I was under her control, I had to defeat her physically: a case of Aranea diadema

by Jonathan Hardy

Case:

27-year-old woman, chief complaint: severe fatigue

Jonathan Hardy (JH): "Please describe your complaints."

Patient (P): "I have no strength. I feel I cannot get up. I have to lie down. My legs won't hold me. It feels as if the ground is not stable, like on a boat (gesture – she jerks her head forward). I have a pressure in my head when I stand up, as if my head were going to explode. The pressure then eases very quickly. Getting up uses most of my energy. I had a hard time; I have always had problems. I have digestive difficulties. It is worse in the evening. After eating I feel nauseous, and in the evening after dinner I suffer from nausea. The food moves up and down. When I lie down, I feel better. Every time I sit up I have to belch. For a week I can do absolutely nothing."

JH: "Please describe your peculiarities."

P: "I am ambitious. I want to be the best I can be. I like that satisfaction. My mother was very critical. I become impatient easily – I want many things. Because I don't know whether I will get them, I want them as soon as possible. My instinct tells me: I want it now! Theatre is my greatest passion. I am as passionate as a film star. It really matters to me. Stability is important to me."

Analysis

As the patient spoke about theatre, art and creativity and is an architect, I chose a remedy from the silver series. Because of the themes from stage 14 (weakness and a feeling of emptiness) I gave Stannum. She did well for seven months with several repetitions of the remedy, but then she relapsed.

Continuation of the case history after 7 months

P: "I have a completely irrational phobia: fear of any kind of spiders – even plastic spiders. My sister tormented me with them, to control me. My sister never respected me. I was completely under her control. To her I was a little nothing. My only reaction was that I became violent; I always tried to react as fiercely as possible. For me it was time to attack. I had to try to defeat her physically. She wanted to dominate me."

P: "As if I were trampled and crushed. You are a nothing. As if a train would run over me. I had no power at all. It was simply terrible. She knew how to control me and make me do what she wanted. My nerves were frayed. I could never relax. She was really mean."

P: "The terrible thing kept getting closer, like in horror films. The worst thing is when you can't get away, when you are caught."

P: "I could not scream. I could not raise my voice – I was completely frozen."

JH: "How did you react?"

P: "I saw red and lost control, I became violent. She was physically much bigger than me. She was like a mountain. I wanted to kill her. She never lost her composure."

JH: "How did you feel when you were dominated by her?"

P: "I felt an uncontrollable rage in my stomach. I was her puppet, her slave. I knew I couldn't win. She was big. It stopped when I was big enough to show her that I didn't care. It is the same desire to make something of myself and to prove myself. I was not recognised. Not achieving what I fought for made me feel worthless. It is a waste of energy if I don't reach my goals. I must have 100% success. It is total victory when I succeed at the things I fight for."

Case analysis

Animal-kingdom themes

- She stands over me
- I wanted to kill her
- Violence
- Fight

Spider themes

"I am ambitious. I want to be the best I can be." Ambition is a major spider theme.

"It is total victory when I succeed at the things I fight for."

"I become impatient easily – I want many things. Because I don't know whether I will get them, I want them as soon as possible." Being impatient to get what they want is a characteristic of spiders.

"My sister tormented me to bring me under her control. She always maintained her composure." Dominant behaviour, tormenting others, bringing someone under one's control are typical spider traits.

"I was completely under her control. I had no power at all. She knew how to control me and make me do what she wanted." Being manipulated is a spider theme. The other person has total power over them.

"My only reaction was that I became violent. I had to try to defeat her physically."

"It stopped when I was big enough to show her that I didn't care." In the imaginative world of spiders there is a great disparity of power; spiders have the feeling that they must be bigger to defeat their oppressors.

"For me it was time to attack. I wanted to kill her." Violent reactions are characteristic of spiders.

"As if I were trampled and crushed." Feeling trodden and smashed are spider sensations.

"She was really mean." Meanness and sadism are spider themes.

"I was unnerved. I could never relax." Spider remedies are cautious, vulnerable, nervous and irritable.

"The terrible thing kept getting closer, like in horror films. The worst thing is when you can't get away, when you are caught." She has the feeling of being caught in the web, paralysed.

Which spider?

"She was physically much bigger than me." A difference in size is a spider theme, and the feeling of enlargement is typical of Aranea diadema.

Fatigue.

Modalities: all symptoms are better when she lies down, e.g. digestion, exhaustion.

"To her I was a little nothing." Some spider remedies feel small and have low self-esteem. Massimo Mangliavori says Aranea diadema has the lowest self-esteem of all the spiders.

Aranea diadema 

Individual remedies emphasise particular themes of the group. It is characteristic of spider remedies to deal with differences in size and power. Aranea diadema is a spider that spins a web, and it is smaller than Aranea ixobola.
The significance of the theme 'difference in size' in spider remedies may be related to the size difference between male and female spiders.

Rubrics of Aranea diadema

• General: fatigue
• General: inclination to lie down
• Female genitalia: menstruation: painful, dysmenorrhoea
• Mind and disposition: menstruation: worse during menstruation. Aranea diadema has a specific delusion: enlargement of body parts. Feeling as if body parts were enlarging and becoming heavier.

The choice fell on Aranea diadema because it has the modality "better by lying down" – more than any other spider remedy – and the theme of "size" plays a larger role in this remedy than in any other spider remedy.
Periodicity is another feature of spider remedies. Her fatigue occurs periodically: every few months she has attacks that each then last a week. This periodicity is generally typical of spider remedies, but especially of Aranea diadema, which fits the malaria miasm.

Prescription:

Aranea diadema C200, single dose

Follow-up:

The patient's condition improved immediately. After several repetitions of the remedy over 12 months she did quite well. She no longer has menstrual problems. Her severe fatigue has gone and she says she feels happy and relaxed.

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This article was published on www.interhomeopathy.org

Photo: European garden spider © shutterstock.com - AC Rider 

Category: Cases

Keywords: Spider, under control, disrespect, violent reaction, unnerved, exhaustion, lying down, trampled, crushed, attacked, big-bigger, small-smaller, worthless, need to prove oneself, to achieve something, victory.

Remedy: Aranea diadema