A woman of 57 years old. She has suffered for years from a serotonin deficiency, and uses antidepressants. Five years ago and last year she had a TIA, which is dragging her back down into depression. When she has things to do or has visitors, then it turns around and she feels good. She is losing energy. Since the TIA she is very tired and needs a lot of sleep.
She is a sturdy, somewhat squat woman. She sits upright, her hands fixed between her legs. By profession she is a driver. During that period she had started on lipitor, and was given symvastatine for the side effects. After the TIA she ‘threw these medicines into the corner’. She is under the care of a neurologist, and ‘getting to work’ with a psychologist.
While talking she regularly touches the table as if seeking a moment of rest, groping for something to hold on to for her story or for concentration. Her thoughts wander, and mentally too she regularly searches for some form of anchorage. Initially she gives short answers, containing as little personal information as possible, no more than in her eyes is necessary. A very measured way of dosing, in a self-evident manner, which to me suggests routine. Her way of expressing herself: not giving away too much, searching and, where possible, probing for the intention behind the question, and above all keenly ‘feeling’ how the answer is received and reacted to. After the first clinical introduction, with a slight reference to the deeper background in her story, she seems to be reassured, or gradually taken along in the cautious pressing for more and more personal information. After a while she talks spontaneously, provided that it is invited by me with a sound or usually non-verbally. The ease with which she responds to this, and the pertinent information she gives, testifies to a keen perceptive faculty and accompanying interpretive ability, which I had seen earlier in
Malvales indications.
At the time she started therapy because of insecurity about herself. Not being able to hold on to a relationship, fear of commitment. She uses metazipine, otherwise she is gloomy, then she doubts everything (she sighs, casts her eyes upward, holding on tightly).
Doubt about herself: how she comes across, not about how she looks. It is difficult for her to explain that. She dares a lot, she also does a lot, that is how she comes across to other people, as a daredevil, she is easygoing. Long-lasting contacts are difficult. First contacts go well, then she talks easily. After meeting a few times, no longer (the contact with her now comes to a standstill for a moment, not slamming on the brakes, but as if you ride a bicycle into loose sand. It seems a sudden resistance, as if she sees or feels before her what will then happen: a repetition of socially-emotionally failing and clamming up). “After that I withdraw, otherwise they see my soul, afraid they will find it negative. Too absurd for words. All my life already”.
With work things go well, 10 minutes with someone in the car is perfectly fine. Otherwise I would end up in a rut, if I did not have those contacts and distraction. She is alone at home a lot, and looks forward to her partner coming home, then there is life around her. She has no courage to undertake anything alone.
She starts on something ten times over, but throws it aside after five minutes, then looks for something else again. She just sits on the couch, and is very restless. Tomorrow she is going on holiday, I want to have energy to undertake things, that it will be fun, that she will be cheerful (she actually wants a remedy for tomorrow, because she has planned six weeks with something she feels totally incapable of doing. Setting out on something, diving into it without knowing whether it will succeed, a
Stage 6 aspect).
Her sleep is good, without dreams. Sometimes she can brood all night, about her boyfriend or about the adult children. She has now been in a relationship for five years. Her boyfriend comes from a ‘close’ family, but his children ignore their father, ever since she has been around. She tells this sadly and with a bitterness, and shows more emotion than when talking about herself (the bound-unbound aspect).
Additions: “I cannot enter into a bond, I start to blush and get short of breath”. As a child I was a rascal, a scallywag. Because of the TIAs the energy drains away, she tries to take the reins into her own hands again. For seven years now she has had a peculiar little cough, twice a day for ten minutes. It tickles high in the chest, and disappears again on its own. That has to do with emotions, but she does not want to talk about that now. Hobbies are walking, drawing Mandalas, making jewelry, crafts. Until a few months ago she did feel like doing those.
AnalysisMalvales and
Thymelaeales: Sensitivity to attention and non-verbal signals, expressing your opinion or emotions aggravates. Within these plant families one can search, either on Stage or on a symptom.
Used in this case is the rubric Occupation ameliorates; here Mezereum (synonym for
Daphne mezereum) is listed. Recognized in this rubric because it was known from an earlier case that
Daphne mezereum fits with challenges, with liking to undertake things, with concealing: not talking about emotions (talking or expressing yourself aggravates), the scallywag, and the nervous tickly cough.
Note: the view of
Qjure analysis fits with making contact talking (
Silver series), first contact she speaks easily (
Phase 1), then she withdraw contact (
Phase 6). This fits
Stage 6. The
Phase 6 aspects is clear enough, so
Stage 16 is in mine opinion not clear for
Daphne mezereum.
Prescription:
Daphne mezereum C200.
Follow upAfter two months, the holiday was good, sometimes she did not feel cheerful, but “it was manageable”. She sits broad, like a block, all attention directed forward, and now almost none of the attention directed backward. She has slept a lot and long; since the remedy she snores enormously, which she had never done before. The cough behind the breastbone is now there several times a day. Someone else must always create the good mood. While she restlessly taps with her hands, she tells that she started to realise this when she had just got married. Before that time she was a scamp. That ‘negative side’ became a common thread in her life, and she has had a lot of therapy for it. In her marriage there was misery upon misery, which had a lot to do with debts of her ex (a
Phase 6 aspect).
When asked about the pregnancies she braces herself against the chair, while her hands move as if grasping something. There seems to be nothing special to tell about it, but it is the time when the problems began to arise. She can sigh heavily in between; she gives the impression of sitting on an ejector seat: there is tension with the children, it is bottling up and shutting in. You also must not say too much, that works counterproductively. They have had a hard time for years, they told nothing but she did pick up signals about it. Now it has gone wrong, she feels the adrenaline rising, she now has to make herself strong, hold her ground (
Daphne mezereum). Everything I say is salt in the wound (keep your mouth shut; talking or speaking out aggravates,
Malvales).
After four months things are going very well (‘I call it good when I feel really fine’). There is no more gloominess. It seems as if the energy is coming back. She has more energy to tackle things, and being busy always improves her. There is more attention, a better ability to perceive and remember.
Observation: she now draws attention to herself, this does wash past her, but does not touch her, she does not take it in, as if she is an elliptical shape. This is a characteristic of a healthy
Thymelaeaceae indication, feeling the tension but keeping it at a distance. She still sleeps a lot, ten hours a night, and finds it wonderful. She is very chilly, but in summer she also cannot cope with the heat. Her mood is better, despite what is going on with the children and the partner. ‘They say you get used to everything, I put my shoulder to it’. Previously she would wake up and think, ugh, another day. Now she gets out of bed without a problem. She can remember a dream, she sat upright in bed, “a dog jumped on me”. She swallows away emotions and tears. The cold-sore rash has not come back, the little cough still occurs.