“Anna” was twelve when she first came to the practice with her mother, but she had already been under homeopathic treatment for much of her life. Her mother had even studied homeopathy to help find something for her daughter, because the situation was escalating. For years I had heard from a homeopath who had treated her previously about this “demonic child”, so I was warned and hid everything fragile or valuable in my practice.
Anna sat next to her mother, visibly unhappy at being dragged to yet another therapist. “It’s not my fault, it’s my parents. My mother is awful, she only gives us prison food.” From the way she spoke about her parents, one might think the girl was being beaten, starved and tortured in every conceivable way. Yet her mother was one of the kindest and most patient women I have ever met and did everything she could to find help for both her daughter and the family, which was badly affected by the girl’s behaviour.
Everything had to go according to Anna’s head, her timetable and her way, with no regard for anyone around her. If, for example, she set her mind on something, then “she had to have it”; otherwise she reacted—wherever she was—with a violent temper tantrum: she swore, cursed, attacked other people and smashed everything around her. She was known for destroying anything that came into view—the TV, the computer or the crockery. In her fits of rage she would fling the tablecloth off the table and the family’s lunch would land on the floor while the other children screamed and cried. Her mother wrote: “Every time I go into another room she tears up my work. She does not listen, yet she blames me for not helping her. It is a no‑win situation with her. She has written horrible things on my desk with a permanent marker, used up all my notes, letters and sticky tape and all my staples, smeared stamps with ink, etc.”
She was so stubborn that her parents often simply gave up and even fulfilled her most expensive and extravagant wishes. For years she said she would be happy if she only had a horse, and eventually her parents bought her one. Anna spent all her time with the horse, which she preferred to girls her own age: “They are all stupid!” She did make friends at times but always fell out with them afterwards. She was poor at school and eventually had to be home‑schooled, but most of the time she lazed about or lay in bed saying she was “too tired” to do her homework.
However, she always had time and energy for her horse; she often spent the whole day with it and neglected everything else. She insisted on only the best for her horse—the best feed, the best stable, the best saddle—or she would react with further tantrums. Once, on the motorway after buying horse feed with her mother, she had a fit of rage, screamed and pulled her mother by the hair. “You didn’t buy the right feed! It’s not good enough! You’re letting my horse starve!” Her mother tried to explain that the “right feed” was out of stock at the moment and that the feed they had bought was perfectly fine. This made Anna even angrier, and she pulled her mother’s hair until she nearly fainted from the pain and almost lost control of the car.
Anna was also extremely picky about her own food. She would not eat Indian food, although the family was of Indian origin and her mother was an excellent cook. She demanded certain foods, for example ten Big Mac hamburgers, then ate one bite and threw the rest away. “It feels as if she is simply trying to torment us constantly—nothing we do is ever right, and we are always blamed for her bad mood.”
In the meantime she had gained weight and a thyroid dysfunction was diagnosed. Her skin was oily and spotty and her stool had a foul odour. Her personal hygiene was catastrophic—she refused to shower or wash, and nobody dared to touch food she had handled. She scratched constantly, even at her nose and bottom, which disgusted her siblings.
The relationship with her father was particularly strained—anything her father asked her to do escalated into fights between the two. She said: “If I do what he says I give in, and then I have lost the fight.” If he put anything connected with her horse in the wrong place, hell would break loose as if he had personally abused her.
The family history is very revealing. Anna’s mother described particularly the situation of her in‑laws. They were born in India but moved to Fiji[1] in the hope of improving their finances. After arriving there they found that they had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. They were treated like slaves—had to beg for poorly paid work and lived in misery. The man was mistreated by his boss and in turn beat his wife at home. She had also been beaten by her own father when they still lived in India. The man also beat their son, Anna’s father, who consequently harboured a deep resentment against his own father.
Anna’s father succeeded in freeing himself from the situation. He married a loving and caring woman, also of Indian origin, and started a family. He worked hard and was very successful but suffered from pent‑up anger.
Anna’s mother often compared her daughter to her mother‑in‑law: “Both are so stubborn. Nothing anyone does is ever right. They have the same tantrums and shift the blame onto someone else.”
With regard to Anna’s extreme attachment to her horse I began with a dose of Lac equinum C 200. Her behaviour reminded me of a horse driven mad by abuse, rearing, kicking and totally losing control. After giving the remedy she calmed down immediately, got on much better with her siblings and always did her homework.
Her mother noticed that her sense of humour and playfulness had returned—she joked instead of sulking—and asked her mother to cuddle her. Her “obsession” with her horse decreased: she no longer needed to spend all her time with it and no longer flew into a rage over its care. Some things, however, remained the same: she was still picky about food and refused to wash. She also continued to clash with her father.
Her habit of demanding things and then not wanting them led to the next remedy, perhaps one she had needed all along: Cina, given in ascending potencies. After the first dose many threadworms were expelled, and she stopped scratching her nose. Gradually her behaviour consolidated more and more, and she was able to return to school instead of staying at home.
This, however, brought new problems, as she felt bullied and misunderstood. She became increasingly receptive to reasonable argument about the need to do her homework, even if she only did it reluctantly and was afraid of making mistakes. Repeated doses over time led to a calming of the situation at home and at school, much to the relief of everyone involved.
Nevertheless she continued to refuse to wash and still clashed with her father. The final remedy was Ammonium carbonicum. According to Jan Scholten, this remedy fits “anger at the father” combined with the well‑known “uncleanliness”.
Over the course of two years Anna transformed from a “demon child” into a pleasant young woman who has her own friends and gets on well with her siblings. Her thyroid values have normalised.
In this case the family dynamic was the most important aspect. One wonders why a girl with such loving parents should display such behaviour until one considers the situation of her grandmother, with whom she was often compared. Beaten as a child and later humiliated and forced into a life of poverty as an adult despite hard work, she had accumulated enormous anger.
Apparently this anger had passed to her son, who channelled it into hard work and climbed the ladder of success. However, the anger also expressed itself in Anna, who behaved as if she herself had been beaten and tortured. One could say that Anna carried the family’s collective pain and forced the family to confront it and to heal the family history of abuse instead of repressing it through hard work.
Interestingly, her paternal grandfather developed heart trouble reminiscent of Aurum when Anna began to reintegrate into the family. Anna’s father hesitated to visit him because of unresolved issues with his father. I suggested giving Anna’s father Aurum carbonicum, since his wife was worried he would go the same way as his father and eventually develop heart problems. He took the remedy, and things at home became increasingly harmonious. I no longer receive panic emails; the emails now simply tell me how well everything is going (please note that after an initial personal consultation almost the entire treatment took place by email, as we live on the other side of the globe).
Cina, together with Arnica, Bellis perennis, Calendula and other trauma remedies, belongs to the Compositae (Asteraceae) family. People who need a remedy from the Compositae family are often tough and independent, resist and do not give up.
Cina patients react with anger and even violence to anything they perceive as an intrusion of their boundaries. Jan Scholten places Cina, similar to Mercurius, in stage 13 of the Compositae—the stage of fighting, as if everyone were their enemy.
About Cina he writes in his new book “Wonderful plants”:
They cannot bear being disturbed or occupied. They feel quickly hurt, for example by doctors who make decisions about them, or by parents or teachers who try to control them. It feels like a threat, as if they have been harmed and threatened with death. It is an affront to their integrity and autonomy. It makes them very angry. They can express their anger very violently, but often they withdraw reluctantly and bitterly into themselves. They can be very biting and sarcastic about the world.
This article was published on www.interhomeopathy.org.
Photos
Girl is angry ©shutterstock.com - Firma V
backlit woman in formal dress riding horse on beach ©shutterstock.com - John Wollwerth
Category: Cases
Keywords: temper tantrums, oppositional behaviour, violence, tormenting, threadworms, family dynamics
Remedies: Ammonium carbonicum, Lac equinum
[1] Island state in the South Pacific
