study twins and judge a nation - seriously!

yes, twins have been used in research for comparison reasons.
factors taken into account being environment, food intake, social status and trauma versus er, less trauma.
also leaving one's country of origin and staying in one's country of origin.
work type, personality type, choice of partners, and so much more.
well how about "Know thy country by knowing thy twins?"
I have an ideal case in point.

firstly i am an identical twin.
we lived apart all our adult life.
we choose Creative arts v Social science.
We had a different set of financial criteria to order our lives with.
we had a different culture to absorb into
Different food preferences
different health services and different educational advantage.

Remember one thing though as we go through the list in many other ways.
WE BOTH are HIGHLY intelligent.  we score as such on the tests and would possibly do even higher if we had had hearing aids before the age of 25!
we have 30% hearing, each of us has that amount.

Hearing allows you absorb knowledge, debate, relate and think as those who are hearing people think.
In other words we would be in a different financial and professional zone by far i think if we were hearing people.
another research analysis for this please, but its probably been done.  it has, very few deaf people get to third level status.

so i am choosing to take 'How you judge your country when looking at one set of Identical twins, who are the same nationality.

Criteria for judging is pretty much on every level be it rather simplistic.

financial - she had some, i had none!
educational - she had some but considered better, i had some but considered rather irrelevant.
social - she lived amongst the middle classes and mixed within the middle classes.
I lived amongst working class and mixed with er, no one really.
career advancement - I became good, she became wonderful.
(but who decides?  this is another days debate)
Professional status - I was ok, she was the top.
Health status - both deaf
one rather sad at the beginning and ended in the mental health system once, remember when you read this sentence remember the word SAD and ONCE. both will reveal as very important.

so when the twins are living in different countries for over forty odd years you dont think about prejudice, stigma etc but you DO once the twin comes BACK.
You fully realise who you are then, in the pecking order and your life as it had been seems to take on meaning as to some of the whys.
simply put again, ONCE in the mental health system has coloured ATTITUDE and this has coloured how we reflect on our country.

My country rates badly for me on Attitude i am afraid.
we have bad attitudes.
we treat the mentally ill very badly and have an attitude toward all who ONCE were in the psychiatric system (thank god there is a worldwide shift on the morality of this discipline).
Financial status has to be up there with Attitude too, for those who have better financial stauts defo get a better deal all round, see the twins read the articles and watch this space as there sure is to be more on this.
If you have nothing you will be treated badly, very badly indeed.
if you have some you will be treated well and liked to boot.
Professional status.  this is the biggie of them all and the highest ranking in Ireland, my country is not the politician, but the doctor!
not even the cleric rises over and above a doctor here.
this is the accolade to reach, that of doctor who!

when you have twins one being a doctor and one being a creative person straight away you have a "feck it and run situation!"

A mixture of bad attitude, stigma and prejudice has blighted my twin and my life for three and a half years, the sum total of years my twin has lived here as an adult woman.

All have contributed not only to my twin at the top of her career and profession being reduced to tears but seeing her twin who is at the bottom rung in everything being reduced to abuse, blame and name calling has been far too great for even a professional social worker to bear.

My country can indeed be judged by looking at the twins here.
everyone admires a doctor!
no one likes a person once in the mental health system, they have not an idea how to say 'hello' as there is no pedigree behind that!
but there IS one pedigree actually and here lies the truth of it and the lie of it all.

both are highly intelligent.
both are honest and hard working.
both loved the jobs and careers they chose and have no regret in this
both accept the other for being the doctor and the near beggar.
well accept when it doesn't hurt too bad to see what society does to the beggar!

when we get such a mix as has happened we have a relationship time bomb.
we have twins not just at war about twin stuff and twin stuff is far more than being a twin, there are many great papers on 'being a twin' you can be stumped when reading them, i was!

but you can also be stumped to see attitude, prejudice, stigma and hatred played about with in twins lives that would have you reeling if you were aware enough to see it happening.

there is no excuse to treat either differently than the other.
both are highly intelligent.
both are honest and hard working
both loved their jobs and had no regrets
both did well.

in a small isolated insular country the word of 'the doctor' be in in philosophy or medical, they drop the platters and come running when the person on the other end of the phone has been named as the doctor in the house.
any house.
but sure be it, drop everything when doctors speaks, comes, or arrives.
when a beggar, of beggaring financial status only she isnt a beggar, but when a mental beggar, she isnt mental but that ONCE was a status laid upon her but then refuted and apologised for, but it makes no difference in a small isolated insular country, it breeds attitude of a horrible kind altogether.
when an artist with a lot of emotional temperament comes, what happens in this mixed, are you beginning to see the scene on your screen?
well i am.
Oh darling dear professor come here to me...
oh shit everyone leave the theatre, we have a nutter on the loose.
Well, thats theatre for you anyway.
problem is, it happens.
and it happens in Ireland.
I have judged a country by the way it judges and sees one pair of identical twins.
yep.