Beryllium

2.2 Beryllium, Case 1A 40 year old woman complains of tiredness, always tired and listless, always behind with everything. During the day she feels very gloomy, in the evening she starts to cheer up a bit. But if she goes to bed late she feels bad again the next morning.
During a routine test a few years ago it was discovered that the bilirubine level of her blood was quite high. The tiredness is linked to a strong feeling of inferiority. She is a shy type and doesn’t express herself very easily. She feels she isn’t good enough, that she has no sex appeal because her breasts are too small. She feels she doesn't not live up to general standards. She also feels she isn’t a good mother. She seems rather a ‘grey’ sort of person, someone who always stays in the background. She hates criticism: even if a shop attendant looks a bit surly she thinks this is meant for her and gets upset. The first thing she says when I ask her to describe her character is: ’I want to know what is expected of me so I can follow that’. She is afraid of criticising or hurting others. She would rather adapt to the circumstances; doing what others ask of her makes her feel needed. She hates making decisions, and would rather leave this to others. She would like to have a father-figure, a mentor whom she could rely on to guide her into what to do. She thinks that people whom she likes will feel rejected if she makes her own choices. She is afraid of bothering other people too much, of appearing too needy. It feels unnatural for her to stick up for herself.
She is always busy following the rules. For instance, she’ll ride her bike following one particular row of tiles on the road. She is ashamed of herself and wants to hide from view, afraid of being seen and afraid of freedom; afraid of responsibility, afraid to make mistakes and not being able to hide. She walks stooped-shouldered, as if she is carrying a burden on her back. But this burden also serves as protection: at least she can’t make contact with the universe when she walks like that.
She feels as if all her emotions have to be squeezed out through a very narrow opening in a bottle and when they come out they are all distorted and chaotic.
She goes to psychotherapy sessions, but she feels equally awkward there too. She feels as if she should let something happen but she doesn’t know what, so she sits there all cramped, not knowing what to do. She likes to keep people at a distance for fear of being rejected, feeling they probably won’t like her anyway. As a child she used to stand outside the circle of childre nplaying: ’Nobody wants to play with me anyway!’ She feels it is obvious that nobody wanted to play with her then, as she was such an insignificant little creature! She did have one girl friend, but only because her mother had forced her to.
She loves arrogant and good looking men. Her own marriage isn’t all that happy: she doesn’t have much sexual desire.
She comes from a very strict religious family. Her father was distant and cold; he was afraid of spoiling his children. He was so hard that she thought she must be very bad otherwise he wouldn’t be so cruel to her. He also taunted his children, to get them ‘hardened to the world’. He used to beat them, even with a stick, when they did something wrong, and when she was a teenager he once refused to speak to her for 3 weeks as a punishment for something or other. Every show of enthusiasm was immediately squashed at home. Her father got angry if she did something for him and in her enthusiasm made some small mistake. She was afraid of her father and always on her guard not to do anything wrong. She felt rejected and her eyes still fill with tears when she reads about ‘Daddy’s little girl’. She feels ‘I have to be the sweet little girl, otherwise I will be punished’.
Her mother was rather weak: she became manic depressive when she was 48; she just couldn’t stand up to her husband. Her parents often had rows, and not such little ones either. She used to hold her breath, praying that it would be over soon.
Her mother used to keep the children ‘small’, afraid that she would lose control if she let them grow up. She was, deep down, very unsure of herself but presented herself as someone who knew and could handle everything. But her mother used to lean on her and used to confide in her what she thought of her husband. This left her no room to develop her own personality.
She loves reading; it is a way of escape for her. When she was little she moved heaven and earth to be allowed to join a library.
She had a very significant dream: ‘I was walking around carrying a very heavy man on my back. Then a knight came along and threw a orange or pink pick-axe at this man and killed him. I felt very afraid and guilty and started to defend myself, because it had been my task to look after this man and now he was dead. But although I felt very guilty, I was also very relieved to be rid of him, because he had been a great burden. But I would never have dared to throw him off myself. I was very grateful to the knight for doing this dirty work or me. But I also realised that this burden had been a sort of protection for me, for at least I did have to show my face to the world while I was stooping. It was strange to be standing upright again, frightening and nice at the same time. I was defending myself by pointing out the colourful attire of the attacker, as it was these colours that had misled me into thinking he was O.K. If he hadn’t been wearing these colours I would have quickly taken another path, so he wouldn’t have seen us, so it wasn’t my fault that all this had happened!’
There are some other complaints that she suffers from: pain in the jaws and pain in the shoulders and neck, radiating to her thumb, especially the right one. Her glands under her arms and in her neck and groins are always swollen, sometimes even painfully swollen. She has small breasts. When she drinks milk her nose blocks up. Coffee makes her tremble and pancakes make her vomit.
When she was a baby she was in hospital for three weeks because she wasn’t thriving. When she was 3 she had a kidney infection with oedema after a throat infection following scarlet fever.
She has a lazy left eye with strabismus, which was corrected by surgery. When she was 27 she broke the relationship with her boyfriend because he did not appreciate her looks, but she kept thinking about what this relationship had meant to her. It made her feel even more gloomy and indifferent for a while.GeneralsWeather: warm, -> sun; -> thunder and lightening; -> fresh air, sea.
Perspiration: sometimes at night in bed, under arms.
Time: < 1 and 3 pm.
Desires: sour (3), salt (2), bacon, meat (2), hard- and soft boiled eggs (2), lettuce.
Aversion: sauerkraut, pancakes.
Food: < coffee, pancakes, milk.
Menses: infrequent; tired < during menses.
Sleep: poor.AnalysisThe uncertainty and the fears are the most striking symptoms. She doesn’t dare to stand up for herself, she is very indecisive. She wants support from a strong father figure. She feels she is a bad person. This all points to the Carbon series.
Her answer to my question to describe her character really says it all: ‘I want to know what is expected of me so I can make sure I follow those directions’. This adaptation to the wishes of other people and this passive behaviour point to stage 2, and so we end up with Beryllium.
Her dream is also most significant: ‘I was carrying a heavy man on my back and a youth threw his orange or pink pick-axe at him and the man died. I felt afraid and guilty and started to defend myself, but I loved the colour of the pick-axe’. Here we see the trait of toiling for someone else: she is carrying someone else on her back. The youth is the hero who quickly solves the problem for her. The orange/pink pick-axe has obvious sexual undertones.ReactionAfter Beryllium metallicum 1M her fears disappeared within a short time. She started to stick up for herself at work. She gained some important insights. It became clear to her that she was afraid of her own power, and that she had needed to keep her own strength down, because her mother wanted to keep the children small. It also became clear that she herself was being the same overprotective mother towards her eldest child. She also understood the energies of passivity and adaptability. Because of her helplessness she was able to mobilise the help of other people. Her adaptability had allowed her to exist: ‘Because you are saving the other person, you are allowed to be’. She also discovered a certain power in the attitude ‘If I don’t help her she will commit suicide’. Other remedies that helped her before were Magnesium muriaticum and Niccolum sulphuricum.