"My brother and I were always on an equal footing. "For my husband and my brother too," says Paula, "you know in some ways I think it was a threat to them. "We don't regret the lives we've led, but meeting each other and the difficulties that we faced in our relationship, the absurdity of having to get to know a twin who was essentially a stranger is very painful".įinding each other has been challenging as well as joyful. We are different people because of being separated. "No matter what, we can't make up for the 35 years that we lost. "He refuses to be open to the possibility that they were wrong," says Paula. "I really was hoping that he would take responsibility for what he had done so many years ago," says Elyse. Nor do the women feel that they got what they wanted from Dr Neubauer. "But there were other issues that we thought they might have been interested in, one of them being about the hereditariness of mental illness."Īnd from their researches, the twins have learnt that their birth mother did spend part of her life in psychiatric care. "It was obviously about nature versus nurture," says Paula.
And the records of the study are sealed until 2066.įrom separate childhoods the twins have "adopted" each other (Picture: Elena Seibert, 2007) Neither Paula nor Elyse feel they have received answers to all the questions they have. "He wanted to see how we turned out and question us about our development." But he was very quick to turn the tables and it was clear that he was seeing this as an opportunity to continue his study," she says. "It was quite surreal," says Paula, who recalls her twin sister's feelings that "we were his kind of 'lab rats' coming back to see the great doctor". Having lost 35 years of shared experiences, the twins wanted to confront Dr Peter Neubauer about what had happened to them - although they discovered they had been dropped quite early on from the twins study.Īt first he refused to speak to them but eventually agreed to a meeting. "We felt we were conducting our own informal study on nature versus nurture in a way". "We had the same favourite book and the same favourite film, Wings of Desire," says Elyse. "We both felt like asking: 'So what have you done with this body, with this DNA?'" says Elyse, "Or, 'So what have you been up to since we shared a womb?'" As similar as we looked when we compared pictures of ourselves as kids, as adults we have our own distinct style."Įlyse and Paula have only photos to share of their separated childhoods "It was a relief I think for both of us that we were not carbon copies. "She had dark glasses on and was smoking a cigarette. When Paula saw Elyse for the first time, she was pleased to see that as similar as they looked, each was unique.Įlyse had just returned from working in Paris. From now on my life will forever be different." "Walking every step to that cafe felt momentous," says Paula.
When the agency contacted Elyse's newly discovered older sister Paula, the two women were quite quickly in touch and arranged to meet in a cafe in New York.
Suddenly another element of my identity was revealed to me. "I received a letter that said: 'You were born on 9th October 1968 at 12.51 pm, the younger of twin girls.' It was unbelievable.
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