I feel very insecure and alone: two cases of Drimys winterii

Case 1: woman with insomnia, aged 60
Mrs. X comes for treatment due to insomnia. She suffers from palpitations, which prevent her from sleeping, and she feels exhausted, as though “burned out”. She would also like to bring her nervous system into a better balance, since she is very nervous from trying to manage things after her divorce.

She was married to a man who was the “love of her life”; she says again and again how much she loved him. They have a daughter, whose birth was very difficult. The birth of the second child ended in a caesarean delivery. The child was not fully grown and had so many handicaps that he died directly after the birth. She “saw” the child while she was under anaesthetics, which shows her sensitivity. In general, she is highly sensitive.

She lived together with her husband and child for a long time overseas. There, her husband developed a relationship with another woman, and he had children with her. Organising the divorce went against everything in her – she loved him so much but could not live with what he had done. Now, she has to survive and her daughter helps her. She has to build a new future for herself and her daughter. The process of separation was very difficult for her but she had to show her daughter that she could manage in this painful situation.

She still feels the pain of losing her husband every time she thinks of him or speaks with him on the phone. Her weak point is that she tends to give everything away without demanding anything in return. She paints, sings, and writes poetry. She is very sensitive, taking on everything from others; she is also sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. She always anticipates a threat, feeling this in her body; her skeleton feels as though it is continually tense.

Family
Both her parents have studied, and come from families of church ministers. Her father was a teacher. She had one brother with Down syndrome, who died at 50. Her parents heard the diagnosis when her mother was pregnant with her. She was born at the beginning of the Second World War. “Bombs fell on my cradle.” It was never safe. Both her parents had to be hidden away in order not to be deported. Her mother was always anxious, and she took in this anxiety while being breastfed. Her father left the family for another woman when she was eight years old. Her mother was a “wreck” with a borderline personality disorder. She could be very changeable in her moods:  nice one moment and aggressive the next. She felt that she had to make her mother’s life alright and had to work hard in order to gain any love at all; “Love needs to be earned.” She felt very responsible for both her mother and her brother. She had good contact with her step-mother, who left her an inheritance, which enabled her to manage financially after her divorce.

She feels very alone. She shuts herself out, always building a wall around herself. This behaviour started early, when she had to replace her father and look after her mother. She always did her best, but felt it was never enough. Later, it felt the same with her husband. She always gave herself in love, but “I couldn’t hold onto him.” She withdraws within herself. She calls herself an individualist but it does not feel good, since she dearly wants to belong. She feels as though she has been discarded.

Her enormous sensitivity and her tendency to pick everything up from others point to the plant kingdom. There are many elements from the Carbon series: always feeling a threat, trying to survive, no safety, mother is borderline, you have to earn love, always feeling alone. Phase 3 is seen in the tendency to give herself away, sacrifice herself, never feeling that she belongs, never feeling that she can do enough. This brings us to the Magnoliidae, phase 3, Canallales, and to Drimys winterii.

Previous remedies
Natrium sulphuricum: she is still so involved with her ex-husband, saying how much she loves him and that he is the love of her life. She has great difficulties in letting go of him. After this remedy, she slept deeply for two nights. She followed a channelling, which helped her energetically.

Holmium oxydatum: withdrawn, spiritual. Oxydatum: dishonesty, feeling pushed aside, used, victim. After this remedy, she feels freer.

Thulium oxydatum: missing her husband, missing the sun, no courage, feeling the pain of judgement. She feels lighter after this remedy, as though she has been lifted up.

All these remedies did something for her, but there is still something plaintive in her voice, which makes me feel that the most essential part has not been touched. During this time, Jan Scholten was presenting his Plant theory. When I re-examined the case, I could not but help noticing the similarity between this woman’s father and her husband. She had feelings of being split in two, abandoned, lonely, sad, seeking safety behind a wall, and always doing her best to belong but never managing. According to the Plant theory, you then come to the Magnoliidae: the root of her problem can be seen in her family of origin.

Prescription: Drimys winterii

Follow-up
The day after taking Drimys, she feels 100% calm in body, mind, and spirit. Taking it once per week has given her support and a deep sense of balance. “My past is finished!’ She has tried so many ways to help herself, but she has finally managed. She has been feeling well for the past year and a half.

Case 2: woman with depression
The patient, a 30 year old woman, has come due to tiredness and depression; she sleeps poorly. She is withdrawing from the world because everything is costing her more and more energy: “All the pressure and the stress.” She feels that her life is a fight. She feels like an outsider, an observer. She finds it difficult to set good boundaries and she is ashamed that she has been unable to make something of her life. She is the youngest of four children, two sisters and a brother. The sister just above her suffers from bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia. She herself has been psychotic once, thinking she would poison her mother. It did not go well for her when she was in high school. She did not sleep well and became over-excited. Her parents’ attention went completely to her older sister and she felt abandoned. She was continually comparing herself to her sister and fighting for her own sense of identity. Several family members have suffered from depression: her nephew has committed suicide and her father suffers from bi-polar disorder.

At the moment, her relationship has just ended. She is working in a new job and is afraid of doing everything wrong, which gives her a lot of stress. She is very tired and passive, lying in bed and watching television. Her moods are changeable; when she feels down, she feels very alone and cannot find a goal in her life; she cannot manage her life alone. Her house is a chaos and she herself has no structure, no grip on life. She easily clings to others. If the other wants to do something on his own, she feels alone again. During the consultation, I notice how she is searching for support: she keeps talking, looking for a solution that she cannot find.

Analysis
The following factors point to the Carbon series: feeling small, dependent, clinging to others, alone.

Problem comes from the family of origin: Carbon series, Magnoliidae

Standing on the side-line: Boron quality, Phase 3

Prescription: Drimys winterii

Follow-up
After Drimys, she is very tired but shortly after she has much more energy than before. She goes back to work and receives the support that she requires. She can concentrate better and her contacts with others improve as well. If someone does not do as she would like them to, she does not feel pushed away. She has contact with her schizophrenic sister and manages to do so without losing herself, as she previously did. She sings and dances again, and looks refreshed and lively. There is nothing more of the tiredness and depression. She has been fine for over a year now.

Photos: Wikimedia Commons
The kiss; Gustav Klimt; public domain
Drimys winteri; A.Barra; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license