days living together in a florida condo they don't take their twin ship for granted or their longevity despite their matching house coats the differences between them are obvious edith is frail hard of hearing and needs constant care sylvia still gets up and goes to the gym every morning it's amazing we don't have the same things that are wrong with us and yet i can tell that what you both have is you're both very sharp at 97 it's an it's an amazing wonderful thing it's a beautiful we're blessed i guess and everybody asked me what's your secret there's no secret i don't know maybe the secret is that unbreakable bond despite all of life's surprises widowhood illness what hasn't changed in nearly a hundred years is how they feel about each other you always have a best friend and you always have somebody can can count on to be there for you and someone who understands you understands you yes well i've been through some really tough times uh i've had cancer i've been divorced um and i think i've relied on leora for just about every kind of support that there is i hope i'd like to think that i offer the same for her it's just unfortunate that my circumstances have offered some challenges in a way it's double the joy and occasionally double the pain remind me of linda and i when we were in our 20s laughing teasing carefree you might think that he's my boyfriend you'd never know that at age 24 chris was given a life-changing diagnosis he said to me you've got breast cancer um yeah like i was obviously like devastated on the phone and i was crying and stuff but i could soon realize that she wasn't i think i just put myself into this sort of zone of right i've got to speak tomorrow and she needs to be strong so um i need her to see that i'm strong right now even though i've just found out that i've got breast cancer just gotta fake it uh so i did so is neil coming with you on the 18th when you get your results yes since she first felt a lump chris has endured chemo radiation mastectomy surgery to remove a tumor on her brain and on her spine it means it's stage four and treatable but not curable yeah and her twin has had to watch her go through it well i couldn't even imagine it being the other way around my head just couldn't get my i can't get my head around feeling that way at all and being the bystander no i just i can't because there is no one surely that feels the pain as much as you do and then your twin you know relationships don't even come close [Music] i would say it is the relationship that defines me more than being a mother a daughter a friend yeah not that you don't love your kids like any mother does or your spouse or whatever but it is a it is a unique relationship that that adds more to your life that the average person just can't imagine it can be challenging for uh the other people in your life because there's always going to be somebody you're going to turn to first [Laughter] [Music] yes i've been very lucky to me it's like the jackpot okay because when i met kev you know and people ask me oh how is it the twin thing because you know is is always with his brother so i said well what i like in the lover kev has that and when i like truly i'm saying that no don't cry but but i liking a friend andy has that you know the humor everything so i mean it could not be better and i know for from day one i know that the most important person in my husband's life is not me it's his twin brother and i have no problem with that we were talking about we're talking about that the other day so i i don't i i don't know if they will one day they will split up you know just will have their own life i think it will be a bit hard for me it's weird because we kind of when were there four of us like that yeah i feel complete yeah yeah we are complete this is our family andrew and kevin have managed to forge bonds that go beyond twin ship for others that's more of a challenge [Music] i think that what's difficult is thinking that where would i be if i had never like met lauren and i think in some ways well i would probably have a career i'd probably be in a serious relationship if not married like a lot of other people our age at this point but i'm only at my greatest potential if i'm with my sister we prefer to be like smashed one person like yeah so we could be a normal a normal person experiencing normal things but with both of our presences [Music] the closer they are the lonelier they become [Music] there's only one place they feel at home [Applause] [Music] twinsburg ohio the largest gathering of twins in the world you don't have to explain yourself any second looks you get or any devil takes is not because people are scorning you or anything it's just a complete celebration of just twin twinship [Applause] [Music] kind of like a family reunion there you go yeah twins rule i called her and i said hey janice i bought a couple of blouses at walmart they're green they have this little thing and she sent me a picture she had bought the same blouse two days before yeah yeah we find no matter where we are in the world if you may want to edit this out but we go to the bathroom at the same time [Laughter] i'm smarter better looking you know those kinds of things but other than that i'm humbler it's important for you guys to be individuals [Music] we feel embraced in a way that we haven't experienced elsewhere so we can be ourselves more there's such joy in their eyes and that to me was almost a revelation when i could see in them what i rarely see back home made me really hope that someday they can find a couple of identical twins who are male who will um you know share their their feelings in terms of like guys we have the same crushes and we would never let someone come in between us so it it has to be somebody who understands our twin ship and i mean you're you keep limiting your pool you know [Laughter] i know like afterwards i had to drink so much water it's hard to get close to somebody when i mean it's not socially acceptable to you know let's have a group of three you know you hopefully have a great relationship with someone down the road but if that doesn't work they always have them each other and for them that's the most important [Music] part [Music] of course for some identical sisters there's no guarantee that they'll always have each other it's very hard to explain kristen marin's differences their story is not unusual and that most twins where one develops breast cancer the other usually doesn't develop it chris and marin may have the same dna the same upbringing but something in chris's experience stress diet exposure to toxins for example something triggered a chemical process that changed the way her genes behave that process is called epigenetics epigenetics comes from the greek meaning on or above the gene it's broadly describes a mechanism by which chemical signals can switch on or off genes and it's the way that nurture can influence nature and the perfect human experiment to explain to scientists and to non-scientists that everyone can understand is when you see differences between a pair of identical twins i thought nurturing would be more prevalent but i can't believe how much nature just takes hold and we're seeing it live in front of us [Music] although lily and jillian have been raised apart they're discovering just how much they have in common she's really funny and i think she's a lot like me she's more outgoing than i am probably um that we are like still both adore music crave fettuccine alfredo and hate clowns the similarities were there from day one [Music] jillian took her first steps and not even thinking just called kirk nelson on the phone and got through this machine and said hey guess what jillian walked for the first time today you know and it was later i think that evening that you had called back and said so did lilly every time we're together around the family table and jillian comes out with a comment and i'll just say ooh that's a lily that's something that just raises the hair on my spine i don't know it just looks oceany they like the same but they're not [Music] look a little closer and you'll find the differences yeah but are you better with like your left hand or your right hand better with my left julian is more athletic but then she has an older brother and sister who are sports champions lily is a little shyer perhaps because she was born that way or perhaps because she's an only child just because lily is on her own and doesn't have that support of having two siblings at home it becomes more important for her to stay in touch with jolene and so that's been one of the challenges that we've had to overcome the compass rose those challenges and everything else about this unique nature nurture experiment are being watched closely several thousand kilometers away by the world's foremost expert unidentical twins raised apart lily's mom allison contacted me to see if just maybe there was something out there that i could help her with but i couldn't there's no how-to manual and how to raise one twin nancy siegel first met the twins together when they were four years old i was just amazed at how well lily and jillian got along how they hugged each other they just seemed so natural and at ease with each other one can only speculate as to what might have happened had the girls grown up knowing they had a twin and were being prevented from having contact and my guess is that they would have been extremely resentful angry and they would have been very aware of something important in their lives that they would have been lacking [Music] we don't talk about the future that much but like we've talked about maybe going to school together but none of us know what we want to be yet so it's it's hard to say really we hope some university will do it too for one special [Laughter] [Music] every time we leave i mean i know when we were younger you always felt like you were leaving part of lilly behind every time we got in the car it was really unexplainable but it was just very disconcerting at times more than just you know sadness it was just something very deep thank you for everything thank you for everything thank you yes now at 14 it depends on what the day is like now it's like see you later okay we'll be in touch guys bye thanks guys i know when we're older that we're gonna have to make more of an effort to see each other because we're gonna have different lives and right now our parents are doing most of the work like for us getting together and stuff but we're gonna have to try i think we'd love to see them continue to forge that sister bond that you know friends come and go in life but sisters stick together yeah [Music] you can be completely honest with a twin in like there's no artifice there isn't it's the most open relationship and whatever mood you're in whatever hardship you're undergoing there's no facade because your twin can see right through it because she's feeling what you're feeling but there are some feelings some experiences you simply can't share linda developed cervical cancer from a virus at age 39. thankfully she was declared cancer-free five years later we were one and the same again or so we thought [Music] the hard part about it is sometimes it's not always even no like i'm about to enter leukemia treatment right now and um this is new and um i i watch how much it's killing her and i feel badly for her isn't that weird like i can't watch her go through the pain of knowing her twin is going through this that's it's bizarre but that's how i feel and i don't know if anyone else could understand that [Music] when you're diagnosed with cancer the last thing you want to do is for cancer to define who you are but when you look different to your twin sister it makes it twice as hard i have to say there was a bad time towards the end of treatment where myron was looking bronzed and healthy and slim and i was you know puffy out of my eyeballs to with steroids and just felt disgusting but i knew that maureen wasn't she wasn't shoving it in my face and she wasn't in any way shape or form happy that it was that way round so i it was just as hard for her as it was for me so there's no way that i could say you're such a how could you be around me right now we did genetic testing quite soon after i was diagnosed and of the genes that they know of that are linked to breast cancer we didn't like test positive for anything you know it'd be great if we had an answer yeah but yeah until we kind of understand it we just we just don't know my sister's leukemia is a mystery to me too it developed from a rare blood disorder the result of a gene mutation one that i was tested for but don't share you can understand that even if the dna and the genes are the same if for example in the case of of cancer in one sister and not the other it's possible that a mutation might have occurred in one because some of the genes that prevent mutations might have been epigenetically switched off in one twin and not the other maybe one twin had a slightly more whiff of a toxin you know at the age of three or in linda's case a heavy dose of chemotherapy at age 40. you know people ask why me when they get sick i ask why her it doesn't mean i mean oh i wish it was me because let's be frank people don't really mean that when they say it um but i don't understand uh why it's her um yeah we've had these roles thrust upon us but you know what i can't ask for a more supportive person in my life and uh we'll get through it together people say to us you know you're as individuals you're both so strong but together you know like you're invincible almost you all ready yeah yeah yeah with the number that we do there's no safety net it's it's very dangerous okay holy cow about to breathe then oh god is that ever scary he is my personal safety net i have no doubt in my mind that i'm so safe and there's no danger when i'm when i'm flying [Music] i know that he's going to put my safety before his own safety if anything goes wrong when we're up there and vice versa i want to keep linda safe to be the anchor she can hold on to and i won't let go [Music] but leukemia treatment is brutal and dangerous ultimately something she has to do alone the first time linda was diagnosed with cancer people said oh you're so strong you're not breaking down about your sister i can't even allow my mind to go there in terms of a dark place when it's about my sister so it's easy to be positive because she is so important to me it's elemental i'm i just can't go there so i don't at least i try not to go there because um she's my everything and um i used to think i was the strong one because i am a little more outgoing a little more assertive oh my god like you are strong enough for the both of us thank you thank you and uh she's the strong one thanks [Music] [Music] she's in princess margaret hospital getting treatment check out your blood pressure today um they're trying to kill off all the leukemia cells uh with strong chemotherapy and hope that she goes into remission the idea is to prepare her for a bone marrow donation with somebody's stem cells she's there for me as much as i'm there for her people don't seem to understand that because she's the sick one but seeing her strength uh gives me strength cute the only time i really really get sad or frightened is when i'm not with her because she's remarkable her spirits are remarkable and uh she's beat it before um and she's going to again they'll be here sometimes twice a week yeah i've been there every day uh because i can't not be there i feel guilty that she's going through this and i'm not i feel guilty that she's suffering it's not fair it's not fair for anybody [Music] you got some news recently so i can't believe someone is going to donate their stem cells to me and save my life somebody out there in the world who i don't even know i have no idea if they're from canada i don't know and this is just something turning the right way it's a miracle and uh i can't believe that this is my i mean this is my chance this is my chance and for when something is going right it is and it's gonna be tough and i don't know if you know how tough when i found out that i am not the ideal donor part of me was relieved because that's a huge responsibility but most of me was devastated because i thought i was in the back pocket i thought it makes perfect sense for identical twins i'm going to save her life and then they said it doesn't quite work that way you're not ideal it's complicated but it's better if there's a 10 out of 10 match but somebody who isn't a hundred percent identical she's in for a really rocky ride and uh the journey continues no two sets of twins are the same just as no two individuals are the same but i would i would like to think that twins can kind of appreciate the fact that well we're kind of like um two bodies one soul i would say [Music] oh i think it's wonderful you always have someone to depend upon and to be with it's incredible [Music] larry describe jeff first of all he's very good looking it's a joke i agree with that my twin is warm and funny and kind and a little neurotic my twin is warm and kind and funny and neurotic and my soulmate it's unconditional love it's unconditional love and it's joy it's joy [Music] you

Channel: Spark

Views: 70,901

Rating: 4.8164792 out of 5

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary, two of a kind, identical twins, twin science, identical twins science

Id: shu4x5Tii5s

Length: 86min 51sec (5211 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020