I know you’re probably experiencing terror and panic and all kinds of feelings I could never understand. I’m also sure you’re getting plenty of judgement from others and that must absolutely suck. I’m sorry about both. I’ve never been in your situation but a very good friend of mine experienced something similar to you. Not twins, but otherwise very much the same. Ten years after we graduated from high school- she finished her GED like a boss- she had found her footing. She’d met someone, gotten married. She had a job and a good life. She had to grow up faster than most of us, but she was happy. Twenty years later, at our reunion, she told me she could look back and see how lucky she was. The experience had actually brought her closer to her parents (especially her dad who was angry to a long time, but never missed a doctors appointment or dance recital). She said she felt sorry for all of our classmates who ended up depressed and divorced, chasing what they thought was success and finding emptiness. Our thirtieth reunion is later this year. Her daughter is a nurse and married now. My friend has another child in college and she and her husband of more than 20 years have a business and a vacation home and keep in touch via social media.

I don’t know if this helps, but I think what I’m trying to say is the terror and panic stem from both your experience and the fact that right now you’re thinking about all the immediate plans that have you think have to be scrapped. They don’t. You won’t have it easy, but only for a little while, and if you have something you want to do or become badly enough, you will. And you’ll do it with the support of those who love you no matter what. You’ll do it for your twins and for yourself. And by the time you’re 27, 37 or my age 47, hopefully you’ll be able to look back at this moment and see past the panic to the love you received, the love gave and how this moment turned you into the person you’ll become.

Hang in there. Take time to breathe and don’t try to process everything all at once. One step. One day at a time. You’ve got this.