A case of the baby in the family (A. Timmerman) 
 Aethusa cynapium 
 Case 

A woman, age 29, comes with many complaints. She is allergic to many substances, has a strong reaction especially to cats, and to stings from animals such as insects or jellyfish. Her back is very weak, mainly after sitting or lying for a long time. Riding horses, on her own horse, feels good for her back. She has severe attacks of headache, stomach cramps, throat complaints, a painful knee, weak ankles, watery stool and sometimes boils in her groin and so on-many sufferings.
 “Nothing is normal, everything is so terrible, so hard.” In 1988 her tonsils were removed because of recurrent throat infections. After the operation she had to take antibiotics for the first time in her life. After this she had problems with swallowing for half a year, everything came up through the nose, even drinking water was difficult.
 The baby 
 She has always been the youngest-in the family, in school and now in her student group of friends. Her fellow students call her the ‘baby of the group’. “I always was my mother’s little baby,” even though she didn’t want to be dominated by her mother. She can suddenly become very angry. If she is angry she can have suicidal impulses. She has troubles with building up relationships, there is always something wrong. She never allows herself to expect something from somebody, she doesn’t want people to come too close to her, she would feel restricted or captivated, so she keeps a distance. At age nine, she was abused by a 14-year-old boy. At home, they didn’t believe her and the schoolboys even made jokes about it-that was the worst. Since that time she would run away if someone showed interest in her.
 This woman complains and sobs while telling her story. She feels everything intensely. Her whole existence expresses suffering while telling of her complaints. What is remarkable is that she expresses herself quite childishly and she is hardly able to communicate on the emotional level. She doesn’t make contact during the consultation. She doesn’t manage to build up new relationships, or she identifies completely with the other person. She doesn’t want to feel restricted, she wants to follow her impulses instead. She expresses her sufferings in a childish way and she suffers the way a child would suffer. In fact, she is still a child in her emotions and this is the nucleus of her pathology. This is also physically expressed. Her skin is thin and vulnerable like the skin of a baby; the muscles from her back are loose like those of a baby and by wearing loose clothes, she even looks like a chubby, formless baby.
 Insecure and worthless 
 She is a homeopath, but doesn’t practice very much. “If I would have no success with my consults, I would be very disappointed, I would rather do nothing at all. I don’t believe in myself, I cannot help people, I’m too stupid.
 I also forget things suddenly. I feel insecure and worthless, I can be angry, but I often do not show it.” Sometimes there is an explosion of anger, after that it is over. She cannot fail, does not allow herself to show that she cannot handle it. She does not show her anger. She must be successful, is not allowed to make stupid mistakes. She has so little self-confidence, while in fact she is very talented and creative. As a homeopath she had good cases and she makes beautiful abstract paintings with a lot of violet and blue.
 She tells that she is very sensitive about animals, she feels their sufferings. “I know how it feels myself, we cannot let them suffer.” She has a fear for spiders. In the past she had a dog and her father had forbidden her to keep the dog in the house-she was very sad and angry about that. She would rather kill a human than an animal. She likes to swim with dolphins. She can eat a lot, but no meat because it is from a dead animal. She doesn’t like milk, sweets or chocolate. She has perspiration in the face and under the hair. If people tell something sad, she always has to cry. If she cries she starts hyperventilating. She was a kleptomaniac for a while.
 Dreams 
 A dream: Corpses hanging in a circle, in plastic bags. “I am one of those corpses. I feel terrible, I don’t want to die yet, I still want to do many things. Those corpses could move.” In the same dream a creature without bones has been made with the help of genetic technology. (Compare with the weak back and the weak bones) In another dream someone followed her and she flew away to hide. She also had a dream about shells on the beach. “I like to collect them, but if there is still life in them, I try to save them from dehydration by bringing them back to the sea.” The shell, of course, means protection for the soft vulnerable life within.
 The circle 
 During the consultation, again and again, the story turns around the same themes. During a good consult, if you listen carefully to the story as a whole, you will often notice the circle of repeating themes. This woman has little self-confidence, despises herself, misses a protective shell, and feels weak and boneless like a shellfish. It is as if she is not yet ready for the real world. She evokes other peoples’ mothering instincts.
 The woman received a few homeopathic remedies like Staphysagria, Ignatia, Lac caninum, Belladonna, and Calcarea carbonica, but there was no change. Repeatedly, she told about the same sufferings with the same intensity. If there is a profound change during treatment, you will soon notice that the patient’s painful issues and experiences can still be told in the same words but in a clearly different style and accompanied with different body-language.
 Decide what has to be changed here. Don’t think immediately about a remedy. Consider for yourself how you feel, what kind of reaction you get from this woman. She must become an adult and learn how to handle her emotions. What withholds her from growing, and why does she demand so much from others? She has no self-confidence, feels unprotected, weak and fragile like a baby. She never had an existential birth. Calcarea was a good choice, but it didn’t work. She set up a big wall to protect herself. She cannot communicate in her relationships. What she misses inside, she shows outside. You can ask the patient again what has to change or ameliorate. With this woman many things will change: her relationships, her back, her allergies, her fear of failure, her feelings of self-hate. She is not capable of receiving love and without love, one cannot grow. She shares her love with animals without holding back. She prefers to rescue an animal instead of a human.
 The remedy: aethusa 
 We know Aethusa as a remedy for drowsy babies who cannot tolerate milk and who do not flourish. They are never really alert, never arrived in the world. The child wants to drink all the time, but the milk is thrown up soon after. Aethusa is restless, irritated, with an impulsive anger. It has a fear of going to sleep and dying. Aethusa has very strong emotions, but keeps them inside which results in a fear, like a heavy load on the chest-area. Fear for others, for loved-ones. Heaviness in the chest, alternating with anger. Complaints from being alone. Childish behavior. Fear in the dark. Delusions: sees cats or dogs. Nightmares. Can be suicidal (not mentioned in the repertory). Very reserved. Memory weak and sudden loss of memory.
 Reaction 
 Follow-up after seven months: The woman sits differently, more straight, head more erect. Wears clothes that show her figure more. She laughs more, expresses less suffering. She describes her problems more clearly, observes herself in order to work with it, so she is more in herself. She shows more self-confidence. Her complaining tone has gone. There is a new symptom: she can not tolerate old people. “I’ll never want to be so stupid and idiotic. Even their smell makes me sick.” This must have surfaced from deep within.
 In every process of growth you can see the following phenomenon: To resolve a problem it is necessary to first identify with the problem. That is what we homeopaths call the healing- crisis or the homeopathic aggravation. First she stayed a baby, now she identifies with growing older. She becomes older herself. She expresses her horror about this, but her body speaks a different language. On the one hand she is timid, on the other hand she
 behaves proudly and even daring. The adolescent is developing. She lost twenty kilos of weight in seven months. “I can see my bones now, and I feel my body belongs to me.”
 So this body language tells the truth, while mentally it still has to be integrated. The old ideas (the delusions) remained for so long in her head, and this you cannot change immediately. If you only listen to the words during the consultation and ignore the non-verbal signals, you’ll miss the changes. She still says: “I’m ugly, disgusting…”, but with a completely different body-language and tone of voice!
 After Aethusa she was depressed for a while and she had a very difficult time. She was conscious of the fact that she had a fear of communicating. She cries while telling this, so you realize how important communication is for her. The relation with her boyfriend has improved. For the first time she could receive love without implications about feeling dirty or unworthy. She is very much affected and thankful. A deep healing process is taking place here.
 Metamorphosis 
 One year later the video shows that a metamorphosis has taken place. The child developed from an adolescent to a young adult woman. She has been going out for a while, had a lot of fun, like a teenager, as she emphasized herself. Sometimes she can still have explosions from anger, but she handles them in another way, she works on it.
 The relationship with her boyfriend has ended. She feels sad about it, but they have had a lot of fun together. Her father reproaches her about spending too much money and not caring about the future. She is still impulsive-doesn’t think, but acts-lives like a young careless adult. Her horse is always very important to her and now she admits that her horse kept her from committing suicide. “Animals are honest, they give without asking something in return and they never deceive you, like people will do.” Her memory is only bad when she has been drinking too much alcohol. She tells what has to be told. She is no longer suicidal and no longer dislikes herself. “I don’t feel like a piece of shit anymore.” On the whole she feels stronger in herself.
 There are other changes. Now and then she drinks milk and even likes milk. She lost weight and has the sexual appearance of a young, self-conscious woman. 

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