Clinical Cases

I Cant Find Joy

Written by Camilla Sherr

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Woman  45 years old.       Previous remedies: Puls, Ignatia Sepia

I’m hopeless at remembering. For ages I’ve had returning spells of tiredness, which leave me flat out on my back – like in an anaesthetic: you can’t stop the sleep.

Some days I sleep from 7pm – 6am, going straight to sleep after work. Some days I find I’m falling asleep a lot at school. The tiredness is accompanied by shortness of breath.

I have an underactive thyroid gland. I would stop eating for a week, but lose no weight.

I have no interest for life – a lack of interest. I can’t find joy. I love my kids, but I have no energy for pleasure.

I had a terrible depression a few years ago. I was crying all the time.

My little brother died very suddenly when I was 13. My parents got divorced. Their marriage was awful: they hated each other. I wouldn’t take sides. Mum took it out on me. She didn’t want me, but didn’t want father to have me.

I got raped at 17. I couldn’t tell anybody at the time, they would have said it was my fault.

My marriage split up when my kids were 2 & 3 years old.

My ex-husband didn’t find me sexually attractive. He wanted a wife & kids, but not us. I developed cancer of the cervix & womb the year after we divorced.

The local anaesthetics shocked me!

I had a hysterectomy 1990 / 91. Since then I have never been strong again.

Everything is fine, but life isn’t fun.

If I let go I’ll drown in my sorrow. It’s totally overwhelming: I’ll never ever get out of it.

My eyes hurt from lights -The pain shoots into my eyes.

I have memory weakness (< Puls).

Pain in the sternum: easy to pinpoint.

I used to dream that I was awake, and people were breaking in. I couldn’t defend the children: I could hear them through my sleep, but couldn’t wake up.

DREAMS:

Used to be of people harming the children.

Or of a vulnerable old man in a whole line of corpses: still alive, but nobody cared. I was stuck in a water that was also going over the edge. I couldn’t help this man: I had to walk away and leave him.

I think this dream comes from my brother dying: he had a disease, lots of operations. His kidneys were weak. One morning he was ill. I said he should go to hospital. Mum called a GP – who said he’d pulled a muscle in his back. He died in the middle of the night.

If only I’d pushed for him to go to hospital.    If I’d tried I’d feel better now.

I cried only the first day. Mother said I couldn’t upset other people.

My mother had 2 boys, then 5 abortions, then me. I wasn’t wanted.

My son has a kidney problem -it was a nasty shock when we found out.

FEARS:

I’m afraid for the children / people I love when they’re in situations that I’m not in control of: when I have to trust them to someone else…like in someone else’s car

I have vertigo for the first 5 minutes to an hour after getting out of bed.

My throat aches: my mouth feels hollow & not there.

It feels like a lump.

Stomach bloated, lots of wind.  My face, my cheeks are very red.

I hate conflicts, I back down.  I get embarrassed easily.  I feel stupid.  I am quiet I do not talk much.  I have not got much sense of humour.  I get irritable if people don’t do things when they said they would.

I was suppressed by my parents, I always, always had to be good. I was punished for things that my brother did.  I had a boyfriend for a long time. After two years together, I found out that he was married. It was a shock.

One day my ex-husband came to get the kids and suddenly he leapt on me, attacked. My muscles were torn, shock!  I don’t stand up for myself.

I have a pain at the back of my head as if someone hit me with a hammer (OS).  My main feeling is unappreciated and unloved.  It is all too much.  Back pain at the kidney region, better for urination.  The urine is green or ginger.

When I sleep in the afternoon I hear the children speak to me but I can’t react, I can’t wake up. Dreams of something stuck in the throat, I need to get it out. (OS).

I feel unlovable and unlikable, like I am not a nice person, I just want to get to the end of my life, I’ll never have friends who like me.  I just want to get to the end.

My memory is awful. I live like an animal, I can’t think or plan forward. I’m tired and weak. My neck and shoulders are very sore, like a nerve trapped, I had whiplash years ago.  I hate social things, I can’t think of anything to say, I’ve got nothing to say, I don’t want to be there. Things change all the time. My neck feels always swollen, like a pea is stuck there/ all my pains are changeable, h/a changeable.

Dreams all the time of not being able to protect the children.

A most lovely dream of Sydney opera house, the waves came in, the wind catches it and every time a little bit of salt grains onto it, there was a big cavern made of salt crystals, very beautiful.

I used to dream of flying and floating like a helicopter.

I have no confidence, work is difficult. People think I’ve made a mistake and think I’m not good at it even tho’ I am, the credit always goes to other people.

I can’t eat fish, it makes me unhappy. I try to eat salt because I try to get the thyroid down.

I feel hopeless. Since my brother died there has been no hope, no purpose. There can be no joy.

I have everything, there is nothing to be sad about except that I don’t have friends. I get tearful and unhappy from alcohol. I get a sharp pain in chest if I don’t swallow properly.

I will never be happy or have love again. My grief is so overwhelming I feel like I’m going to drown in it. It feels like it all happened five minutes ago, time hasn’t healed anything, I feel I’m still in shock.

Note: very shallow breathing, patient constantly out of breath, gasping for air.

RX: Cygnus cygnus 30c

Follow up 6 weeks:

I can think! It’s been so long since I could think, I couldn’t hold on to information, plan ahead and now I can! My memory is much, much better.

I’m happy! Really happy and so strong, I speak up when I should. The hopeless feeling is gone, all the pains are gone, I don’t even remember what I had, I’m pain-free.

I feel so much stronger physically that I do much more of everything, more yoga, I can push myself much further.

My eyes are so much better, I can see way way better, it’s amazing. It’s like you’re in deep dirty water and you can’t see properly, you’re looking thru’ something, now I can see very clearly. Pain from light gone.

I am generally much warmer. Sleep better. It’s ages since I needed a sleep in the day.

My appetite went weird, I got symptoms from years ago, first I was better during eating (OS from 20 years ago), then worse after eating, then it settled.

My neck changed from hard and lumpy to swollen feeling like a bull-frog, it went through phases, now better than ever.

My neck and shoulders are 80-90% better!

I’m much calmer and much less frightened from sudden noises or being startled. I told a man: “Don’t stand there over me threatening me!” Generally speaking I can’t think of anything to be afraid of.

The dreams about not being able to protect my children are gone. I had a dream where I was looking at my own dead body and not understanding that I was dead, I felt so alive. Another dream about eating brownballs with my daughters when we were told they were poisonous, my daughter fell down dead and I just walked off. Then I went back and she had revived. It was like a Snow White story.

For the first time my confidence is better, especially in social situations.

No more bloating. The headaches, which were there all the time, dull, weary pain are completely gone. Also the sharp pains are going.

The feeling of being hit on the head with a hammer came back briefly and then went. Sternum pain is still there, but before it was a sharp pain, now much softer. Back pain near kidneys gone.

About my past griefs and pains; I could never forget about them, they were with me all the time, I felt that I could go back to giving birth like it finished 2 minutes ago. Now the emotional weight is gone, like it didn’t happen to me.

It feels like something fundamental is changing, the other remedies were helpful but this one seems to have touched me very deeply.

When told what the remedy was she said she always told her yoga students to be like swans, totally composed on the outside but feet working like mad under the water.

The only picture I ever bought myself was of a swan, it’s smack in the middle of the living room.

Rx: No remedy, improvement continues

Followup 4 months later:

Some physical symptoms returned, another dose of Cygnus cygnus 30c with excellent results.

THEMES OF CASE

AILMENTS FROM GRIEF & SUPPRESSED GRIEF

GRIEF AS IF IT HAPPENED 5 MINS AGO, FEELS LIKE A SHOCK

HOPELESS DESPAIR

LOST LOVE FOR LIFE

DROWNING

FLYING

SHALLOW BREATHING

NECK PROBLEMS

About the author

Camilla Sherr

Camilla Sherr

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