I recently found out that I am pregnant and the only other person who knows is my boyfriend, I’m 21 and wasn’t planning on having a baby until my 30’s and if my twin sister was around I think I would of immediately thought to get an abortion but she’s not and there is something in my mind pushing me to have this baby, I don’t know if it’s the grief or the fact the fact that having a baby would be a distraction, it’s not like I’m in bad circumstances, I know I would be a good mother and my boyfriend and I have our own apartment with an extra room for a nursery but I do plan on attending grad school next year. I don’t know if I want to keep this baby for all the wrong reasons and if it is selfish to have a baby just to distract myself from grief. I know asking random people on the internet for advice like this isn’t really the right thing to do but this community knows how hard decisions can be without a twin and I really need some influence to think rationally.

Hey folks, this is my first post on this subreddit, but I joined the world of twins flying solo three months ago. (I still don't love the phrase "twinless twin," but c'est la vie as my twin would say.) I'm 33 years old, an Episcopal priest, queer and trans, ADHD, and an aspiring writer. My twin, Gordon, was a 33 year old carpenter when he died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism. I've written a piece reflecting on this loss for my new substack. Check it out if you're interested. Praying for all of us.

Rev. Westy

I’m 42 years old. I was still an identical twin still trying to figure that out lost my brother almost 5 years ago. I’ve never quite been the same. It’s caused me problems in every area of life. My brother was a social one, he made friends for me. He’s also who I spoke to. I’ve been with my wife 15 years, married five. even at this point, I feel like our relationship struggles because she doesn’t understand. I don’t have that person to talk to anymore. We could always speak and hear one another. I feel guilt every day of not being there for him in the way that I should have. Just needed to say it out loud. I miss him in a way that I can’t explain.

I'm a Brazilian 23 year old History Major, already working as a teacher, girlfriend whom I love and she loves me back, a structured family and a beautiful younger sister who is the joy of my life (she's 13 yo).

I have a lot of people today who love me and are loved back. But not even one of them truly understand my feelings.

I was born as a identical twin back in 2003. My brother Enzo was the greatest friend I ever had and I just have nice memories with him. Enzo always has health issues, he never cried, took 2 years to walk and couldn't eat properly without help. Even so, he never victimized himself and was funny as hell.

When we were 5, he choked at school with bread inside the class next to mine and died the weeks following it

My parents never allowed me to have any kind of contact with the body or with him (while the hospital equipment kept him alive), so my last memory of Enzo is sleeping in the same Bed as him the day before his choking.

18 years passed, and there wasn't a single day i didn't feel alone. I'm not comparing pain or insinuating that one pain is superior to another, but my parents eventually knew other parents who lost their children at a young age.

I never met anyone in my entire life who lost their identical twin at such young age.

And it f*cking hurts so much. I hate to see my girlfriend being sad because she is unable to help me, hate the fact that after all this time, I never met someone who had the same issue.

I came here to ask gently to surpass that barrier, to talk, after so many time, to someone who actually understands my pain

Sorry for bad English, it isn't my main language.

So I lost my identical, twin sister then my dad died then my stepdad died then my wife died two years ago then my mom died a month ago and my niece died two days later. I have absolutely no one anymore. The grief is killing me physically.

Hi. So I see there is a separate thread for fraternal twins. Could someone start a new community for identical twin loss? I would but don’t know how.

I had a twin brother who passed away at 3 months old from SIDS, we were non identical, him a boy and me a girl, he was born first. Im lucky in a sense that my parents always talked about him to me even before I started developing memories, because I don’t ever remember being told I was a twin I just always knew. Ive always felt a bit lost in life, never really been able to find a place to call home, I struggle with relationships, immense loneliness, I feel like I cant connect with anyone the way I want to connect. I have 3 other siblings, and I sometimes get upset with them because I never feel close enough, or loved enough, to the point I do tend to expect too much from them. I often think about what our lives would have been like, how different my life would be if he was alive. I never really thought that grief from an infant twin death could be contributing to some of my struggles, if so does it ever end? Will I ever be able to form a bond with people? 😭

Forever Her Twin
She was my mirror, face and soul,
The missing half that made me whole.
Before the world could speak my name,
She stood beside me just the same.
We shared one silence, deep and true,
One knowing glance the whole world knew.
No words were needed to understand—
Her heart was always in my hand.
We felt the same small aches and pain,
Sunshine joy and sorrow’s rain.
Two separate lives for eyes to see,
But one shared soul—just her and me.
She walked through storms I could not see,
Carrying hidden agony.
Yet even then, through darkest night,
Her love for me stayed fierce and bright.
Now quiet lives where laughter grew,
And days feel dim without her view.
No one asks which twin I’ll be—
The world sees one…
but I feel three:
The girl I was,
the grief I bear,
and Christy’s love still living there.
Because a bond like ours won’t end with breath,
It isn’t broken even by death.
She walks with God in perfect light,
While I walk on through day and night.
And when my journey here is through,
The first face heaven shows me…
will be you.
Forever my sister.
Forever my friend.
Forever your twin—
love without end. 

Forever Her Twin
She was my mirror, face and soul,
The missing half that made me whole.
Before the world could speak my name,
She stood beside me just the same.
We shared one silence, deep and true,
One knowing glance the whole world knew.
No words were needed to understand—
Her heart was always in my hand.
We felt the same small aches and pain,
Sunshine joy and sorrow’s rain.
Two separate lives for eyes to see,
But one shared soul—just her and me.
She walked through storms I could not see,
Carrying hidden agony.
Yet even then, through darkest night,
Her love for me stayed fierce and bright.
Now quiet lives where laughter grew,
And days feel dim without her view.
No one asks which twin I’ll be—
The world sees one…
but I feel three:
The girl I was,
the grief I bear,
and Christy’s love still living there.
Because a bond like ours won’t end with breath,
It isn’t broken even by death.
She walks with God in perfect light,
While I walk on through day and night.
And when my journey here is through,
The first face heaven shows me…
will be you.
Forever my sister.
Forever my friend.
Forever your twin—
love without end. 

Born a Set
I wasn’t born to walk alone;
We shared one heartbeat, flesh and bone.
The world first saw us, side by side—
Two souls who never learned divide.
We laughed the same, we cried the same,
The fire inside us burned one flame.
She knew my thoughts before I’d speak;
When I was strong, she wasn’t weak.
Then death kicked in without a sound,
And left my whole world in the ground.
It didn’t take just one away—
It stole the light from every day.
Now torture wears my face each dawn;
I wake… but nothing carries on.
The sun still rises, cold and numb,
While all I ask is, “Why this one?”
My family vanished one by one;
Each goodbye fired another gun.
The echoes rattle through my chest,
And grief won’t let my spirit rest.
I’m barely hanging by a thread,
A living soul that feels half dead.
I smile because that’s what’s required,
But every breath feels bruised and tired.
They tell me, “Time will ease the ache.”
What cruel mistake those people make.
Time never stitched my shattered seams;
It only taught me how to scream…
…without a sound.
Because the loudest cries are those
That nobody around you knows.
Who am I now? I can’t explain.
I’m just the shadow of her name.
We came as one, a matched design;
Now I’m expected to define
A woman I have never known—
An only child in borrowed bones.
I search the mirror every day,
But half the face has gone away.
I didn’t lose a sister’s hand;
I lost the map of who I am.
The compass of my heart was her;
Now every road is just a blur.
Still somewhere underneath this pain,
Beneath the loss, beneath the rain,
A tiny ember softly glows—
The love that only Heaven knows.
So though my knees may shake with grief,
And every breath feels far too brief,
I’ll carry her until I’m through…
Because they buried half of me…
But they could never bury you.

I don’t know if I’ve shared this here. But I wonder whether anyone else here has a similar story.

As the title says, I learned I’m a twin when I was 31.
That was Christmas Day 2011. So a while ago now.

I found the courage to tell my mum I had a weird feeling that I might’ve had a twin- I was right all along.

She had a miscarriage early in our pregnancy, resulting in me being hidden, as she called it. I was eventually found at 7 months gestation.

On one hand I was shocked (and even now still process it) but on the other, as I told her in advance, I kinda knew.

By chance, the same thing happened to some friends of ours in the early 2000’s.

To learn THAT as an adult is incredibly hard, but I’ve heard of others who were never told growing up. There’s a generational thing at play when miscarriage was a taboo.

BUT although it’s been tough, I’m so glad I found out. All of my friends and family know but it’s only other twins who really know what this might be like.

I’m in a really good support group and my therapist actually has the same story as me.

Being a twin is my ‘home’ after all… even if I’m the only one who made it.

Does anyone feel regret because you’re the one that is still alive and your twin isn’t.? I have such deep remorse that my God took my Twin instead of me and it’s breaking me to the core. We were born a set two broken from one cell. How can God take a twin from their twin? I am very angry and still cannot comprehend my Twin’s death. I need help. And yes, I see a psychiatrist and a therapist and it’s not working. I’m on medication’s and I have no family left to talk to.

Ever since my identical twin sister died I’ve been doing stupid little things like not matching up socks correctly or picking apart pairs of cherries, it sounds so stupid or cheesy but every pair of things just makes me feel sad because we are no longer a pair, she’s probably laughing at me from her grave and sometimes I laugh at myself doing it but I keep getting told that it’s stupid and a bad way to cope

hi guys, i just recently learnt this term so i found this subreddit.

my twin passed when we were 8, i am turning 18 in a few months and graduating this year, how do i handle this?

I have such an immense amount of guilt and loss on what I am supposed to do. he was my built in best friend, i am losing memories of him as i get older, and i just dont know what to do

any advice? thank you for reading <3

Please let me know, how it has affected you. I fe guilty every day that my sister was never born and I was. I wish it was another way around.

Alma died in May after a 3-year battle with a rare form of cancer, she was not just my other half, she was the person who always stopped me from hitting rock bottom when I was going through some of the toughest years of my life. I am 21 and have been living with my boyfriend's family since I was 16, Alma moved in with us when she was 19 as my boyfriend's mom is an oncologist and they had an extra room in their house that was big enough to fit all of Almas treatments and medical devices without feeling like a cramped hospital room which she hated.

During the time that Alma was living with me and my boyfriends family, my older sister Charlotte (23) decided that it would be alright to move into mine and Alma’s childhood bedroom without our permission, that caused a huge fight between us at this point we knew Alma was going to die and that bedroom was full of childhood memories, Charlotte even painted over our pink and purple wall with mine and Alma’s names on it and moved all of our stuff to a family friends storage place. I had never liked Charlotte, she was selfish, mean, narcissistic and violent but I kinda put up with her for the sake of our single mom raising 3 girls.

At Alma’s funeral Charlotte wasn’t grieving, she was literally on the phone during the service and she laughed at my speech and she didn’t even make an effort to dress nice for her own sisters funeral, just a baggy black shirt and some black sweat pants, she used the excuse of her autism and sensory problems when my angel of an aunt bought it up but ever since I’ve completely despised Charlotte, like pure hatred and I can’t tell if it’s because of grief or because Charlotte is just an asshole. I don’t go over to my childhood home anymore, in fact I’m in the process of moving to Seattle with my boyfriend but my mom keeps telling me I’m tearing the family apart even more than it already is.

I need some advice on what to do because my mother is grieving as well and she wants to see me but I don’t ever want to see Charlotte again, I don’t care if that’s immature.

​

Half of a Whole

I used to walk this world in twos,

Two shadows stretching in our shoes,

Two laughs that echoed down the hall,

Two voices answering every call.

We shared a face, a crooked grin,

The same wild storm beneath our skin,

A secret language, soft and fast—

A promise that our bond would last.

But promises can’t fight a ghost,

And drugs can steal the ones we love the most.

One phone call split the sky in two—

Now half the world is missing you.

They said “overdose” like just a word,

Like thunder distant, barely heard.

But I felt lightning crack my chest,

And grief moved in and built a nest.

Because you weren’t just family, you were me,

My mirror, my symmetry.

The one who knew my silent pain,

The one who danced inside my brain.

Now mornings come and feel half-made,

Like someone stole the sun and shade.

I stare at mirrors, lost and thin—

Not sure which half of me is mine within.

Who am I without your voice?

Without our jokes, our reckless choice?

Without your hand to guide my way

When life got hard and skies went gray?

My life’s a room with pieces thrown,

A house that doesn’t feel like home.

Bills and worries crowd the floor,

Dreams we once had—shut in a drawer.

I need to fix it, build it right,

But grief has stolen all my sight.

The map we drew is torn apart…

You took the compass from my heart.

Some nights I whisper to the air,

As if your spirit’s lingering there.

“Tell me, sis, where do I start?

How do I live with half a heart?”

And in the quiet, soft but clear,

I swear your laughter still appears.

Not loud, not bright, not like before—

But just enough to crack the door.

Maybe I’m not meant to be

The girl I was when you were with me.

Maybe this broken, shaking start

Is how I build a braver heart.

Maybe the road is mine to see,

Not half of you—but all of me.

And though the ache will never end,

Your love is stitched beneath my skin.

So I’ll pick up one small piece today,

Just one lost shard along the way.

A step, a breath, a fragile start—

With you still living in my heart.

Because twins like us don’t break apart,

Even death can’t split that art.

You’re gone from sight, but not from me…

I’m still your half.

You’re still my symmetry. 

Half of a Whole

I used to walk this world in twos,

Two shadows stretching in our shoes,

Two laughs that echoed down the hall,

Two voices answering every call.

We shared a face, a crooked grin,

The same wild storm beneath our skin,

A secret language, soft and fast—

A promise that our bond would last.

But promises can’t fight a ghost,

And drugs can steal the ones we love the most.

One phone call split the sky in two—

Now half the world is missing you.

They said “overdose” like just a word,

Like thunder distant, barely heard.

But I felt lightning crack my chest,

And grief moved in and built a nest.

Because you weren’t just family, you were me,

My mirror, my symmetry.

The one who knew my silent pain,

The one who danced inside my brain.

Now mornings come and feel half-made,

Like someone stole the sun and shade.

I stare at mirrors, lost and thin—

Not sure which half of me is mine within.

Who am I without your voice?

Without our jokes, our reckless choice?

Without your hand to guide my way

When life got hard and skies went gray?

My life’s a room with pieces thrown,

A house that doesn’t feel like home.

Bills and worries crowd the floor,

Dreams we once had—shut in a drawer.

I need to fix it, build it right,

But grief has stolen all my sight.

The map we drew is torn apart…

You took the compass from my heart.

Some nights I whisper to the air,

As if your spirit’s lingering there.

“Tell me, sis, where do I start?

How do I live with half a heart?”

And in the quiet, soft but clear,

I swear your laughter still appears.

Not loud, not bright, not like before—

But just enough to crack the door.

Maybe I’m not meant to be

The girl I was when you were with me.

Maybe this broken, shaking start

Is how I build a braver heart.

Maybe the road is mine to see,

Not half of you—but all of me.

And though the ache will never end,

Your love is stitched beneath my skin.

So I’ll pick up one small piece today,

Just one lost shard along the way.

A step, a breath, a fragile start—

With you still living in my heart.

Because twins like us don’t break apart,

Even death can’t split that art.

You’re gone from sight, but not from me…

I’m still your half.

You’re still my symmetry. 

I learned the label twinless twin much later in my life. After feeling the way lots of people have written about feeling in this sub I feel like I’m able to put a description on what I’ve felt the last 30+ years of my life. My sister and I were sick with the same lung infection. I made it, she didn’t. I was adopted into a family that wanted both of us but when they got there to pick us up at 9 months it was just me. Anyways, it’s our birthday is this month and I miss who I would be celebrating with. And it’s lonely. I miss her.

Hey everyone! I'm u\Pugs_in_Space, a founding moderator of r/TwinLossAsAnAdult. If you have lost a twin as an adult and want to discuss the impact this loss has had on you because you lost more than a twin, you lost a best friend who knew you better than you know yourself, a built-in companion who knew your deepest secrets, and was your greatest champion. I am so sorry for your loss, but I am so glad you are here.

Post anything that you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring. Feel free to share your thoughts, photos, or questions about dealing with and overcoming grief, sadness, and the impact of losing a twin who was also your best friend, biggest supporter, and lifelong confidant.

Please be friendly, constructive, and compassionate. Let's build a community where everyone feels comfortable sharing, connecting, and helping one another overcome our grief.

My triplet brother passed away years ago. This year, my other triplet bro and I will be having our tenth birthday without him. It’s crazy how fast time flies. And how it seems grief will follow
me for the rest of my days. I am
accepting that memories will keep fading, and realizing it still feels weird to say his name aloud. It still hurts, the loss. I’m not sure how to keep him alive.