Adansonia digitata A 64-year-old woman, she speaks expressively, confidently, but cautiously, as if talking to herself. “My intestines are strange, I am highly sensitive, that must play a role.” She often has stomach aches, she is bloated for days on end, a distended stomach, she always has irregular bowel movements, sometimes loose, sometimes mushy. She has also had Lyme disease, which caused her to develop tinnitus that corresponds with her heartbeats, and hyperacusis, which is worse when she is overstimulated. It is worse when she is busy and restless. After treatment for Lyme disease, her body improved, but her head did not. She sleeps well, but in the morning, she often has still to recover; she has a lot of dreams. When she has had intense dreams, she wakes up with that heartbeat. She does not make any plans in the morning; it takes a while before she feels normal. She can dream are about taking exams again. In the past, she had dreams about powerlessness. Because of the situation, she can't live freely, as making a phone call, which doesn't work. She is distraught. Highly sensitive: things affect her deeply. She is very concerned about her old dog; she feels, no, she sees how things are going. She also has to block out moods, atmospheres, empathy, and things in nature. It's too much.
Her creativity is crocheting, drawing with chalk, painting, and building. She needs to be in nature. Water is important; she used to go to the river and the swimming pool. At the campsite, she can't go to the toilet. At thirteen, she had anorexia, and emotions played a role, she already had that sensitivity. It started in the first year of secondary school, with boyfriends and girlfriends, and she was having a great time. She chose a school, but the headmaster and her father decided otherwise. She was very angry and cried a lot. She had no ambition and didn't want to go to an elite school. It was a hard blow. She lost her circle of friends, went to school in the big city, and it was a lot, you had to get good grades. It was survival, gritting her teeth and carried on. She had no say in the matter. The anorexia wasn't a conscious choice; it just happened, perhaps because it was something she could control. This lasted throughout high school.
After that, she studied documentation, which was a relief, and went to work in the library. Once she moved into her own place, her period returned. She had always been a bookworm, she used to play library, she also played nurse, but she is too sensitive for that. She had Lyme disease ten years ago. At first, she had flu-like symptoms, then she became very tired, going to bed at 7 p.m. Soon after, she started hearing her heartbeat in her ears. Then came the hypersensitivity to sounds, which was unbearable: cutlery and such, but also birds. During that period, her eldest child, whom she had supported for years, was going through a divorce; she wanted to solve the problem for her, be the knight in shining armor, and continue to help. Her own mother was uptight, subordinate to her father, who was consumed by work and church, and she couldn't stop it. She has an aversion to bread and meat; she prefers chicken and fish. During her pregnancy, she had kidney problems. Now she does volunteer work.
She notices expressions, she feels tension: crowds, people, lots of talking drain her. When it gets too busy, she has to leave, even when people visit her at home. She can't filter things out, for example, in a conversation with more than two people. Control is also an issue, maintaining control. In the years with her disability, a birthday was already too busy, not being able to control what was happening around her, being at the mercy of circumstances. In the past, she often had throat infections, bladder problems, urine that sometimes had a foul odor, and as a child, she had rashes on the backs of her knees.
AnalysisSilver series:
Books, art, science, fit with culture, atmosphere.
Malvidae: Sensitivity, this dominates the entire story; she feels people, creativity as a hobby, and as a safe environment that they create themselves and need (are dependent on), the sensitivity is so strong here, this is known from the
Malvales, placed on
Phase 3.
Phase 3: adapting, unable to keep noise out, unable to resist.
Phase 5: pressure and coercion. Study: the choice of father, under coercion from father.
Lyme developed after emotional involvement with her child, but that referred to her own childhood, with themes in
Phases 3 and 5. Father driven, Mother giving in.
This brings us to the Bombaceae. Well-known examples are Ceiba petandra at
Stage 11 and
Adansonia digitata at
Stage 10.
Stage 10: knowing for sure, maintaining one's own point of view,
Stage 11 is preserving, protecting.
Stage 10 is the action, here the securing, the controlling. This could also point to
Phase 4, but that is less likely; her foundation was too shaky, too dependent, and she had to give in to the pressure by hardening herself.
Adansonia digitata: The theme of focus, multiplicity, and sensitivity to sounds is seen before in the remedy.
Prescription:
Adansonia digitata C30
Follow-upAfter taking the remedy, she had good bowel movements for 5 days. Old issues returned: pimples, hot flashes, ‘feeling unrecognized, feeling unseen’. After that, she had no bowel movements and abdominal pain for five days, but since then, she has been doing well for the entire month, which is a relief. The tinnitus still fluctuates, and she experiences it more when exerting herself, but now she is less afraid of it and can go outside without hearing protection. She can now also tolerate stimuli better, for example, a bus ride with noise, which no longer causes her any stress. She did feel overstimulated once after a long bike ride followed by a busy party. She was tired, but after a night's sleep, it was over, instead of taking three days.
Not being recognized was a theme from the time of her anorexia, and that feeling has returned. In general, she feels rejected easily. Examples: when visitors are there and they stay in another room for a long time, “they like each other more than me”; as soon as something is not discussed in the house, or when her husband says “I did that” instead of “we did that.” Herpes also returned on her upper right lip, under her nose (previously seen in Adansonia). She sleeps well. She can now tolerate heat well; the hot flashes are gone again, they used to paralyze her, sucking the energy out of her.
Six weeks more later, her head is busy again with tinnitus: the more I focus on it, the worse it gets. That causes tension, it makes her so restless, a flood of tears. Her bowel movements are also stagnating again. She blames herself for that focus; she wants to let it go, but it has her in its grip. Dream: about powerlessness. After another two months, her energy is better; she no longer needs those long nights to process everything. She responds strongly to all medications. Because her energy is good, we don’t need to repeat the remedy, and after a week, her bowels are better again, her energy is now very good, her head can take more, the ‘claw’ of focus is mostly gone. Vacation with traveling is going well, whereas before it was far too stressful. After this she is good for years.