I Feel Fragmented! A 10M Case of Magnetis Poli Ambo

(This is one of those amazing cases that is a privilege to experience. Moira is a 10M patient and as I explained in my article, Case-taking Methods at NYSH, the 10M patient is subconsciously so strongly connected to the experience of the source of their remedy, that the homeopath only needs to listen and ask an occasional question. The homeopath can enjoy taking a journey with the patient, in this case, straight to the experience of Magnet.

This write up is mostly Moira’s words, along with the few questions that were asked. (HG stands for hand gesture) (words that very directly relate to magnet are in bold.)

The student homeopath was Angela Molinini, who continues to stay in touch with this patient four years later. She is also NYSH’s most appreciated Facebook moderator!

First Intake 10/15/2011

Why are you here?

“I have problems with anxiety and not feeling grounded ever and not really feeling in my skin. Not ever feeling like I’m in my skin, almost feeling like I’m watching myself sometimes and not being relaxed. It’s very much in the upper half of my body.  I’m cerebral, a thinker.  I have neck issues, sore throats, I’m anxious, my heart races a lot.  I feel a distance to situations and people. There’s always this sort of tension, nervous and tight. I’m tightly wound. A little light headed – a lot is in my head.  Short of breath – not to the point where I can’t breathe. I feel fractured.  It’s like being up here and not all there.”

Fractured?  

“Splintered is a better word.  Just feel like I’m not all there.  Intellectually not a problem. Thought’s not a problem. Physically I’ll not all there. Physically I am losing touch. Losing that wholeness. Feels airy – and tense, that’s why I go to splinter, I don’t feel breezy. Like I can’t be in the moment. My brain is working to control things. Grasping. Subjective/ objective feeling.  A lot of reaction environmental stimulus.  I’m not present so I’m not feeling.  My senses – all of my senses are not working. Feeling too much, don’t feel myself.  I guess it’s all being in my head.  I don’t feel my body.  Reacting, responding or overly stimulated.”

Splintered?

“I think really not. I’m not being present. Being in many places at once.  Maybe even trying to flee. Flee – even on the subway.  I tend to get very tense. I don’t want to run but wanting to get out of the situation.  It’s strange – my whole body tenses up.  It’s not anything perceptible but it’s not I don’t feel like maybe it’s a slight paranoia.  I’m not scared of anything.  Too many people around.  Just can’t be there. Tightness in shoulders, muscles, head, clenching. I feel like– not liking to be watched or looked at. I always felt petrified going into a group. Heart fluttering, light headed, short of breath, not on the ground. You try to cover it up so it becomes tense.”

Light headed?
“Light headed is like I’m not there- I’m distracted and all over the place. I don’t feel (HG ) focused, I feel (HG hands going out) diffused, distracted.

I guess it’s that splintering feeling- like there was an explosion and I want to get a magnet and bring it all back.

(HG) That’s all dispersed and there’s a lot of tension- in the heart area. Maybe the tension is exploding, then I try to control it and I get tense and locked up. I think because I get so distracted, maybe it’s my mind that is splintered.”

Splintered?
“It’s the shape of a splinter, not a particle. It’s not a bunch of fuzzy dancing particles, its that shape- I lose my focus, my groundedness and I can see there’s a core but everything else is going out of it in that shape.”

Shape?
“The shape of a splinter- long, thin, pointy, and hard, needle-y. (she really laughed when asked to go further on this). Yeah, that shape like a needle but not that long. It feels jagged. It’s edgy. Not bubbly and ditzy it feels jagged.

It has a sharp quality.  Stop and go kind of quality.  Not round, soft, or airy or air-headed, more metallic.  I guess the sharpness and the substantialness feels heavy. It splinters and goes off but it’s heavy.

It feels a little cold. It’s like that magnet with the little long pointed filaments that you can scatter, but you can bring it all back into a ball with a magnet (HG- she demonstrates that toy with the magnet and metal filaments under plastic). It’s like I try to get it back. It’s like my head is trying to get it back- that dispersal… my head struggles to get it  back, It can’t so that’s what causes the tension, and that’s when I clench my eyes, my neck, jaw (HG). I would stop breathing, I would hold my breath, pull everything in so tight I would hold my breath. Everything is clenched and tense and drawn in.

It’s metallic – I would say that because of the fact it had a weight and a sharpness and the cold factor.  And maybe a little sort of magnetic quality. It’s not flexible. No flexibility, no powder, softness. It’s a dark chill.  It’s more of a lack of warmth than an actual feeling of cold. More of a description through it’s negative. I’ve always been drawn to metal. I’m a jewelry designer. I do like silver, though gold is easier to work with.  I’ve always liked cool colors. I’ve used brass, a cool shade of brass.  Mostly I use metal (HG), hematite, steely deep gray, smooth, deep, dark, dark grey steel. Like the color of a magnet – not black but dark gray.  It’s more reflective.  It’s not a mirror, but it’s shiny.”

Cold?
“I thinks it’s my general insecurity and anxiety, the cold thing, and when I’m not tense I feel very warm. I’m not necessarily cold or warm but when I see that tension, it’s very cool – it’s a lack of warmth, my inability to be warm and grounded and whole.  I don’t feel I’m cold.  I’m a cold person in general but I don’t run cold.  The metal is cold – the type of metal I see – if I were to touch it would be cool to touch.

No airyness, powdereyness, but edges and points. Dark, cold, chill. Lack of warmth.

My muscles are clenching. This up here would be chaos, twisted wire, the feeling of being all over the place, and down here would be clenching tension. Twisted wire is like a birds nest or something. Like metal but lighter.

The tension below is darker. Darker feeling. Either thick or thin its darker. Thicker more firm, clenching tension (HG) like a pole. Not in a grounded way but stiff.  When I am tense I don’t feel my feet or the ground.”

Grounded?
“Ground? That is if I feel my feet. When I’m anxious, I don’t feel my feet.  I don’t feel the ground.”

Ungrounded?
“Feels tense and dark – it doesn’t feel light – it feels weighted.  Maybe it’s airy but not free.  Kind of flowing but not in the way that you feel released from something.  That freedom, that levity, in that positive way. Weighted dark, but not on the ground. I don’t feel rooted. It’s like my head is floating, and the rest doesn’t exist

That constant brain activity doesn’t allow anything else to exist. I can’t be whole.”

Whole?
“Softer, lighter, less frenetic, less darting, more flexible, less of a structure. More being in the moment. More flexible.  Maybe even less rigid but less as sort of a structure.  I think maybe there’s a little bit of a fear of not being a structure even though I don’t feel I’m a structure. (HG – pole like).

Like a rigid permanent thing. I would love to be able to not be so rigid. To go in and out of a situation and not feel the need to be that big of a pretense or need to be a presence.

Part of the problem is – that tension – not part of annihilation. Not being this rigid impermeable thing. Like a pole. You can’t get around it. You can’t change it. It’s controlled. It’s a rigid thing that is … can’t really be changed.  That’s how I feel.  I take on that rigidity.”

Your drawing?

“I always liked the silhouette of trees. The roots mimic the branches, I like the stark darkness against the light. I like the roots turning into the branches, seems very cliche – lol  – not being grounded …

A tree reaches into the air but is rooted, grounded. I never had that the rootedness.

When I look at the drawing I see my state. Like my brain going off in different directions. When I am anxious that happens- I get splintered or fractured.”

Dreams?
“A recurring nightmare: a terrible nightmare of aftermath of some horrible war torn place where I lived, huge bulldozers, gray and black. It was frightening, I would never see the explosion or bombing – always the aftermath, we were all alive, horrible horrifying landscape with bull dozers and ruins.”

Note: I felt pretty sure this patient was describing magnet or magnetic force, especially because she was speaking about her debilitating anxiety in a nonsensical way. I knew about Hahnemann’s magnet remedies including Magnetis poli ambo, but apparently we had not discussed the magnet remedies much in class. My clinic students either didn’t know, or had forgotten, that magnet was a remedy. On Sunday during the analysis, not surprisingly, there was chaos, mainly because the case was about her chaotic mind, which we were all feeling. Everyone in the clinic was confused by her nonsensical talk and no one was agreeing on a remedy. I had magnet in mind, but I never mention my own remedy choice until everyone in the class has discussed their selected remedy. When no one saw magnet but me, I kept silent and asked the patient to come in again. I felt that I needed to be certain that the patient was describing magnet before I could prescribe such an unusual remedy.

Moira’s 2nd Intake – 11/05/2011

“I have racing brain syndrome. I get frozen, I freeze up and want to hide, I get up tight and haughty? It feels very … I just get really tense. And I pull in and get very… I can’t follow conversation I just want withdraw. I just get extremely tense-”

Tense?
“If I’m forced to approach a group I’ll freeze and blank. I withdraw and feel really small. Shrink down. Feels edgy and there’s a tightness in my head, (she is weeping), like I am holding my breath.

Everything is concentrated up here (head) and I’m not aware of being here.

It’s a survivalist type of feeling. There is no joy in it. People are taking aim. You want to find a safe spot. Things don’t ever feel safe. Frenetic. And edgy.”

Edgy?
“Hard, feels hard. Everything is so stiff and has corners. Just being in physical space is hard and fixed and rigid and has … (HG of two fists, and then she shapes a ball). As if things had a shell, not everything’s weighted, things are more geometric and more fixed.”

More…
“It’s not like a stone thing. It’s hard and heavy, like armor, like a shell, a coating, has no real depth or actual heaviness.

It’s not like throwing yourself against a building but everything has a hard shell and its not giving doesn’t ebb and flow.

Not spiky but these things are there, it’s a directional thing. Static, oppressive in my space. Not moving towards, it’s just directional. It feels like it could be malignant but its not moving. It causes this dark feeling around my head, makes it… my brain feels tired, I don’t want to say flighty, but its unable to respond quickly, or sometimes its too quick. It feels like a survivalist mode.”

Can you draw that feeling?
“Yes I can… this is me (the pole) and this is my head up here… and all this (she scribbles at the top)… this is that dark feeling all around my head- all this energy up here!”

What’s it like for you to walk into a group of people?

“It feels huge, I feel small, a mouse facing a herd of lions. I feel like I want to disappear. I go around the edges of the group.

I’m walking into a (HG) big circle and things are flooding me so I tune it out. It’s a big force so I want to become small and not deal with it. Its more like a stiffness and I’ll almost put a bubble around myself. Almost like a black hole and draws everything in and gets compressed. Compression, it almost turns physical, pull the coat tight, I want to draw in really tight. My reaction would be to control it all but I can’t, don’t even try, but I fear all of the (HG fingers moving wildly), its just this big thing. A big sort of mass and there’s too much coming at me and I don’t want to go near it. Different reactions. It feels big and oppressive.

It’s not like a mountain and you’re at the bottom, it just feels like this thing and all I want to do is skirt around it-

It’s not like I am going to get sucked in, (spontaneous denial)… when I sense that mass I get fearful and tense and anxious.

It has a lot of edges, geometric, hard but not …

Feels formidable. Impenetrable.

If I went up to it, it would be poised and then push back. (HG both palms facing each other as if there is a cushion of air keeping them apart).

The mass would just move to keep pushing.

It multiplies on itself, so I try to keep my difficulties to myself and go around it.

If we have to go around in a circle to introduce ourselves, I can hardly breathe. I get that feeling that I just want to compress everything, it gets dark and pressure is in my head,

It’s a big force, and it’s all (HG hands up) directed, abstract energy directed at you, its just one big thing that I can’t get a finger on, it’s not moving, it feels too close, I don’t feel something hitting me or touching me, if it were anything it would be like a cushion of air pressing on me and creates that compressed feeling as if an air mattress was pushing against you, you would get a little dizzy, doesn’t feel jagged, just pushing the air. It would have that claustrophobic feeling, soft pressure.”

Any dreams?

“They are sometimes in color, sometimes drab, often in a plane. Last night there was another draft and jeeps were whizzing by and there was a 14 year old boy and I was trying to help him get away. David Bowie was there and complaining about the war.

It was upsetting to be in a state of the world that was tragic or difficult. I was trying to help people who were around me and we were on vacation of some sort so I wasn’t being affected so I was trying to help. The police were after the son. It was sad, it was a lack of control, lack of self determination. I was trying to make the best of it.

You feel (HG, ball) tense.

Lots of crashes, it can’t get off the ground. I feel as if I should be able to help the plane get up – like running to fly like hang gliding, it sort of has that feeling as if you are the plane.

When it falls it’s a helpless feeling. The engine will go out and the plane falls – panic. Like rushing to figure out if anything can be done. Not a death feeling.”

Tell us again about the tree drawing?

“This drawing has roots and yet the branches can go out. If I am nervous the branches get light and faint and that thing starts happening and I can’t get a thought put together, and sometime the branches are deliberate. There’s a balance I like above and below. That’s very calming.

It has that exploding quality- I spoke of fragments before…

I am so analytical and I over think when I get into these situations that are not airy- it feels sort of splintered. Like a broken mirror, those kind of pieces, fractured. Looks like glass but doesn’t feel like glass, doesn’t feel sharp.

I compress and then it all culminates in my head and fragments. I can’t get control back.

It’s more like it just falls apart (HG fingers twinkling)….I don’t feel a dramatic (HG explosion).

If something was made up of facets they would just sort of fall, like puzzle pieces falling out. Just hovering there, there’s not a big gravitational feeling to it, they hover like these guys (the ends of the branches) just stay there till I can get away and breathe again.

I’m a recovering control freak. To feel safe I needed to know what makes me safe. You feel someone’s always out to get you. Survivalist mentality. It’s anxiety.”

We prescribe Magnetis Poli Ambo 1M. I suspected she needed 10M and I ordered both 1M and 10M, but I started her on 1M. I regret not having the courage to use the 10M from the start, but it seemed like a very high potency to start with.

Follow-up Feb.12, 2012

How did the remedy feel?

“It felt depressive, it was pulling me and pushing at the same time, metallic taste, headaches, a really low time, but after three weeks it felt better. The first week was terrible. I couldn’t get anything done. I felt pulled down and had trouble getting off the couch because I was so heavy. For the first three weeks, I was worse than before the remedy. Well, really, it was only one week. The other two weeks I simply felt slow. By the fourth week I felt it was better than before the remedy but I didn’t trust it. I had felt something physical was happening and that felt wrong. I’m used to things being slow, and this was faster than I am able to handle, and it was too much. This was great but I wasn’t expecting such a strong reaction….

I took the second dose four weeks later. I felt a little bit of those same symptoms but not as dramatic as the first time, and it didn’t last as long.”

If it felt so strange why were you willing to take a second dose?

“Because I knew somehow that what was happening was right, even if it felt bad. Now I feel good, not as obsessive, I let things in my life go, I feel good about that, I’m slowing things down and I can focus, I don’t feel the nervousness, and if I do, it seems appropriate. I’m not having heart palpitations.

It’s the everyday things – the holidays were a good example, I had to see both families and everything went smoothly, I didn’t feel tense. I could move in and out of every place easily. Being on the subway I don’t tense up anymore, I’m more fluid, more normal, not really anxious.

When I first took the dose, I was quiet because I wasn’t responding fast enough. I am learning to just be ok with whatever’s going on instead of trying to control it. Out of anxiety, I would try to before but not be able to.

Usually I dream of being on trains now instead of planes, but there’s no tension that something bad is going wrong. More grounded it feels like.

I feel like it started a process of healing, it opened as space so I can heal from it, there are openings. I feel like I have opened up to a feeling I never would have had before. It has given me the start of being more relaxed, I can feel it, and its helped the anxiety. I have shed some of the dark from the past that I clung to. I had felt like I was air, I didn’t have a physical form before…

It’s not the exploding that I had after the first dose, it’s a calm open white feeling that would happen for no reason. In general I am softer, less anxious, less stiff and angular.

It feels like I have been taking this remedy for a long time, at least a year.

When I stand, now I feel the floor! It was dramatic, but that was part of the scary feeling, the remedy pulled me down so much, I guess in order to get the balance back. When I got more normal, I simply felt grounded and could feel the physical floor.

I felt like I had been walking on tip toes for many years, but now I could even feel temperature through my feet. I could tell if the floor was cold. That was new- I don’t think I’ve ever felt my feet on the ground before!

There’s been a lot of rebalancing things, some days I would feel very, very, heavy and weighted, and other days I’d feel lighter. There was some see-saw action, after two weeks into the second dose, I could be light and energetic, but still be on the ground.”

Note: It’s a beautiful response but troubling to me that she felt so disturbed after taking each dose of the remedy. I think that the correct remedy, even at too low a potency, helped her profoundly, but the cure did not go as smoothly as it might have in the correct potency. I have seen this in other cases.

We prescribed Magnetis poli ambo 10M, which she took with increasingly good results. Moira stayed in touch with us through her student homeopath, but before she could come in for another clinic follow-up, she began making plans to move to California with her husband. While out there making arrangements in the fall of 2012, she discovered she was pregnant. Below is a very brief summary of her history between the pregnancy and her most recent (Skype) follow-up with the clinic on Jan. 24, 2015.

Moira continued to improve and feel more grounded. She was happy to be pregnant and happy to be in California, where she had grown up and where her family lived. She was concerned that her baby might be affected in utero by her remedy, but we explained it would not hurt the baby and would help her through the process. She had an easy pregnancy and birth experience. She still speaks with her now graduated student homeopath and takes the remedy when needed, every three or four months. Moira and I spoke on the phone in early January 2015, and she agreed to a Skype follow-up during our clinic class.

Moira on the phone 1/22/15

When was the last time you took the remedy?

(really long pause)… 

“Maybe before the holidays.

I probably waited too long and I didn’t realize it until I had my stomach jump and my heart was beating really fast if I just thought of anything I needed to do – even a small thing like set the table. It’s physiological.

I said – oh, I think I need the remedy – I spoke to Angela (student homeopath) and she said yes, so I took it and it took about two weeks for that to stop happening. It finally died down and now I don’t have it at all.

Angela and I talk once a week.

I take the remedy every 3-4 months. It varies. Sometimes I forget to take it.

If I have negative reactions to people I know I should take it again.

I shouldn’t use other people, but that’s how I know I’m tense.

I may not be aware that I’m tense, or emitting that kind of energy, and then I realize I’m tense, edgy and I want the world to go faster.

I want everybody and everything to go faster, smoother, more efficient.

That was always my conflict – wanting to get things done really fast, a bulldozer effect. If things are slow or in my way I want to clear them out. if it’s another person, I want them to get it faster, be as fast as me.

Once I get tense I don’t get as much done.”

What does that mean- emitting that kind of energy?

“It’s tension, negativity and frustration. Not present in the moment, I force things, push too hard.”

After the remedy?

“Right when I take it, I generally feel for a week or so that I have energy, I’m clear, and not as tense, but I feel dissatisfied.

I’m clear, calm, open, but dissatisfied and sometimes resentful.

After a week the dissatisfaction goes away and then I feel at peace with everything. The clarity stays, I get softer- maybe a little less energy, edges get softer, rounder, I can be in the present moment, but sometimes that’s not helpful.

The remedy kept me from getting sick at all in the last 6 months- the entire family had the flu but not me!

Thank you so much, It’s been truly life changing. It’s quite amazing to compare how I used to be with my life now. I feel like I haven’t felt since I was a kid- I remember this feeling when I was a kid- like at age 9- when you have your natural balance. Now with the remedy, it’s like getting that feeling back.

Thank you SO much.”

Well, thank you Moira, for talking with me tonight. 

“No, thank you!”

Clinic Follow-up (skype) | January 24, 2015

Hi Moira, Thanks for talking to the class- can you tell us how you feel on this remedy?
“I’m much more present, much more relaxed. My nervous system was totally out of whack before the remedy. I couldn’t respond to things, I wouldn’t responds to stimuli very well. I don’t have those issues anymore, it’s as if they never existed, except that they did exist, because I have a mental recognition of them.

I pick up on very subtle signals and then I re-dose, but this last time, because I’ve been sleep deprived with the baby, I didn’t really realize what was going on. Prepping before the holidays, I would get pangs, like I was on a roller coaster – my stomach would jump, I would have a racing heart, and it would last for minutes. I would have to breathe and slow myself down. Not because of anything, or because of small things – like cooking dinner on the stove. Just the thought of having to set the table after that, my stomach would jump. I would have to start thinking about the next thing I would have to do, what would I do, the next thing to do – my stomach would jump and my heart would start racing. It’s the combo of sleep deprivation and hormones, maybe a mix, but it has also been too long since taking my remedy, and I realized okay I have to redose. It took weeks for those feelings to go away, but they became more infrequent, more infrequent, and then they went away completely.”

What is the anticipatory anxiety like now?
“I don’t have it all. It’s not that I don’t feel stressed- because I’m starting my own business and looking at schools for my child, and there’s a lot of things going on in my life and yes, I have stress, but I don’t have anxiety, not that neurological anxiety. I can take these things as they come.”

Dreams?
“I used to have dreams where I was always flying and there were plane crashes; now it’s elevators. Last week, the dream was that we had got a new apartment in a dodgy area, nice apartment on the 7^th floor and I had to use elevator – a teeny tiny, barely holds two people kind of elevator. Then it would swing on its axis, and take 30 minutes to get to floor; terrible claustrophobic feeling, never got to the floor, got off at the third floor and walked up the back stairs, and met eccentric neighbors on the way.”

What’s it like to be in a group of people?
“Fine! That’s a big change. Yeah, fine. That’s one of the things where I realize when I have to take my remedy – if I get edgy or nervous about waiting in line at the coffee shop or having to go to a party. I don’t have any of that nervousness when I’m taking the remedy regularly. Especially out here, where things are—I’m not used to the types of group interactions out here, it’s a different thing than NY. It’s a different way to navigate people – more friendly, less close and substantive.”

When you realize you need your Rx, what do you feel in a group?
“I take the remedy every 3-4 months. It varies – last time was about 5 months, but I should have taken it sooner.”

In general, what would you say about the remedy?

“It’s changed my life; compared to where I was when I started to where I am now, I feel like I can be present and focused and accomplish things. I got a lot done before, but I didn’t get good things done, but now I can complete things; this has been transformational, I have positive interactions with people all the time which is nice. With having a baby, I feel like I can be present and calm and that’s…the rest of it is just icing. The fact that I can be a presence in my child’s life is a result of the remedy; from a nervous system standpoint, he has a really nice bearing. In the energy sense, he has my genes; he’s active, but not hyper the way that I was. A lot of that is the influence of me, and being calmer.”