Grief takes priority in addressing the ailments presented by our clients. It is like a knot that needs to be untied or broken before moving further. Importantly, homeopathic work implies that clients take responsibility for clearing their pain and accept to face their own fears.
Amanda at 54 was struggling with pesteringly itching eczema and pain in the shoulders—strikingly one side at a time. It had started 6 years earlier on her left armpit after realizing that her husband was cheating on her. The first small spots expanded in size and number, invading her right side too. She felt betrayed and her self-esteem sank. Her husband convinced her mind was gone astray (“he made me feel I am crazy!”). She underwent face surgery (e.g., beyond Botox), breast augmentation surgery and intense workout to keep her husband—the breast surgery had to be undone later as it caused nausea. Her love life had been complicated as she got entangled with abusive partners. Amanda had a tumultuous childhood, with abysmally low self esteem . The younger of two girls, her parents routinely left her and her 2-year old sister with the neighbors while the couple was working. When she was 6 months old, the parents finally relinquished the girls to the neighbors, who chose to keep her and handed her sister to social workers. However, the neighbors had frequent fights after alcohol. Amanda remembers waking up in the morning and walking on shattered glass. Amanda was later adopted by a strict religious family where she never bonded, felt abused, and from which she fled at age 14, becoming a homeless teen on the streets. Pregnant at 15 she kept her son, breaking up with her then teen boyfriend after a strife with his mother. Late in life, while working menial jobs as a waitress, she got educated in evening classes, where she met her husband, with whom she had her daughter. Amanda was consulting for her intense itch and intense pain in the shoulders. She was surprised by the attention to her childhood. Betrayal and abuse were running deep already at that point. Amanda was constantly on her guard and felt vulnerable—she stood up and made sure the office door was completely shut before opening on her husband. She confessed to frequent bursts of anger against her manipulative husband. Amanda was not making any living from her hobby style online store and was reluctant to break up with her husband for fear of poverty; as a mechanic in oil industry, he secured the family quite a comfortable living.
Where do you start in this convoluted situation? We have grief, but it is not the overarching topic. Grief remedies would likely come later. The overarching topic was a tension between dependency and independence, the need to be loved at any price. After a thorough repertorization for her physical complaints, I opted for Lac caninum that could later pave the way for a Staphisagria or an Ignatia. Lac caninum is a remedy produced from dog milk. Quoting Richard Pitt’s Materia Medica, Lac caninum motto is “My survival depends on my getting the love and attention I never had, and I’ll do it by any means necessary.” I gave her Lac caninum 30CH 2 pellets separately per day. The results were spectacular beyond expectations after about three weeks: the itch substantially reduced, dialed back from the most recent itchy areas. Amanda was more decisive with her husband and was proud that she was holding stronger with her own boundaries.
This case illustrates how working on grief may unfold gradually, as profound emotional layers require careful preparation. Deep sorrow is a difficult terrain as for Amanda there was substantially terse supportive reference point in her personal history that she could use as an ideal. Milk remedies (the Lac group) serve as an especially effective bridge, allowing both for surfacing intense underlying emotions, while offering upliftment and restoration when self-image was shattered or deeply wounded—through experiences of rejection, abandonment, humiliation. Lac caninum in the case of Amanda offered a grounding remedy allowing emotional release in a safe environment.
My new client Greg contacted me to help in what he called “layers of long-standing intense grief”. The interview reviewed several dramatic events. Greg was born Sally, the last child after four boys. She was not wanted and was repetitively told she was “a mistake”. The family moved across the country during her pregnancy with much disruptive stress associated with the inability to make a living on farming. Sally grew up with a marked sense of disgust for her own body and envied her older brothers’ higher status in the family. As a young child she was routinely sexually abused by her mother and brothers. “I was a burden; I was in the way of everyone else”. Her diet veered from bad to worse, drinking soft drinks and only processed foods. Diagnosed obese from age 19, she however felt she “could disappear and not be seen nor noticed by other people.” Later in life Sally discovered herself a lesbian. At age 60 she transitioned and Greg was now in my room, sharing his childhood memories in a detached tone, enouncing things in an orderly chronological order—as if going through a grocery list. As to his current ailments, he had osteoporosis and sleep apnea, and chronic constipation since childhood. Greg had been under antidepressants since age 14; puberty was no fun moment. His kidneys were starting to give in and the heart had irregular beatings. He was under a heavy dose of thyroid support. Greg was under hormonal treatment after his top surgery a year earlier. Greg was consulting for grief—our starting point and I had to respect his priority. Because of the detachment, the withdrawal, again Ignatia and this time a daily Natrum muriaticum 6X for organ support and mild depression.
Ignatia and Staphisagria are not the only homeopathic remedies for grief. In our paraphernalia, they are heavy lifters and do a beautiful job preparing the way for other grief remedies or any other issue underpinning the ailments. Anyone searching online on grief remedies for own treatment would find abundant literature on these two remedies.
Lesser-known remedies may help unblock difficult circumstances. Let me give illustrations in Part 3.
