Rachel: Lance, can you introduce yourself for the recording in whatever way you feel comfortable.

Lance: I'm Lance Thornton. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson. I am 34, about to turn 35. I have two little children, two years old, three years old. I am a metal salesman, so I sell raw metal material. And my wife, my lovely wife, is from the south and she takes care of our kiddos at home.

So I live the dream.

I come from what I consider a big family. There were five of us, five boys, so, I was the youngest. My twin was four minutes older than me, and then my oldest brother was six years older. So we had five kids in a matter of six years.

Because they were all boys, the house was stereotypical testosterone-driven, just kind of competition and everyone trying to one-up each other for attention and anything you can really think of when you think of brotherly, competing. The interesting part about all that is we were really raised by my mother. So five boys raised by a strong female, who was a Phys Ed teacher.

So, growing up it was just constant chaos. She was gone before we left the house. She was home after we got back cause she would coach. So it was really boys raising boys from a, a strong female lead. but a lot of fun having all those brothers close in age, obviously having a twin. It was someone just like you, your age, your interest, to a certain point, growing up. So, I did have a best friend in terms of having a twin when I was young, when I was much younger. But, that that doesn't hold tight.

And having all your brothers, you tend to navigate and follow certain brothers down certain paths. So, as I grew up having three older brothers, you know, it was selectively picking which one to follow, which one to be, try and emulate, and become, which I think is a unique experience being a twin, because I never wanted to be like my twin. It was the opposite of always wanting to not be like my twin and be my own person.

I don't have a lot of vivid memories from the time I was, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6 years old. I just don't have that in my head. But what I do have are pictures and videos. So when I look back at those, it was Luke, and Lance. Anywhere he went, I went, anywhere I went, he went. We shared the same room, we were dressed the same way. When we went to school, we had the same lunch boxes. So in terms of, having a best friend, he was always there, whether I liked it or not, Luke was my counterpart, always there.

The brothers were separated. They had their own rooms, they had their own activities. If I had an activity, Luke had an activity. So it was always me and him vs. the rest of the household. So me wanting to be like my brothers—Kyle and Brad, my older brothers were swimming, I saw that and said, I wanna swim. And then Luke didn't wanna swim, but he had to come along. So Luke now was a swimmer because I wanted to swim. And so when I would go to practice, it didn't make sense logistically speaking to leave Luke at home. So, it was like a forced best friendship of no matter where I was or where Luke was, the other was there. You couldn't say Luke or Lance without saying Luke and Lance.

I don't think I had that sense of independence to say, you know, “I don't want to do the same thing as him.” I think it was just, an understanding of we're gonna be on the same T-ball team, we're gonna play soccer together. From a school standpoint, once we got into elementary school, at least during the day, we were separate. And so we had separate friends. But when we look back at old videos, all of our birthday parties were the same. It was, we're having a dual birthday party, so it didn't matter whose friends were who, it's the same birthday party, it's gonna be all those kids in one area.

I think it was a natural progression of we understood that yeah, we had to do all the same things cause, you know, there's only two parents and five kids and a million activities. So it was just easier for us to always do the same stuff. But as we got older, it naturally started occurring where from a—and I hate to always go back to sports, but sports was life back then—we naturally divided ourselves as individuals going on different sport pathways. And that started as young as, I wanna say maybe 10 or 11. So probably up until 10 years old, it was Luke and Lance, all the same stuff. But once Little League started modified sports in seventh grade,  that's when I got to say, well, I don't wanna play baseball. I wanna run cross country. And that was where my mom had to say, well, okay, I mean, at this point we can't keep doing what we were doing.

There was never a conversation, me demanding independence or wanting that differently. Because we shared a room until my gosh, probably like 13, 13 years old. We were in the same room. So it's just the way it was, it was the circumstance and we had to deal with it. But once our oldest brother moved out of the house, we got our own rooms, can do completely separate lifestyles, different TV stations.
And at that point my mom worked so much and my dad worked so much that there was no supervision. So the older we got it was just do whatever you wanted. So, that was where the breaking really started to happen.

Rachel: What happened when you started making separate friends? How did that shift your understanding of your relationship with Luke?

Lance: I don't think it was both of us wanting to necessarily force a splinter and go different ways. I think it was the fact that we actually were two completely different people.

And so as, as we got older and had totally different interests, the friend groups just naturally happened. but what's unique about it is, even though we had different friends, we were still linked within our friend groups to the other person. So we went on our different pathways. I pursued my interests, he pursued his interests.

But no matter how far apart we were, it was always even within your specific friend group, "Oh, did you hear what Luke did," or, I'm sure he heard the same. I can't confirm that, but, "Oh, did you hear what happened to Lance?” So, I think we definitely got to explore our own personalities and our own likes and interests as we got older and hung out with different crowds, but we were never able to fully shake the, your twin is also you, so what happens to him affects you.

You know, if someone wants to know where Luke was, "Lance, where's Luke?" I don't know. We didn't come to school together that day. You know, don't bring it to me. I don't care at all. As that went on, I think in high school, it became more protective in making sure that his actions didn't reflect negatively on me as I grew a confidence about me, or was trying to build up my self-esteem. You know, if I heard something like, oh, Luke got in a fight at school. I'd have to say, well, what, why, what happened? Who was saying what, what was the cause of it? Do I have to get involved?

I was constantly worried or embarrassed that Luke was gonna do something stupid. Unfair to him, you know, my thinking in that. But that was where I was. It was, how do I protect myself, my image, my  worth as a person, if he were to get in trouble, if he were to get suspended.

And so it was always negative. It was never positive. And even if it was positive, you know, when the baseball team went to States and made it to the semi-finals, that almost created a jealousy, right? Like, oh, well, why is Luke getting all these headlines? I'm going to States too. You know, I'm in a different sport, but I'm going.

So it was a competition of who gets headlines. If they get headlines, how does it affect me? But that was the culture we grew up in. Having older brothers who were also successful in their own right—and it's my own Thornton story—but when I went to science class and Mr. Sandhop was like, “Oh, how's your brother doing?” You know, so you are only known from your brothers being there before you, and now you have shoes to fill. And then Luke, if he did anything to set me back or devalue what I was doing, it was a pain in the butt.

So the dynamic shifted from middle school being, I just wanna be me. Leave me alone. I don't care what he's doing, to high school being, what is he doing? Why is he doing it? Isn't he thinking about me? (Laughs) So it, went downhill the older we got, to being very selfish, of how do I one-up or how do I get a better headline, or all of that. And at that point, when we got to high school, we didn't talk. We weren't talking at all. Just because we were different and we had nothing, nothing in common, outside of just being twins, being brothers.

I couldn't even tell you about what he was doing because at that point, we separated—in our house in Hastings, we had three stories, a basement, a middle, and then an upper. And when my oldest brother left, he moved into the room next to me in the top part of the house. And then when our second oldest brother Kyle moved out to college, I then moved all the way into the basement. And so from the time I was 13, it was a level of separation between the two of us in the household.

So when we would go to school, whether it was one of our brothers driving us or we walked there, there was no interaction. And when we got to school, we did our own things. He went to his practices. I went to my practices. When we got home, if I was in the middle floor, he'd be upstairs. If I was downstairs, he's in the middle floor. So, interaction-wise, it was as little as possible. I would get up, get my breakfast, he would sleep in later. As we got older, I would then leave him because he wasn't up in time. I wouldn't even wake him up. I would just, I'm driving to school and he is going to freak out about it.

And so it was just, we didn't interact. And if we did interact, it was because we had to, or we were fighting about who was better at something. So it was two strangers living as brothers at that point. I mean, that's, that's where it was. It had deteriorated to just, I don't want to go in his room, near his room, talk to him, because it would inevitably turn physical in some nature, especially as teenage boys.

You know, the amount of fights I've had over the years in a physical manner with him were, were, it was insane. (Laughs) It was, it was a lot. So, day-to-day was, I have no clue what he was doing because I did my thing and I stayed away from him and he did his thing and stayed away from me.

The scenarios I described with Luke being separated and just competing on any level you could think of, test scores, grades, SATs, sports—it was the same way with the brothers, just not as much of a personal aspect of it.

It was always a competition, within the household of, okay, what's the next bar? Who set the higher bar? How's the other person gonna beat it? How do you win the attention of Mom and Dad? Whose sports game are they gonna go to? So the household was purely set up as just, a constant competition, just a wrestling match, between everyone. But when it became me and Luke, it was much more personal.

With Luke, no matter what it was—is Luke dating this girl? Did he skip this class? Did did a teacher yell at him? You know, it all came right back to me. our competition was a lot more of, hey, stop screwing up my life. And it's funny thinking back cause you're like, hey, you're 15, you don't have a life. (Laughs)

But that was all we knew and that's all we cared about. So the household was set up where that's the way it is. So no one ever thought it was wrong. You know, me and my brother always at each other's throats. It was just, well, that's the Thornton family and that's how they act.

Just craziness that as a parent now, I'm like, no, that, that can never happen. (Laughs)  

Rachel: Do you remember at what point you started to think okay, what about just Lance? Where does Lance fit into the world and how do I find that person?

Lance: Obviously going to college, when you leave home, it allows you an opportunity to reinvent yourself. But, I also was seeking identity very, very, intently. So I had no idea who I was in high school. I don't know who does, but when I went to college, I lost the brand I had in high school, which was the athletic kid. I, to my knowledge, I didn't have like enemies, right? I was kind of friendly with everyone. And going to college, I lost that. So I was gonna be a swimmer. I knew that I was joining a swim team, but what I latched onto immediately was, one of my older brothers who was, quote-unquote straight edge at the time, and had a straight edge tattoo. So I get to college and I go to my first college party as a swimmer. I had no identity, so I immediately just said, well, I'll be like Kyle.

And then I was labeled a straight edge kid. I went out and got tattoos. So all through college I was playing, the same, I'm just gonna act like one of my brothers and take traits and mishmash 'em together. So I don't think it was honestly until probably 23 years old, when I left college, I graduated, I went into the Air Force and that was when I moved down south.

I was completely separated from the family, completely separated from my college friends at that time, obviously high school friends. So I didn't find myself or start thinking about who I am and where I fit in until I was almost mid-twenties, which, I mean, that's a pretty long time—to go through five years of school, get two bachelor degrees, then say, you know what? I don't wanna be a teacher. I'm gonna totally do something different, and then join the Air Force. You know, it was like, I need to start fresh. I need to totally reinvent who I am. And that's what I did. And, so it wasn't until I was living in, you know, Biloxi, Mississippi where no one knew me. I had my first beer, when I was 23, and no one was like, “Oh, wait a minute, your family doesn't drink. Why are you...,” you know, it wasn't that. I think that was the first step to me being independent and on my own. And no one knew who Luke was. No one knew I was a twin. To this day, I don't tell people I'm a twin unless it's relevant to the conversation.

I was down South and I said, well, that's not far enough. And then I moved to Arizona, to start a family, you know, get married, start, start having kids. But full circle. Now I start thinking about my kids and them being close to their cousins, cause now all my family has kids. And so, I moved as far away from my family as I could to become the person I am. But now that I've found myself, in theory, I feel like I know more of who I am now and my purpose, now it's, oh, I kind of wanna reconnect with the family. And bring my kids to meet their cousins and grow up—scarily—grow up the way I grew up.

But going to college allowed me to completely separate from Luke, it was a restart of, okay, I don't have parents here, I don't have Luke here. I can, I can really do whatever I want. No one's watching, no one's reporting back to my family. There were positives that came out of that in terms of my relationship with Luke. My other brothers, I didn't stay in very good contact with them, but with Luke, when I went to school and he went to school, we did keep in touch in terms of how sports were going. So he went and played football and then I was swimming and my mom would watch him play football and come watch me swim. And she'd tell us about the other. And, you know, I would Facebook message him or text him, you know, to see how things were. So because we were separated, it was more, of like a shallow level of interaction at that point where we were able to just be friendly and just reach out to each other to be like, “Hey, how's college? How's football? How'd the game go? Mom said this.” So it was really, just a very, very shallow level of communication, but it was the most positive it had been in a long time.

So when you cut out all the jealousy and all the emotions and you actually put space between us, it was like, okay, we're just brothers who were separated by going to different schools. So I grew apart from my family as a whole, but I also mended a certain level of communication with Luke himself. So I think it did take a large geographical separation to allow us to have just normal human conversations.

But, with that being said, when we would come home for Christmas or summer break, it all just went right—because he would go to his friend group, I'd go to my friend group, and we would fight in the house and it all just went back to that brotherly competition, which again is why the longer life went on, the more I separated from the family completely because I didn't want family drama anymore. So if I lived far away I didn't have to come home.

In high school we would have those moments— Luke and I played football together, junior and senior year. Football was the one thing we did together. But Luke had done it a lot longer than I did, and I only did it because I wanted to show that I could be better at football than he was, and starting late and all that. But there was, it might have been a playoff game senior year where, it was just a game where Luke and I, on defense played very well. We kind of played together, to help the team do well and at the end of the game when we won—it was a big deal at the time that Hastings won a playoff game cause we were terrible—but it was a moment of me and Luke celebrating together and, and I think we probably hugged and that was a moment of like, wow, we don't ever do that. We don't ever show emotion of a positive nature to each other. So sports was able to break that down and be like, hey, we were on same team and we won together.

And that I think about randomly. Just be like, wow, there was a time where me and him totally dropped our shields and you know, embraced the moment and had happiness together.

But since then, it was always moments of bad news that kind of dropped our hatred. After freshman year of college, I was living in Manhattan doing an internship and I don't know what he was doing, but he was going through a hard time and I remember he called me and we had a real human interaction, and it was a reflection conversation of high school. And it was one of those where he was sharing that, you know, I was always better, not, not in those words, but I was always the favorite or better in sports and smarter and went to a better school. And it was one of those crushing moments of like, wow, this is, this is my brother, this is my twin, who, we grew up together. And me giving him acknowledgements and praise back saying, hey, none of that's true. That's just in your mind. And here are the reasons why you are a good person. Here are the the reasons why you are successful. And yeah, you may be going through a hard time, but look at me. I'm living with five roommates in Manhattan. I make 12 bucks an hour at an internship. And it was just a way of us breaking down egos and being like, okay, we're people. And it was, it was emotional and, and that was a conversation I haven't forgotten.

So there were moments of us truly showing love and appreciation. The issue was it was short-lived, right? So, a week or two later, he's back to him and I'm back to me, and we don't talk. And when we do talk to other people, we don't have good things to say about the other person.

It's so hard letting go of the past. And so it was never, well, we're gonna build on that foundation. It was just, well, we'll talk in a month. I'll see you when I come home after the semester. And by then we were two totally different people, even more so, and there were things that I would then hate that he was doing when I saw him in person. And I'd be like, well, I don't want to hang out with you. Go away. (Laughs)

Luke struggled, With a lot of depression and bipolar. He had a lot of of things that were out of his control that really came to light much further down. Which is, is tough to think about because you have this teenage boy who does have a brother his age and we grew up together and he had things inside of him that he could not control, but no one really understood. And you go back thinking, wow, if if medication could have came earlier, if diagnosis could have came earlier, we could have had a totally different relationship.

We were both living at home right after college. I was waiting to go into the Air Force and Luke was working in Yonkers or somewhere. And he had, you know, an episode, if you will. I don't know what you want to call it, but I mean, just a really bad scene, with my mother there and me having to intervene physically. And it was one of those like, oh my God, this could become a really bad situation. Like this could actually become a, you know, someone dies, right? I mean, these are grown adults physically going after each other, me in a restraining mode. But I have a love of him, especially in deep, dark times because we grew up together, where my job and my role during that interaction was purely to just restrain him and let the situation die by me just holding him down, not causing physical harm, just doing everything I can to not let this escalate to a point where bad, bad things were gonna happen.

And looking back, I'm glad I didn't go into an anger mode of like, screw you, I'm gonna hurt you, because it could have went horribly wrong. There were a lot of cops that showed up at the Thornton house that night in Hastings, little old Hastings. But I remember after all that happened, I went down to the room because he had to leave the house that night and we talked and we were like, Hey, the—what's going on? What, you know, what can I do to help? This stuff can't happen. And so it was this pure physical blowup that resulted in two humans in a very low point just talking and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. So, I think that's—when things got the worst, was when I would push past all that other crap and say, well, this is my brother. And I need to look out for him. But the next day everything comes back and I don't like him. I'm not talking to him. All the shit he just put me through last night. Dark places can bring people together, but time will just separate 'em right back.

Because of all the bad things that happened along the way, everything was too late. It was so hard to just wipe clean and say, well, I forgive all the shit that went down as we grew up, attributing it to a disease. It was always an up and down constant, up and down. And those peaks and those valleys got larger as we got older. It was very petty in the beginning when we were teenagers, but as you become 20 year olds and 30 year olds, it is just much higher, much more at stake, where I'm not gonna put my kids on the line to reestablish a relationship that, has been broken for 15 years.

Rachel: It's been 10 plus years, you said since you've really had a relationship. Is that right?

Lance: So I joined the Air Force when I was 23, and I think he joined the Marine Corps, maybe a year into my, enlistment. And I do believe I spoke to him when he was going to bootcamp and then after bootcamp. But I would probably say by the time I was 25, there was no relationship there. He had more issues going on. And when I went to the Air Force, that was when I was done with family. That was when I was, this is my life now. I have to figure this out. And never went home since.

So it was probably 25 years old where I was like, I'm done with that. If people mention him, fine, I don't care. I'm not gonna ask about how he's doing. I'm not gonna call him up. And he may have tried to contact, but, at that point, it was almost like banishment from the whole family because of all the issues that were going on, and I was steadfast on, that's it. I'm done. I'm not getting involved in any of the drama. I was even sick of talking my mom off ledges of, you know, that's her baby, that's her son that's going through problems, But, it became enabling in that I can't yell at my mom anymore for enabling my twin for his behaviors.

And so I even shut that, like I'm not talking to anybody about any of it. So yeah, it's probably been coming up on 10 years now, I haven't had a conversation. And unless someone gives him my number or something, but I don't think—I would be shocked if he ever called. Shocked.  

Rachel: Is it something that you think about?

Lance: With my kids a little bit, because they're Irish twins, so they share the same age for nine days a year. So I think about how they're growing up in their interactions and, and making sure that it's positive and giving them an opportunity hopefully to be better brothers than I was. But it's, yeah, it doesn't pop into my head a lot.

Now that I have kids, it's just, I wish things were different. I think it's a shame. As I grew older and understood more, I think mental health—I think about that more, about how unfair it is that we grew up together in the exact same environment with the exact same tools, the exact same advantages of growing up in Hastings. But he was dealing with mental health issues and I wasn't.

But you can't repair that. You just, you can't repair it because he's not in a place to repair that. And, I don't know, maybe he is—that's the other side is, there's always a doubt of like, well, maybe his life is better now. But I'm not opening my life to it. (Laughs) If things are good, leave them how they are. Don't poke the bear.

So yeah, I think through my boys, is the most of my thought with Luke. Looking at old pictures and trying to see if my kids look anything like I looked and there was a point in time where my youngest looked like Luke, when he was probably a year old. He just had features and it was scary looking at potentially my twin as a young, young kid. And he grew out of that. But, yeah, now it's just more about, okay, how can I give my kids what they need, and if they have mental health issues, I wanna be able to help help them.

So I've definitely stepped into a totally different role in my life where I'm not trying to mend my relationships. I'm trying to now just foster their growth and development and, I guess as human beings, that's what we do. But, yeah, it's sad for me to, to talk about it and say, well, I've given up on it, but I, I mean, it's just not a priority.

Rachel: Does it worry you thinking about moving back to be closer to your family, that it would be poking the bear a little bit?

Lance: Yes. Only because I know how disturbing mental health I illnesses can be. Luke lived homeless for over a year. So he has put himself in horrible situations, and those are only the ones I know, you know.

And me moving back terrifies me every day because, I would be moving back and basically living in my home that I grew up in. And as my mom gets older, taking care of her. So again, you talk about having gifts in life and opportunities that others don't. It would be amazing for my kids to have that opportunity, be close to grandma, be close to cousins, but it also terrifies me of, Luke knows where that house is. He knows where the key is to get through the side door.

So, yeah, I think if somehow he was not in a good place and hears, oh, Lance moved back and is living in the house, you know, Who knows? It's, yeah, that's always a scary, shameful thought. But, I've chosen a life of I need to move on and do my thing and raise my kids. How Luke plays into that? No idea. No clue. I don't know the last time he was in Hastings.

You know, my story specifically is, one of: it could have gone the complete opposite way. We coulda grew up as two best friends being competitive with each other, but, outwardly-facing saying it's me and you versus the world. But he just, he had mental health illnesses that continued to get worse as he got older. So I don't think it's a woe-is-me story, I think it's more of a PSA of how devastating it can be, when you grow up with opportunity, but it's taken away from you. So, you know, my story and my story with my twin is that it's just, it was undiagnosed for so long. And by the time help was there, it was, it was a struggle.

Rachel: I have one final question for you, which is, when do you feel most like yourself?

Lance: Oh my goodness, that's such a hard question. Because having kids, I feel like I feel most like myself when I am either with a very close friend, or only with my wife. It's when I'm separate, when I'm not dad, when I don't have to be dad. And when I'm not around family—family is just walking eggshells type deals. But, I think, I think that's when I feel most like myself, is when I'm with a really close friend where I can say and do anything or with my wife, with no one else around.

Those are the moments I do cherish. Those are the moments I seek out. When I don't have the responsibility and labels.