A Case of Hearing Voices

‘ES’: Caucasian female, 9 years old, 4’7″, 87#.

General impressions: Very chatty once she warms up. She speaks quickly with excitement. She is dark complexioned. She is not quite chubby, but has a soft look to her body. She appears to be extremely intelligent and well grounded, somewhat precocious and very articulate. Her tongue has a crack in the center. She does not bite her nails. She wears glasses.

Mother’s concerns: She has chronic rhinitis and is a mouth breather. Both parents have allergies and ES has had a stuffed nose her whole life. She has swollen glands on the left side of her neck with soreness. She has ringworm which she got from their cat. She gets migraines at least once a week. She also has some constipation issues.

Case as told to me by the mother: She has had multiple remedies in low potency that haven’t helped. After her nose gets stuffed, her ears get stuffed and she has trouble hearing. The inside of her ears get red and there is effusion. She’s self motivated and disciplined. She’s involved in a lot of activities outside school – of her own choice – we haven’t pushed her to do things. She’s socially adept. She can get all of her friends to do whatever she wants. When she feels well, she loves to party and stay up until 1:00AM.

She had a high fever about eight months ago and started hearing voices. They shout at her. A few weeks ago she had a terrible stomach ache. She finally admitted that she had lied to me about losing a library book. As soon as she told me about it, the stomach ache went away. She cuts through all the baloney with people and is very direct. She’s very affectionate, especially with our cat. She has an incredible memory. She also wakes up singing and whistling. She’s full of zest.

Case as told to me by ES: I LOVE animals, especially horses. I like reading and handwork. I love music and play the cello, violin and recorder; and I LOVE Irish dancing. I took French and Japanese. I LOVE butter and yogurt, but I don’t like things that are very sweet, except for marzipan. I don’t like mushy fruits and vegetables. I want to get braces because my teeth are crooked. (Note: her teeth are relatively straight with only two that are slightly crooked) I can spend hours in front of the mirror playing with my hair. I don’t care so much how it looks; I just like playing with it. I do care a lot about my clothes and how I dress. I like thunder storms; everything about them. I like getting wet; I like the sound of the thunder.

I don’t like surprises, except when my mom puts a surprise in my lunch. I startle easily and I get angry. I get angry at my mom because she embarrasses me in front of my friends. She tells me I’m showing off in front of them. I get angry at her when she doesn’t let me have something sweet. I usually don’t want anything sweet, but sometimes I do and she tells me to eat vegetables. I get angry at her when she doesn’t let me watch TV. I get more angry at my mom than my dad.

I don’t care if my room is messy, but I want my desk to be neat. I’m really grossed out by other people’s dirt, like if they have dishes in the sink or the toilet isn’t real clean. I think I have big feet; I’m embarrassed by them and don’t tell people what size shoes I wear. I don’t wear shorts because of the size of my behind. I don’t like the way I look in a bathing suit.

When my head hurts, it hurts in my forehead or the top of my head. It’s worse when I take off my glasses. They can pop up at any time, but usually when I’m concentrating on something. It feels like someone is pressing my head. It melts away in a little while. Rubbing my head helps and rubbing my eyes helps a lot. My eyes sometimes have thick yellow goop in them.

My nose has been congested my whole life. If I wipe it too much, it burns. I can’t breath through my nose at all. My skin is patchy, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m not real sensitive to pain. I’ve had ring worm before and it didn’t bother me then, either.

I’m worried about death. I have trouble falling asleep. I think about death. I want to stay here for ever. I don’t want to die. I wish my family could stay alive for ever.

I’ve got some pretty good friends. Everyone likes me. But my friends get on my nerves sometime. If they fight with each other, I don’t like being in the middle of it.

I’m not really warm or cold, but a little more on the cold side than warm. I’m not very thirsty. If I drink cold drinks or eat ice cream, my front teeth feel funny. It happens real quick and then it goes away.

It sometimes feels like my poop is right there and won’t come out. I have to push real hard. My poop is hard. Sometimes it’s big, but a lot of times it’s like grapes. When I pee, it trickles. If I wait, afterward, more comes out. Sometimes it’s really, really dark.

I have nightmares. I’m aware while I’m dreaming that they are dreams. People get killed. I see dead bodies. My parents get injured or killed. I’m hanging onto a cliff and the ledge was breaking. I can wake myself up from the dreams.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a thick block all over and then like a little block. It’s usually at night. I see it in my mind and then I feel it. Then when I am a little block a woman’s or a man’s voice tells me, ‘E, do this!’ It freaks me out. I don’t know who it is, but the voice sounds kinda familiar. It only happens when I’m not doing anything. I hear it in my head, but I don’t see anything. Sometimes I try to think of when I blinked and then blink again. When I blink, the voice goes away.

Analysis: I was tempted to use the voices as a key to the case. However, she did not seem mentally disturbed at all. Quite the contrary. So I decided that the voices were an after effect of the high fever and if I found the remedy that fit the rest of her case, they would subside.

I gave the remedy, which I’ll reveal at the end of this article, in a 200C potency.

Three month follow up re ES: I’ve been wanting cereal. My teeth are still sensitive to cold. I don’t think about death anymore; only about life stuff. I’m making plans for when I’m older. I want to be a librarian. I found a new way to get to sleep. My pee comes out now, but I still have hard poop.

I don’t hear the voice much any more; only one time since I saw you. The voice yelled at me. It yelled my name. I still felt like a block when I heard it. I’m not embarrassed about my feet anymore. I found out they weren’t as big as I thought. I don’t get the headaches anymore except when I’m in the car and I look out the window. So I read.

I redid my room and it’s neat now. My mom got me some more shelves. Everything has a place now.

My nose is running a lot now. It’s not as stuffy. A lot of thick yellow-grey goop comes out. The ringworm is gone.

I dreamed about the cliff again. I fell off the edge. It was creepy and scary. There was a green thing at the bottom and it attracted people so they fell over the cliff when they leaned out to look at it. Then they died on the rocks below. When I fell, the green thing chased me. I woke myself up.

I repeated the remedy in a 200C.

Second three month follow up re ES: I can breath through my nose! Everything is better. I heard the voice again once and I had one headache. I’m able to fall asleep now when I go to bed. I don’t have any more nightmares and my poop is fine.

This time I did not give a remedy, but decided to wait.

A year later, I gave the remedy in a 1M when she had a repeat of the headache. That was a year ago. I recently talked with the mother and ES has been fine.

Using Murphy’s repertory I’ve shown the distribution of the top five remedies based on totality. The remedy I gave was Arsenicum album.