4.4 Titanium, Case 1A 25 year old woman has had a nervous breakdown, which started a few weeks ago, when she became very unsure of herself. She had finished teacher training college and had started a job as a teacher. She was looking forward to it and started with great enthusiasm, feeling very good about it. But a few months later she started to feel unsure of herself. When she was preparing lessons she would suddenly get into a panic, thinking ‘I can’t do it’. She developed a tremendous fear of failure and finally had to leave, although others assured her she was a good teacher. After she had stopped she initially felt relieved, but now she doesn’t do anything anymore. She can’t get out of bed in the morning, she is not interested in anything, and she can’t sleep at night because she can’t stop thinking: ‘What should I do? How can I get out this?’ It is driving her mad. She feels dead and empty inside. She is at her wits’ end and feel totally helpless, also very frightened when someone criticises her. She comes across as a frightened, helpless little bird.
She can’t decide what to do, what sort of job might suit her instead. She panics when she thinks about the future. She can’t even decide what to do from day to day, what to wear, what to eat etc. It takes her a full minute to decide whether to have tea or coffee. The prospect of yet another day to fill makes her despair. When she does make a decision she thinks it is the wrong one: ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have done that!’
Her fear of failure also comes back in her dreams. She dreams of being pursued by other people, of being burgled, or being shot. As a child she often dreamed that she fell down the stairs, going down faster and faster. Or that there was a strange monster in the room which turned out to be only a crumpled-up jumper on a chair. After waking up everything looked very small and far away. She also sleep walked in the past.
She now has a migraine which she used to have in the past. It starts with pains in her neck which radiate to her forehead. She sees spots and glimmering things in front of her eyes; the headache is worse from eyestrain like studying or reading or looking at a bright light. Other complaints: nausea, dry mouth and trembling and numbness in the hands; vertigo with a feeling of unsteadiness, < closing her eyes. Sometimes she has a stomach upset and has frequent diarrhoea. The complaints are < 7 am, < alone, > evening, > outside, < heat, > sea. She wakes up at 5 am and can’t sleep again because of thoughts going round and round her head.
GeneralsWeather: cold, < heat, > outside (2), > sea.
Time: < 7 am.
Desires: vegetables, fruit (2), pears (2), grapes(2), kiwi(2), oranges (2), fish, cheese.
Food: < oranges: cracks in tongue.
Menses: occasional irritability during.
Sleep: much, 10 hours, on right side.
AnalysisThe central theme is the tremendous fear of failure, which indicates a metal. Her profession is a teacher, she is performing a function within a larger work force, which leads us to a metal in the
Iron series. She is at the beginning of her career when she collapses; she panics as soon as she wants to make a proper start. The theme of ‘beginning’ belongs to stage 4, which brings us to
Titanium.
The difficulty she experiences trying to make a decision is typical of
Stage 4: it is a paralysing sort of fear, which prevents them from doing anything and leads to endless postponing.
Confirming symptoms for
Titanium: -> fruit, migraine with eye problems.
A DD with
Calcium carbonicum should be mentioned, because of her uncertainty and the typical symptom of the monster which turned out to be a piece of clothing. But in this case it is not the feeling of being observed that is the main problem, it is more the tremendous uncertainty and the inability to make decisions. Both these symptoms are more typical of
Titanium.
ReactionOne month after
Titanium 1M she feels a lot better. The improvement was gradual, with several ups and downs. She doesn’t feel so dead inside anymore, and she has started to take an interest in life again. She is better able to make decisions again, although she is still unsure what to do with her job and it still makes her panic to think about it. But eating and sleeping are much better.
After a repeat of
Titanium 1M she gradually feels like starting some sort of job again. The headache came back after 6 weeks and lasted a fortnight.
She has no more problems with being on her own.