Sister Has An Urgent Message For Her Long-Lost Twin After 35 Years

“I used to say, I feel like I am missing my twin,'” said writer and filmmaker Elyse Schein. “I thought it was a common metaphor.” And perhaps it is, but for her it was all too ironic. Her other half was out there somewhere, she just didn’t know it.

The two girls were born in New York on October 9, 1968. Ever since that day, they unknowingly lived similar lives. Both twins had thin wrists and rounded hips, as well as an allergy to sulfa drugs. But it went further than just their physical traits.

Aside from the obviously similar biological quirks, Elyse and Paula astonishingly had the same interests. They both studied film theory in college and had made their own short films. They were both creatives!

Elyse went about her life for 35 years, unaware that she had a twin living a completely separate life. Incredibly, her and her twin sister, Paula Bernstein, grew up in the same city, but both parents were told their adopted daughter was an only child, so they never met.

But of course it’s a stereotype that twins do everything exactly the same. While Elyse lived alone, wore her mane dark and wavy, and enjoyed a good scotch on the rocks, Paula got married and had a baby, donned caramel curls, and lived for cosmopolitans.

Elyse knew she was adopted, and at the age of 33, she finally set out to find her birth mother. After using her internet super sleuth skills (this was the early ’00s), she found that her mother was a Jewish 28-year-old woman when she gave birth. But that was just the beginning.

Sadly, Elyse also found that her mom never tried to find her daughter (which we really know was daughters plural). Elyse still thought her mother only had one baby, until she received a certified letter from an adoption agency, a letter that would change her life forever.

The ominous letter revealed that Elyse was one of two twin girls and that her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was as if a bomb dropped on her life.

“I had a zillion questions,” Elyse stated. As you can imagine, Elyse felt as though life as she knew it would be no more. She had no idea if she was an identical or fraternal twin, let alone why they were separated.

“I knew I had to find her.” Elyse embarked on a mission to find her long lost twin. At the time Elyse was a filmmaker living in Paris (what a life), and she immediately flew to New York, her birthplace, to rummage through public records.

Soon enough, a social worker associated with the adoption agency tracked down her lost twin, Paula. She lived a charmed life with her husband and child in Brooklyn, completely unaware that her double was coming to find her. But the social worker had more information, too.

She also revealed why Elyse and Paula were separated, and it’s a bit disturbing. The two were a part of a 1960s social experiment, likely one studying nature versus nurture, but the social worker didn’t know much. Paula was devastated — and in an awkward spot.

Not only had she been deprived of her sister, now she had to break the news to that sister about why. They spoke on the phone at first, but no mention of the experiment came up. The two finally met, for the first time since sharing a womb, at a cafe in 2004.

“We had 35 years to catch up on,” Paula explained. “How do you start asking somebody, ‘What have you been up to since we shared a womb together?’ Where do you start?” They figured it out.

After speaking, the twins were amazed at the random similarities they shared. They both studied French, edited their school newspapers, and had a history of battling both acne and depression. It was a miracle they’d found each other, and though they were filled with joy, that feeling soon morphed into anger.

Specifically, Elyse fumed when she found out about the experiment. “We felt that our lives had been orchestrated by these puppet masters, like The Truman Show,” she said. “These scientific researchers put their scientific needs, their career interests, before the needs and interests of us and other twins.”

“It was like something out of a movie, I broke down in tears,” Paula admitted. “Nature intended for us to be raised together, so I think it was a crime we were separated.” The frustrated sisters dug a bit deeper, tracking down the doctors responsible for the experiment.

Their dedicated search led them to New York psychiatrist Dr. Viola Bernard. She thought the twins would be able to better explore their own identities if separated, even persuading the adoption agency to send the girls off with different families. But Viola was no longer alive.

Elyse and Paula approached the other doctor responsible for the mess, Dr. Peter Neubauer. At first the NYU psychiatrist refused to speak to them, but after some pushing, the doc agreed to meet them at his Upper East Side apartment — as long as their conversation was not recorded.

Dr. Neubauer supposedly studied the twins, comparing the ideas of nature versus nurture, which always winds up being an ethical travesty. Unbelievably, the doc refused to reveal any details on the experiment. Due to ethical complications, the study’s results will be kept under lock and key at Yale University until 2066.

This kind of experiment obviously wouldn’t fly in modern day, but ethical standards were wildly different, and much less strict, in the mid-20th century. But Elyse and Paula weren’t done digging through the aisles of libraries and public records.

They discovered Elyse was originally named Marian, and Paula was Jean. Extensive research also unveiled their mother, Leda Witt, was a voluntary patient at a psychiatric hospital at the time of their birth, as she had attempted suicide.

Sadly, Leda died in 1978 and never got to see her twin daughters reunited, which specifically pained Paula. It was all so much to take in. “When I look in the mirror, I not only see Paula, but Leda,” Elyse said.

“I feel my existence is to pay homage to this woman who had a hard life,” Elyse continued. “The best of her lives on in us.” Though it’s been a journey and a half, the twins are beyond grateful to have found each other, even writing a memoir together, titled Identical Strangers.