A girl who loved the colour black: a case of Crocodile

Children, if allowed, express their unique energy pattern completely raw, pure, and uninhibited; a homeopathic physician may get overwhelmed observing the entire pattern unfolding in front of him. It is important for a homeopath to be vigilant, sensitive, observant and skilful to capture the raw energy pattern of a child that unfolds itself in his consulting room; it is vitally important for a homeopath to provide a pregnant space to each of his patients (including children) that can help them to out pour their sub-conscious with spontaneity. This pregnant space is what Dinesh Chauhan names the passive phase of case witnessing. I call this space ‘pregnant’ because it has so much to offer! For the patient, allowing this space causes a smooth, spontaneous, uninhibited out-pouring of his inner self. For a homeopath, this space initiates clarity and enables a homeopath to know:

- What stage of the case he is in?
- How much journey is still left to reach the vital core of this patient?
- How to travel that journey?
- How much time it may take to get there (vital core)?
- What types of defences patient is presenting?
- How to intelligently tackle the defences presented?

The importance of passive case witnessing is that it offers a free space to the patient where they can find a connection with their deeper self, to come up with those PQRS which we might otherwise miss if we start intervening too soon with our pre-formed question list. Allowing the pregnant space in the initial stage of case-witnessing means allowing a smooth journey when a homeopath intervenes actively, (what Dinesh  calls the Active and Active- Active phases of case witnessing) in order to follow the unique energy pattern of the case.

I would like to share a case from my clinic of a three and a half year old girl child; here, allowing this Passive space helped me to get all her peculiar expressions through her gestures, through her drawings and through all her PQRS expressions, then I actively intervened to understand her deeper core and prescribe her an appropriate simillimum.

Each child has their own peculiar way of expressing their energy pattern; children are so closely in touch with their sub-conscious self[1]; some expresses their selves through their fears, some through their dreams, some through their use of drawings, and so on. This particular child opened up through her drawings.

A three and a half year old child was brought to me in March 2011 for multiple infected Molluscum contagiosum over her face since four months; her right eyebrow was swollen with 4-5 pus-filled mollusca located close to each other, another two were beside her upper lip.

The case came with its own challenge since the child only spoke two words during the consultation, although she baby-talked. I tried talking with the girl, but she just looked at me. Her mother started her own journey when asked to describe the child. It was the girl’s drawings that helped me to understand her unique energy pattern. She was not ready to stay alone in the room with me, so I asked her mother to talk about the child while I kept my eye on her.   

Mother (M): “She still baby-talks, just saying a few words, and does not talk with strangers. She is not toilet trained and so she wears diapers. She gets colds and she coughs very often, for which she is often given allopathic treatment. (Obs: the child moves her legs constantly)  “She spits her food out and is very fussy about food habits. She loves chocolates, ruffles lays (potato chips), all tasty market snacks. She does not like sweets and homemade food. She gets scared very easily. If someone screams, she behaves as if she is being beaten (mother’s interpretation).She is quite a short tempered girl; if she is angry, she screams, throws herself on the ground, hits me, cries, and throws tantrums. Her anger is just like mine. When I am angry, I scream… (Obs: the mother starts telling about her own anger and reactions. Here, it is vital to differentiate her own reactions from those of the child, omitting the part where the mother says “she must have felt…”)”

M: “She is scared of staying alone; she is always clinging to me and she refuses to go alone from one room of the house to another, even if I just ask her to get a toy from another room. On coming home from playschool, she never leaves my side. She startles in her sleep. My husband only visits home infrequently, as he stays in another city, so we are just the two of us at home. She is active, she loves going out. She is possessive about her stuff. (Obs: child jumps, playing with a toy puppet.)
“She talks a lot and asks a lot of questions. She talks about big things like ‘I’ll go to USA and do shopping, etc.’ with her older sisters. She loves wearing makeup and lipstick.”
Obs: she scratches the skin on her face. Then, suddenly, she hits the toy that she was holding very hard on the ground. She murmurs, “I’ll kill the mouse.” Then, she becomes restless, moving from one corner of my room to the next.

M: “She loves colors. She loves cold drinks and cold food. When she coughs, she vomits frequently. She has episodes of colds and coughs about four to five times a week. At night, she wakes up from sleep screaming as if searching for me, then she complains of leg pains. She kicks her legs in her sleep, hitting her legs very hard on the bed for relief. She feels better if I press her legs hard. She is very sensitive about my fights with her father; she turns violent on seeing us fighting.”

Obs: we see element of violence in this child, the way she behaves with her anger, her reactions when she is scared, with her leg pains and when she is upset watching parents fight. The violent way she hits the toy fits the same pattern.

Urvi Chauhan (UC): since the mother had nothing more to add, I asked her to share her pregnancy history with me.
Can you tell me about your pregnancy? What were the changes you went through when you conceived her?
M: “It was a late pregnancy, I conceived her when I was forty. I have daughters who are married and have kids. I had high blood pressure and diabetes all throughout the pregnancy and I put on a lot of weight. I used to get severe leg pains.

Then, she told me about her life situation, her poor relationship with her husband, and about the suicidal thoughts that she got because of this situation. Later, she described how she and her husband used to fight when he came back home and how sensitive the child is to these fights, confirming my impression that violence is one core symptoms of the case.

While I continued talking with the mother, the child picked up some coloured pencils and started scribbling on the paper.

UC: Anything more about the child?
M: “She loves colours. She shares her toys with friends. On television, she likes watching movies.”

The child asked for more paper. She drew quickly on one page after another. It was really interesting to see the way she held the pencil and drew: she held pencil between her thumb and index finger and applied a lot of pressure when she scribbled. All she drew were lines. Interestingly, in all her drawings, she mostly used black. In between, she used green and scribbled lots of close lines, again with a lot of pressure; the pressure with which she scribbled was so strong that the page got torn off. Again, she picked up the black pencil and drew a few small lines. She picked up another page and drew something: I heard her say, “This is a gun. This is a knife; the police kills with a knife.” She asked me for more pages and scribbled pink lines; again in the pink part she drew something sharp, like the knife in the earlier drawing. Then, she picked up a black pencil and drew with anger, holding the pencil between her thumb and index finger, the way one holds a knife in order to attack. She scribbled black all over the page with lots of pressure, exerting a lot of energy. When she stopped drawing, she went close to her mom.

I could see a faint pattern to starting to emerge in this passive space, and now it was time for me to intervene actively and understand all the PQRS, the mystery of the puzzle that the child laid in front of me. I asked her to describe her drawings one after another. 

Patient (P): (First drawing) these are crocodiles. The Police come and hit the crocodile with a fist.”
Strange! I was amazed with this description of her drawing; from where did the crocodile come? I asked her to tell more about that drawing but she just looked at me, so I went to the next drawing and asked her to describe it.

P: (while pointing at the black colour) “Crocodile”.
When I showed the patient her drawings, these are the words that she kept repeating: “crocodile, kill, police”. And when she said “crocodile”, she pointed at the black lines that she had scribbled. The next drawing was the one where she murmured “knife, police kill” and where she had drawn a pointed object. I give her that drawing and asked to describe it.

P: “Police kills the crocodile with a knife.” (Obs: pointing at the sharp object she drew over the paper.)

Here, she gave more details:  in this drawing, police was killing the crocodiles. The issues of violence and killing that we got during the passive phase of the case was connected and confirmed here. In the drawing with the pink lines and a pointed object, she described the object as knife.

I asked her to explain all her drawings; she said “They are crocodiles; the crocodile is killing people and then the police come with a knife and kill the crocodiles.” Here she used the same gesture that she used to hold the pencil, as though holding a knife. In the initial phase of the consultation, she would just murmur two or three unconnected words, but to describe these drawings she could actually make half-broken sentences, indicating that we are on the right track, close to her central core. Finally, I asked her to describe her last drawing where she scribbled black all over with a lot of pressure and anger on her face.

P: “These are crocodiles, there are many of them. They kill people. Police will come and kill them.” (Obs: again, crocodile, kill, and the same story!!!)

When she had nothing more to reveal, I asked her mother what she is sensitive to watching on television.

M: “If there is any horrific scene with violence, like a wild animal killing another animal, she wants me to change the channel.” 

This proved that the child is sensitive to the issue of attack and defense, of predators killing the prey, a vital piece of information which confirms that her energy is in animal kingdom. I asked her if she liked watching animals on television, to which her mother said yes. Other than that, she liked to watch Hindi moves and advertisements. Again, this confirmed that this girl needed a remedy from the animal kingdom, but we need to put this information in the context of the whole case.

Analysis
Centre of the case: VIOLENCE and SYPHILITIC tendency: the way she scribbled on the paper, the way she behaved with toys in the clinic, the way she reacted with anger, her sensitivity towards violence shown on television (a wild animal attacking another animal), her description of police killing the crocodiles, her physical complaints of violent pains in the legs, severely infected mollusca, and her mother who suffered from severe DM/HT during pregnancy.
This violence had a pattern where somebody attacks the other, kills somebody (she killed the mouse, police killed the crocodile, crocodiles killed people, a wild animal attacked another animal) pointing at the animal kingdom. Her pattern of destruction: stab/kill/knife/strike, hitting the toy very hard on the floor and saying “I killed the mouse” point towards the animal kingdom.

Another interesting pattern about the VIOLENCE is the element of SUDDENNESS. She described CROCODILE in almost all her drawings. It was interesting to note that the energy pattern in various areas of her life is the same, be it the way in which she described the crocodile, the way she stabs the toy in my consultation room, her talk of killing the mouse or the way she scribbles violently on the paper, all tune up exactly. Thus, ‘crocodile’ was not just the image but the source itself, as it connected all the peculiar energy expressions (including verbal and non-verbal) of the child in the case and come up repetitively in all her drawings.

Crocodiles belong to the reptilian class of the animal kingdom, which include snakes and lizards. Crocodiles are specifically known for violence, aggression and destruction; especially sudden violence and aggressive behaviour. Crocodiles are considered to be more aggressive and reactive than alligators.

Proving symptoms

Fright and fear
Prover: “I was asleep for one hour and woke up paralyzed with fear and total terror. I was frozen and could not move. It was the most fearful that I have ever been in my life.”

Violence and rage
Crocodilians are mostly nocturnal hunters; they rely on stealth, speed and surprise. They are idle hunters, lying in wait in the offshore shallows in camouflage.

Other characteristic symptoms from the case
Black colour
Fear to stay alone
Screams with fear
Crocodile
Infected mollusca
Violent anger

Prescription: Crocodile 200C one dose
I would have preferred 1M as the child resonated at higher level of experience but I only had Crocodile in 200 potency available.

Summary of follow ups
Within fifteen days after the first dose of medicine, the molluscum over her right eye turned red, and pus and blood streaked discharges started to ooze out. The child’s right eye was swollen and she could hardly keep it open. This lasted for 10-12 days and then, the eruptions started drying out. Then, gradually the rest of the mollusca over her cheek swelled up and started oozing pus and blood. Finally, in the span of one and a half months, her mollusca dried up. I had to repeat the dose of Crocodile 200 twice, when she got frightful dreams of ghosts and got up with a start from her sleep, and when her leg pains reappeared. After two months of starting the treatment, when all her mollusca were gone leaving black spots, she developed dermatitis on her hand ,which gradually improved on its own. After seven months of treatment, she continued to do well: the mollusca and the dark spots recovered completely, her frequency to develop colds and coughs reduced considerably and her leg pains were gone. Her speech gradually started to improve. In all, I repeated three doses of Crocodile 200 in seven months.

After that, her mother, who also was my patient, stopped coming with her daughter. On inquiring over the phone, she said that because of her daughter’s school, she did not have time to come for the follow ups.

I knew the child (and the mother) both had a deep seated disturbed state with a deep miasmatic influence and would require a long term follow up of homeopathy and some counselling sessions with the mother to bring a balance in their lives.

The mother continued to come infrequently to my clinic to collect medicine for her daughter whenever there were acute episodes of cold and cough. In both instances, Crocodile 200 was repeated. Now, in a span on one and a half years, the mollusca have not reappeared, the frequency and duration of cold episodes and leg pains have reduced considerably. The child who barely spoke now talks fluently. She still has some infrequent leg pains, to which the poor eating habits perhaps contribute. Her fears and anger still need improvement. It would be good if the child and mother would continue homeopathic treatment on a regular basis; the mother also needs to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

[1] Chauhan Dinesh; A Wander with A Little Wonder: Child Centric case Witnessing; Philosia Publications, India

Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Crocodilus acutus; Tomas Castelazo; CC BY-SA 2.5