By Nicholas Bamonte
On the Nature of Nurture
Nature vs nurture, one of the fundamental debates of psychology, both as a formal institution, and within its more proto-disciplines. Are we the product of our environment and upbringing, or are we the product of a fundamental nature and the blood running through our veins? Even as modern psychology has accepted that both play a role in the formation of a mind, the debate still rages on over which has a greater degree of influence or importance. As advocates of neurodiversity, we tend to focus on nature, how our “strangeness” is the result of fundamental differences in our brains’ structure that we have no control over. How these differences should be viewed in the same way physical diversity is, as opposed to “problematic behavior” that needs to be “corrected”. Now, while we have an understandable reason to gravitate toward the “nature” perspective of psychology, we must not allow ourselves to overlook how our unique situations and lived experiences interact with our neurodiversity. No man, or brain, is an island, untethered to the world around them. After all, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would not be who I am today if I were born an only child.
A Mirror Catalyst
You see, I do not merely have a sibling, but a twin brother. Now, we are fraternal, or dizygotic, twins. Meaning that, like conventional siblings, we came from two completely separate merging of gamete pairs. The only thing that’s different is that both of our fetuses inhabited the womb at the same time, and yet, that one detail makes all the difference. After all, even the closest of conventional siblings must be, at the very least, 9 months apart in age. Of course, 9 months is a particularly extreme example. Most of the time, the age gap between siblings is in years. And even one year, especially within the earliest ages and stages of development, can be a seemingly insurmountable chasm. The difference between walking and crawling, speech and babbling, diapers and toilets, pre-pubescence and puberty, etc. Even among siblings who are particularly close at home, they inevitably inhabit different grades at school. Different curriculum, different social and friend groups, different exposure to things and the development of different interests. Why, they can easily end up in completely different schools, and may, for a time, be separated in whether or not they are even attending school!
As twins, my brother and I had no age gap. We went through the same developmental milestones together, side by side. Our parents raised us together, using the exact same methods with the exact same level of experience. And even with brief stints at different schools, we inevitably always found ourselves at the same school. Not always the same class, but we were always together, at the same place. And that’s the thing, being raised alongside someone else doesn’t simply “double” the experiences of growing up and development, it completely and fundamentally warps them. How can I compare or properly explain the phenomenon of knowing someone before I was even born? True, all humans become familiar with their mother before birth, but it’s not the same. Perhaps the best way is through the “twinning effect”, a consistent tendency for twins (or triplets and so on) to experience temporary language developmental delays. While there are many possible explanations for this phenomenon, such as a similar tendency for twins to be born premature and/or with a lower birth weight than normal (multiple developing babies inevitably “run out of room” sooner than a single baby) and the language practice and attention usually being devoted to one baby being divided between two (or more), I’ve always been drawn to a particular explanation. Twins have spent literally all of their time together. This leads to a deep and intimate understanding that exists without words (since it develops before language skills are learned). Twins can, simply, communicate and understand each other with fewer words or language skills, and since there’s already someone on the same wavelength who’s always around, there’s less pressure to polish those skills to the rest of the world’s standards. This is only the beginning in how adding one more person can completely redefine the normal developmental processes.
Twinning While Neurodivergent
Now, as I’ve been pointing out, being born a twin of any kind is an experience that completely redefines one’s infancy and beyond. It’s also somewhat rare, with about only 3% of pregnancies in the US resulting in twins, and among them fraternal twins are twice as likely as identical twins. You know what else completely redefines one’s infancy and beyond? Being neurodivergent! It’s even also somewhat rare, with two of the more common forms of neurodivergence, ADHD and autism, being diagnosed in only 11.4% of children between 3-17 and 3.2% of 8 year olds in the US respectively. Now, imagine what happens when these two rare yet extremely significant factors occur at the same time. I don’t have to; it’s my life.
I was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD at a young age, and received an iffy diagnosis of autism as an adult (remote test/interview done remotely during the pandemic that had some inaccuracies in some of the results compared to previous tests). My brother was instead diagnosed with ADD, or what we now call the Predominantly Inattentive type of ADHD. Now, at first, this might not seem like a problem. We’re both neurodiverse, when, as fraternal twins with completely different genetic structures, we could have easily not been. Well, as I’ve said throughout this article, a small change can make all the difference. Neurodiversity isn’t exactly a binary, it’s an umbrella encompassing a vast range of conditions and severity within said conditions. While at our core, my brother and I are extremely similar people, with similar values, beliefs, struggles, and fears, the ways these things manifest in our lives can be wildly different. Suffice to say, when compared to my brother, the deficiencies commonly associated with being neurodiverse are much more apparent in me between the two of us.
Walking in Shadows, by Choice
Between the two of us, my brother has long been the more social and proactive one. He has typically always been the one to contact and make arrangements with our shared friend group. Between the two of us, he is the only one with a driver’s license, partly out of a lack of interest in driving on my part, and partly because my family collectively fears that I, with my sensitivity to sensory overload and tendency to panic, am not well suited to dealing with the infamous South Florida traffic and drivers. He’s also had far more work experience than I have, with the only paying job that I’ve ever had so far being a recommendation from him for me to temporarily fill a position that they needed during one of his jobs. While these are all common enough experiences for the more severely impacted neurodiverse, I do believe my environment has played an impact. There is some evidence to suggest a tendency among twins for one to become the more dominant, or “leader” among the two. I cannot say how much this affects the entire twin population, but I know that it pretty accurately describes the dynamic between my brother and myself. For most of my life, I’ve had a bit of a habit of following my brother, especially when out in the wider world. From a young age, I’ve offloaded some of the responsibility of decision making and being aware towards my brother, so that I may retreat inward and be free with my own thoughts. It’s somewhat natural, after all. Division of labor is a fairly basic yet highly effective component of human organizational structures, especially when certain skills come easier to some rather than others. At the same time, this habit has not benefited my own personal development and growth.
In this world, things are rarely so black and white that we can measure in pure benefit and detriment. More often, things are a series of advantages and trade-offs. Being a twin is one of them. On one hand, quite literally from the moment that I began existing, I’ve always had a companion and playmate. An ever present source of company, comfort, and protection. On the other hand, such boundless comfort and reassurance also became a crutch, quite literally before I could realize it. I certainly can’t say if it’s a better or worse experience, merely different. A different experience, that is, perhaps, too often not part of the conversation of neurodiversity.
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