Michelle Walters and Cinthia Varkevisser, explore the fascinating world of twins. Both Michelle and Cinthia have personal connections to twins, and they decide to interview two sets of twins to understand their unique experiences growing up as twins. This episode is the first of the two twin episodes.

Dominique and Amber Haskell, Cinthia's daugters, share their insights about the twin bond and synchronicities they experience. They reveal how their connection goes beyond just finishing each other's sentences, as they often find themselves on the same wavelength, even across different time zones. Dominique discusses the challenges of forging her own identity outside the twinship and how it impacted her ability to make friends in college. Amber, on the other hand, explains her analytical nature and how she knew she needed to attend a different college from her sister to grow as an individual.

Throughout the conversation, the twins highlight the unspoken twin code, where they naturally protect and support each other, making them a formidable duo. The episode provides a captivating glimpse into the unique bond shared by twins and the complex dynamics that shape their lives.

Summary

• Intro to the episode. 0:01
• The twin power. 3:14
• Feeling things about my sister that are stronger than others. 5:22
• The unspoken rule of the twin code. 7:28
• You don't know what it's like to be a twin. 9:30
• The unspoken competitive nature of sibling rivalry. 11:04
• The rule of calling it first. 12:25
• The story that I told my sister. 15:51
• The challenges of making friends outside of the twinship. 18:43

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To learn more about Michelle, visit www.michellewalters.net

To learn more about Cinthia, visit www.cinthiavarkevisser.com

Michelle Walters 0:21

. Welcome, everyone. You are with us today for mind power meets mystic with me Michelle Walters, the mind power part of the equation and my podcast pal, Cynthia Varkevisser, who is our mystic, we have a special episode for you today. Our episode today is all about twins. As it happens, Cynthia is the mother of two twin young ladies. And I am the daughter to an older gentleman who is also a twin. And so we thought it'd be kind of interesting to talk to these two sets of twins. And hear from them both a little about what it's like to be a twin growing up with a twin sibling, and if you have any what that was like to not have them and all things twin. So with that, I'm going to kick it over to Cynthia to ask her twins, Dominique and Amber, our first question,

Cinthia Varkevisser 2:30

okay, to get us started, right before to let the audience know right before we hit the button. Michelle said, Hey, let's do a stretch. And both sets of daughters decided that they were going to stretch and turn it into a flex and started cracking up because they're going to do the same thing. But when they talk, they say they don't do a whole lot of twin stuff. So I'm going to kick it on over to you to to tell me do you have the synchronicities? And what does that usually look like?

Michelle Walters 3:04

Oh, and one more thing. Before each tweet speaks? Please introduce yourself with your name because you might sound exactly the same. And we want people to know who's who.

Dominique Haskell 3:14

All right, I can go. Oh, dammit, Amber. My name is Dominique. And I was told I have a deeper voice. So it's fine. Um, in terms of the Yeah, I feel like there's times where we don't have this twin power, if you will, but I do notice all the time. Amber, and I know, you know, it's like when we'll be hitting a conversation, and then both of us will just hit a movie quote. And it's usually we'll just feed off each other. So I feel like there's times where we do have kind of this, this weird communication of like wanting to do the same thing. At the same time, I think that the flexing was a good example of it. And then I do feel like I don't know about you to see, but I do feel like there's times where I do feel like something might be up. Like for instance, because we live in different time zones. So Amber's in the East Coast and I am in San Diego. So I know I woke up at like three in the morning, which I don't usually do and I sleep with my phone off. And I decided I just was like you know what, I just feel like I need to turn my phone on because I feel like there's some up and that's when Amber got your text regarding how you weren't going to make it to Christmas which I never turned my phone on at nighttime. I just had this weird feeling of like Ash probably turned my phone on. I feel like something might be up.

Amber Haskell 4:33

Oh, this is Amber. I feel like in ways Dominique and I are exact opposite. And then in ways were exactly the same. So the way I think about us is Dominique is the heart and I am the head where I am analytical. And everything I do is like thought through where my sister is like the feeler so I don't necessarily know that I wake up Um, you know, in the middle of the night thing like something's off. But I do think that there are times when, as Dominic said, we're on the same wavelength, even. We're watching the same movie at the same time, or you or, you know, she listens to a song. And I was like, No way. I was listening to that a couple hours ago. But a lot of ways they do think we're on the same wavelength. And I also think, I feel things about my sister that are so much stronger than I have feelings about other people. So if my sister is upset, I am deeply upset to my core to the point where it, it's like, painful, but I don't feel that out of nowhere. If she tells me like, if my sister goes through a really hard breakup, I feel like I'm also going through that party. And there's no rhyme or reason behind it. But if she's crying, I'm crying. So in this weird way, we're emotionally connected. And again, I don't consider myself the feeler. But there's some for some reason, I think she and I are really emotionally connected in a way that I don't know that other people are connected.

Dominique Haskell 6:08

I would agree with that. For sure. Especially about the thinking, and the feeling piece. My bad I my brain doesn't go that way. I just feel it out. But totally, I'm in the same boat where I remember Amber, you called me, you know, with a with a tough situation. And I couldn't sleep for about three days. Like it just it just feels like if you if she's hurting, I'm gonna get emotional. Think about it. Fucking feelings, man. Pardon the language. But um, yeah, it's like, as soon as I hear that there's or feel that there's a little bit of pain. It's like, it's like, I'm physically feeling stabbed in the heart. And it's really tough. Yeah.

Cinthia Varkevisser 6:44

Which is actually kind of an interesting thing to me, because as their mom, I don't hear any of this stuff I hear a little bit. So the other thing that I find that Amber and Dominique, don't talk about, because I think it's so natural, is that they have this cone of privacy, or this. And I consider that part of the twinship. To where you don't really talk about this stuff. It's just between the two of you. It's a little bit annoying sometimes. Because I feel like I get left out as a mom, although I totally get it. But don't you feel like you do that with a lot of people were you to have this thing. And I know some siblings have it. But I believe that you two have it pretty tight.

Amber Haskell 7:26

I think there's like this unspoken rule that it's Dominique and me against the world. Like, we're both hyper competitive people do not put us on the same team because you will lose weight or you will. Like so, my, my mom knows that story. We were like, four. And my mom took us to work. And there was one other kid in the office. And he was annoying and rude to us. And, like, actively mean. And so Dominique, and I went on a rampage against this kid, like, we hit all of this stuff. You know, we actively within obstructed to him and we didn't have to talk about it. You just knew like, don't mess with us, because we're going to come back again. And then on I would say on top of that. Our friend circle is really, really, we're friends with the same friends. And I think it's because same thing. And so we've always been a unit. So you're not just a friend with me, you're a friend with us. And it's in a lot of ways there's safety in that because we've up through I would say college, you know, you had someone there right next to you. Yeah, I've

Dominique Haskell 8:36

like joking aside, I feel like people talk about bro code all the time. Like there's that golden rule, you know, like bros have to go for the rose. But I truly feel like the twin code is it's just way thicker and it's unspoken, it just is it just it just is what it is. We don't have to talk about it. It literally just, she comes first always. And I was gonna mention the same thing with the friend circle. It's weird that we have the same friends because because of that unspoken rule, if you're cool with me, you're gonna be cool with my sister. And even though we're opposites, our values are exactly the same, or pretty much exactly the same. So that's where I think a lot of that kind of staying in that same circle of people staying in that same circle in general, kind of plays out. I had more to go off of that, but I'm looking over space is making me kind of laugh. So I lost my train of thought.

Cinthia Varkevisser 9:34

Well, you know, Michelle, I don't know if if I ever told you this but I also have twin uncles who happen to be five years older than me. And there was a time where the girls were little I mean really little and they were complaining about something I can't remember what it was and they said they said you don't know what it's like to be a twin and and I was cracking up like guys are just little kids. What do you know? And I happen to say that to my uncle, and he and he got very defensive. It was Rick, he got really defensive because you don't know what it's like. And then all of a sudden I thought, holy shit, I don't, I don't know what it's like to continually have comparison to continually have that thing. So there's like accountability, but you have someone right there. So that you you know, they, even if no one else is comparing, I don't know how you can't compare. I don't know did you to do used to feel like you're still comparing or that

all the time? It's unspoken. It's all the time, like Amber's head, not up and down so quick, because it sucks because I'm her number one supporter always. But there's still the there's still everything, like, as an adult now. I mean, my muscles are bigger than your muscle. And we're just so you know, the beginning there. But no, but it's like, seriously, like, Amber is a property owner, which is fucking amazing. And I'm so excited for her. And then there's still a party. It's like, dang, that's not my path right now. And it's still I think, this unspoken competitive thing. And I don't know, Mom, if he's still here, but we go to the family functions, we're still called the twins. Like people still ask where the twins are, like, I'll hear every once in a while be called the twins. And that was hard for me growing up, even though you and dad were great. And separating us from classrooms, making sure that we could dress what we wanted to do our hair. I wanted to make sure we have our own identities. But we're still every once in awhile lumped as the twins. So it's, it's just kind of this unspoken thing. It's this weird, and that is this weird, conflictual thing that I have, personally, which is like, again, if anyone even looks after the wrong way, it's over, straight up. But then at the same time, I'm super competitive there without wanting to be it just is.

Okay. So I have a question to ask. I have heard a couple of times. And I'm not going to be specific about times that you too, the twins have ganged up on your mother? Well, yeah. Can you relate one of those situations that kind of how that story came to be?

Well, I think it's one it's the unspoken rule that it's, again, it's s against all, so I don't necessarily know that I have one already. Like I've got one. Well, I'm gonna give like a kind of a tangential one. Briefly, we, my dad's good childhood friend and his daughter lived with us for a couple of months. And so we had, for all intensive purposes, like a younger sister for a few months. And classic, we're going to school. It's the rule of shotgun. Whoever calls it first gets to sit in the front seat. Well, Dominique, and I were not going to let this younger person sit shotgun. And so every once in a while, she would call it before us. And again, we didn't have to agree on this. It was just instinctually. One of us could go. Nope, I already called it and then, so that makes it Nope, I already called it without blinking. I'm gonna back her up. But no, I heard it. Even though I didn't hear it. It was a plotline we were like, but it was, she cannot get chocolate. It's not going to happen. Um, I think the other thing too is, and Dominique alluded to this and she's like, Oh, I thought Amber's face and lost my train of thought. No one can make me laugh like Dominique laughs and like the dumbest wait. So one, my sister and mom were in this argument. And, and for anyone who has seen the movie, Kung Fu Hustle in the last scene, like the good guy stops the bad bike by doing a Buddhist poem where he takes his poem, and he just extended it out. And the person, you know, this huge force pushes them against, you know, the building the building platen, that's how we win. So my mom and sister in this huge argument, and my sister just puts her hand down because Buddha's calm, and I didn't lose it in laughter. Like, you cannot stop the amount of laughter and then it was like, There's no way my mom can come back in that argument. Like, there was no answer to that. And she just had to walk away.

Yeah, I couldn't laugh and I couldn't. I couldn't put in another word was

the example that I have is, even when Amber and I were fighting, it's still the two of us versus so for instance, like, if we rarely got into fist fights, if ever maybe like a couple times, we get total slap fest, and we were little little, and I think we were maybe in like, we were definitely Elementary School. And we were fighting we got mad about something silly. We started like actually kind of hating and slapping each other. But as soon as my mom came in to, to see what was going on, we started turning into patty cake. And so you know, we're not fighting. We're just playing patty cake. And we were actually and to me, that's a huge example of like, it's just the unspoken rule. Like, we were so mad at each other to the point where we were throwing hands But but then as soon as mom came in, it's like this unspoken rule that we have to be protective of each other so we don't get in trouble. It like for me at least it felt less like self preservation and like us preservation, if that makes sense. Yeah, you feel that way, too. Yeah.

Well, in that moment, it was like we can't get in trouble. It was like, it was communism in that moment. Like, the state was more important than the individual. Yeah.

But honestly, if it was another sibling, and I don't have another sibling, but I would probably have been watching a lot of Tim the Toolman. Taylor on Disney plus, recently, and the brothers will knock each other out. You're I mean, but it wasn't like I could have said, Oh, Amber started it, or she hit me first or whatever. But it was just hold on. It's this. It's this protective twin thing that we have to we have to do.

I love those two stories. Michelle, if you don't mind, I'll tell you that. I'll tell you to the story that I told Michelle, you. I think we went to a doctor's appointment. So we were out of school. And I think you all were like, they're 1213 years old. And the three of us decided to go to Doyle Street Cafe for breakfast. And we're just having a nice little talk and all of a sudden you ganged up on me. And you wanted to know when I lost my virginity. And, and it was just the way that you baited. It's almost like one person would say something than the other one would say something. And the other and I could feel it happening. And I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop them. I couldn't stop them in that train that they were doing. And the walls were closing down on me because I was not prepared to have that conversation. I don't know if you remember that. Do you remember that? Well, so

I was gonna not tell that moment. But tell the moment that when we bully you under telling us because then my mom said, I will tell you, if you guys tell me. So, you know, 10 years later, we're driving in a car. I don't know how the subject came up. And then it was like, oh, yeah, so Dominic and I just said it like I was this age. I was at eight and we're like, pay up. We were not gonna let my mom not pay up. Like it was like, no, come on. You said it. Let's go. Yes. And that certainly, we're a tight knit family. Exactly. You

guys are really making it sound scary to be effectively a single mom to twins may on this really hard?

Well, I'm I've actually seen I mean, there was a time, their dad and I, we were also like the two two against the world. Like we, the thing that I enjoyed so much about him is that we could play off each other and, and do the same thing. Like we could tease somebody, and just be relentless in the teasing. And it was just freaking hilarious. However, whenever it came to the two of us against the girls, I wouldn't say all the time, but there were times where I'll give an example. They're they're nine or nine years old, out of left field. They told us that they wanted to be in the same classroom. And they came in together, they laid out all the facts. And then they and then I think, what did you did you tell the teachers or you told the principal, I can't remember what you did.

You guys had to tell them because as parents, you had to be the one who gave permission for us to be in the same classroom.

Right. But that's what they did. It was it was really, it was really wild that they just came in United Front and said, This is what we want to do. And it was interesting, it was really interesting, because they wanted to have the same homework. They wanted, you know, for the first time, which was I thought that was a pretty cool thing. Yeah.

I, I do feel like for me, there was a lot of challenges with the twin connection and twin code, especially going to college. I learned very quickly that I did not know how to make friends. And that I did not know who I was outside of the twinship because like Amber said before, we had the same group of friends. They knew us as a unit. I mean individually too, but Amber was more outgoing. So she would be the one that would kind of bring the friends in and then I would be the one that kind of won them over with my sense of humor and my charm, if you will, but um, don't get me those eyebrows Amber, but, um, I had that was something that I didn't realize until later in life because I really, I was like, I have a good I could understand and a lot of therapy later. I'm like, I don't understand why I'm having a hard time really feeling comfortable with people really learning how to make friends. And it's it's, I think a big part of it was I'm like, oh shoot, I don't know who I am outside of the twin shed. And I'm like who is Dominique who's not Dominique and amber or who's not the twin

Yeah, I would agree with that. And then

that was a really difficult time.

I think I've got many pros there. But that's okay. We got I would agree with that. But I think I again, Dominic's a feeler, I'm a thinker, I think I had that realization sooner, because I knew no matter what, we could not go to the same college. Like I knew that right away. And I remember I wanted to apply to Northeastern University, which is where I ended up going in Boston. And Dominica said, hey, you know, would it be cool if I applied to? And I said, you can apply, but only one of us is going. And I know, in the moment that Well, I now know, in retrospect, that probably really hurt her feelings. But I knew that I had to be by myself and that I had to push myself and be an individual. So I just think we took different approaches to figuring that out. Or Dominic had to feel it out where I knew that from an analytical place, I think, which I think pushed me away from us as the twins faster.

Well, it certainly sounds like it. It has been delightful to talk with you guys today. And I really appreciate your time. I think it's been really fun to talk to you. I think it's gonna be fun to hear this interview in in in conjunction with the other interview we're doing with the other twins. So thank you. Thanks for being on our show today, Dominique, an emperor great to Great to see you online. Thank you. Thanks, baby. Bye, bye. You've been listening to my power knees mystic