Bismuthum and suicide /+ two cases

Characteristics of Bismuthum
The leader of an organization (gold-series) fails and loses (stage 15) his power (gold-series). He either correctly assesses the situation and voluntarily gives up his position to his successor where by he would solve the problem, or, he responds frantically and desperately tries to save his hopeless position but fails.
The suicide issue is a proven indication for Bismuthum, more as even Aurum. Loss (stage 15) of life by one’s own power (gold-series).


Bismuth and Suicide
The combination of stage 15 and the themes of gold series creates the typical bismuth situation where for example the leader of an organization fails and loses his power. He either correctly assesses the situation and voluntarily gives up his position to his successor where by he would solve the problem, or, he responds frantically and desperately tries to save his hopeless position but fails. In situations like this, some of these power brokers commit suicide because the responsibility is connected with honour, and loss of honour is particularly painful at the level of the gold series. They identify with power and honour, they have the power and they don’t want to let go of it. They are accustomed to making grave decisions in regard of the life of others so they also feel justified to make decisions about taking their own life. These individuals can take their own life in the desperate phase of stage 15 because loss of power or honour is too painful for them to bear. Loss of power and dignity and falling from high status can be so bad for some of these people that they would rather die than make the best of the situation and continue living. Suicide becomes either their last triumph or the circumvention of losing power through a final desperate attempt of wielding power that ends one’s own life.
We are not talking about people that use suicide attempts as a cry for help as is often found in tragic love affairs in puberty and other relationship issues. So if you have a case where a girl takes 5 sleeping tablets after losing her boyfriend and calls the ambulance at the same time, you won’t be thinking of bismuth. People that are serious about suicide seldom talk about it. In this case the therapist must feel into what is going on and then these patients will tell you what is going on. The method used to commit suicide is also important. Typical gold series would think of jumping from great heights, death by hanging or being hit by a train. Even shooting oneself with one’s own hunting gun (hunting is a typical gold series theme) belongs here. Bismuth helps in these situations if applied in the nick of time. In our practice we have observed 8 cases of which some we would like to briefly describe. It is noted that mostly they are not constitutional prescriptions but a proven indication. It is a vital one though, since it is about life and death.



Case Examples


1. Bism-c: father has committed suicide
By Markus Kuntosch
The 45 year old woman was heavily depressed for 8 years, worse in the afternoons, and she often suffers from vertigo. She frequently forgets what she wants to say and then she wipes her forehead as if to brush off something.
It all started after her husband had a nervous breakdown. All of a sudden the whole responsibility had fallen on her shoulders. It lay heavy upon her like a huge burden, but she is strong, and the worst thing for her is if she loses control over a situation. So she handled her situation well but when her husband recovered it was her who fell to pieces: “the hammer always strikes after the event”. Her hands tremble when she stretches them.

Her father, who was very important to her, had committed suicide when she was young.
She is very afraid of spiders, she she loathes the very sight of a house-spider. She likes to eat raw liver and raw fish, especially herring and salmon in sushi dishes. Her colour preference was dark green 23E. But nowadays it changes, with a preponderance of orange 5C.

Analysis
Previously one would have given aurum (the burden of a sudden responsibility, heavy depression) but bismuth is more similar in this case according to the element theory: her father (carb) has committed suicide (bism). This was not the direct cause of her depression, but the event still lingers in her memory as a dread. The desire for raw fish and especially herring confirm bismuth. Her body type is carbonic, heavy set, not fat, bony yet rounded. She appears masculine and her father was very important to her. This confirms a carbonicum on the constitutional level.

Prescription and effect:
So she receives Bism-c 200. That evening she is all wound up. For 2 days she cannot think clearly and her joints are painful as though she has a bad flu. She awoke several times from her sleep. Then she begins to stabilise and her mood improves.
One week later she was given Bism-c 1000. After 10 minutes she has a short migraine with dizziness and she sees silver dots in front of her eyes. Then everything improves. The dizziness stops and also her hay fever disappears.
3 months later depression returns in a milder degree. It is worse in the afternoon. Bism-c 1000 is repeated, and this time she recovers quickly without aggravation.

One year later:
The remedy helps her with depression, even after a year her mood is rather cheerful. But still she frequently complains about dizziness and she still loses train of thought. She often wakes up at 4 o’clock in the morning. Her head is then “as if filled with foam or it seems foggy, like a thick dense mist. It is as if I’m turning around in circles.” Please explain.What is this fog? “It is like a thick net… viscid like honey… but it is not liquid… it feels like a spider web…”

She had already mentioned her strong fear of spiders earlier. In the repertory one can find waking 4am, tela aranea.
She has named her remedy herself, and the repertory helped in verifying it. It is Tela aranea. So she receives Tela 1000, the potentised spider web. It works better than bism-c. Her sleeping pattern normalises, her voice becomes higher and clearer and her dizziness stops. The fog disappears and her head is free of the mental cobwebs that have formed in her memory over the years. She finally wiped them away with the aid of the remedy. She can think clearly and since 7 months she is doing well.

Commentary:
Our best bismuth cases have the colour preference of 23 to 24 c in yellow green. Since the colour and therefore the emotional sphere of our patient is perhaps orange and not yellow green one already new in the beginning of the case that bismuth could hardly be a likely simillimum since only very few tendencies resonate with each other. Even though, the remedy did what it was supposed to do, it helps her on a particular level and opens the window for a deeper remedy. Since tela works better but has not been proven one can assume that the favourite colour for tela is around 5c. That is also in agreements with other spider remedys who mostly like orange and olive. We don’t have any cases to compare. Only more tela cases will prove this. Through this method, our knowledge about the colour of remedies has expanded. A project we have been trying to refine for the past 18 years. One can find these colours or remedies as repertory rubrics in “COLORS IN HOMEOPATHY”.
http://narayana-verlag.com/Colors-in-Homeopathy/Welte-Ulrich/b4523?factfin=color~4523~2~2~1~93.76 .


2. Bism-p: his brother commits suicide
by Ulrich Welte
The patient is a middle aged businessman and is suffering from sclero and mixed collagenosis during the last 20 years. He has severe back pains and can hardly get out of bed in the morning. He is so stiff and painful that he needs a 15 minute ritual to rise from lying position like in slow motion. He also suffers from Raynaud-Syndrome during cold season. He says that he can deal with his difficulties through mind control. But for the last 6 weeks his back pain has become so unbearable and out of control that he seeks help from homeopathy, because it had helped his father in a chronic rheumatic disease. His emphasis of self-control from the very outset of the anamnesis and an autoimmune disease is enough to think of a lanthanide. Indeed his whole story would it: he was an outsider at school, he likes to stay in the background during social events, he has vision abnormalities (lens opacity), and he used to relax with cannabis.

But then he narrates that his troubles all began after his older brother had committed suicide after a fight with his father. This event had changed his life as he felt under obligation to live up to the high expectations of his parents: his brother was the great hope of the family and he should not fail like his brother did. From that day he stopped smoking hash and tried hard to be someone. He shouldered the responsibility and became a successful businessman. But this was also the beginning of the first signs of his disease. He had been quite OK before that.

He is under the usual immunosuppressive treatment of methotrexate and cortisone.

His colour preference is 24D, a yellow green with a slightly olive tinge.

We would like to spare you the details of the full consultation because our main topic is Bismuthum and Suicide. In this case it was his brother who committed suicide. The event was so central for him that he received Bismuthum phosphoricum (a phosphoricum is often indicated when the problem is with brothers and sisters) and not a lanthanide.

Usually we are guided to the remedy by its characteristic materia medica issues. But if the remedy also shares the colour preference of the patient, we can expect deeper effects. This is because it mirrors the basic emotional state. It is beyond particulars. His very energy vibrates with this frequency. Our patient prefers 24D, which is very close to the exact colour of Bismuthum 24C. So his basic mood also falls within the field of Bismuth.

With Bism-p 1000 he made a 70% improvement in the first week. He never experienced such an effect of a medicine before. He developed a skin eruption on his elbow, which was present in childhood but had disappeared long ago. The stiffness in the morning lessened much and he can get up much easier. Bism-p 1000 is repeated every month and he continues to improve. In a cold November his fingers turn white again, but it is not as bad as usual. After some more months he is much better and he starts with a daily dose of bism-p LM. After this new potency his white fingers get much worse as well as his thumbs and toes which is unknown to him. Back pain also returns for several days. But then he improves dramatically. Usually the winter months were his worst period and now he can even sneeze vigorously without the feeling that his back is about to break. He says the LM potency acts deeper and quicker than the C1000. One year passed and he stopped taking the remedy in the summer because his symptoms subsided completely during this period. But then the old symptoms came back in a milder form. He took the remedy again and he was fine again.
For the sake of curiosity, Thulium-p and Erbium-p were tried but he feels that Bism-p is more effective and he stays with it. Three years after the beginning of treatment he feels well and moves freely. His rheumatologist confirmed there is no rheumatic activity and considered stopping methotrexate and cortisone, which the patient had already done on his own. He continues doing well.



Ulrich Welte
uwelte@homeo.de

Next month some more cases are to be presented.