4.9.2 Cobaltum muriaticum, Case 1A 20 year old woman has had a nervous breakdown. She was training to be a policewoman and everything went well until the final weeks of the course when they had gun practice. They had to act out an imaginary emergency situation and suddenly had to decide whether they were going to shoot or not. During one of those practices she had fired her gun (which was loaded with dummies) but afterwards had gone into a panic at the thought of having to use real bullets one day. She went into a state of hyperventilation twice at the mere thought of not having considered her actions carefully enough. She got a nightmare where she relived the practice situation and she did not know whether to shoot or not and she woke up with a start when the gun went off.
Her neck, shoulders and left arm feel stiff. It hurts when she has it massaged, it feels as if little electric shocks are shooting through her elbow.
The situation at home isn’t very good. She still lives with her mother who pressurises her and ‘kicked’ her into the police training college. She is like her mother in the sense that she is also very ambitious. She wants to become a policewoman and show everyone what she can do. But in her heart she is afraid that she’ll fail. Now this has become reality and she feels very low. She looks self confident but this is only show.
She also had a dream in which she had to chase a woman who was carrying a gun with 9 bullets. She herself had 18 bullets and by firing her own gun and provoking the woman to spend her 9 bullets she was able to outwit her.
When she was 17 she had one ovary removed because she had sudden intense pains with fainting. They thought it was appendicitis but it proved to be a dermoid cyst on her left ovary. She used to have herpes on her lips from time to time.
GeneralsWeather: cold, -> sun, -> outside, < draught.
Perspiration: easy, < heat, < making love; under arms, on back and between breasts.
Time: < 6-7 pm.
Desires: chocolate (3), mashed potatoes with carrots (3), sweet, cheese, milk, tea.
Aversion: fish, fatty meat, spinach, endive, coffee.
Food: < fish.
Menses: backache with fainting during menses; weeping before menses; heavy bleeding.
AnalysisThings go wrong during the last part of her training. This indicates stage 9,
Cobaltum. She is training to be a policewoman, another
Cobaltum theme. She gets into a panic at the thought of having to use real bullets and perhaps making a wrong decision.
We could give her
Cobaltum metallicum, based on this part of the symptoms. But it is her mother who is pressurising her and who ‘kicked’ her into the police college. This adds an extra dimension, which leads us to
Cobaltum muriaticum. Her mother (Muriaticum) likes to achieve (
Iron series). She dreams that she had to pursue (
Iron series) a woman (Muriaticum).
Other
Cobaltum symptoms: achieving, fear of failure, back ache < before menses, neck pains.
Muriaticum symptoms: cyst on left ovary, herpes on lip, perspiration < heat, between breasts, <- fish, < fish, weepy before menses; menses very heavy.
ReactionOne month after
Cobaltum muriaticum 1M she feels much better. She still has some ups and downs, but she no longer feels forced to become a policewoman, ‘there is life after the police’. Perhaps she can become a police assistant. Her neck and shoulder pains have gone. She feels calmer and has decided to go and find her own flat. Two months later, after another dose of
Cobaltum muriaticum 1M, she has decided to quit this side of the training and to do a course in surveillance.