Sensitive, soft and vulnerable: a case of Nymphaea odorata (fragrant waterlily)

by Martin Jakob

A 30-year-old man presents to the practice with a complex picture of complaints; he suffers from depression and fatigue. He also complains of pain in the genital area, persistent nausea, dizziness and migrating pains all over his body.

The pain and the depression began in 2008 — they were diagnosed in the context of a burnout syndrome, for which the patient underwent psychiatric treatment. He was unable to work and was treated repeatedly in psychiatry from 2008 to 2011, including inpatient treatment.
The patient compares the dizziness to the feeling of standing on a rocking boat. It is always present and makes him very unsteady when standing. It feels as if he is about to stumble. The patient has pain in the penis, testicles and groin; it is crushing, stabbing pain that is worse on standing. He often suffers from tension in the neck area and feels a lump in his throat and abdomen. He feels so exhausted that he could sleep all the time. If he forces himself to work despite his tiredness, he feels worse. When he is with several people who are all talking at the same time, he has to concentrate very hard to follow a conversation.
On defecation the stool is usually passed with a clear, mucous coating and after drinking beer his skin turns greenish-yellow. The patient is desperate because he believes he will not get better and is making no progress in psychotherapy.

The patient traces the onset of his complaints back to the time when he heard voices. Every day he heard someone speaking to him who had important things to tell him — it did not stop. He felt completely confused and did not understand what was happening to him. There was something in his life he could not understand, until he found out that he had been sexually abused as a child. As a child he later also had terrible nightmares. In the dream he was chased by a man wearing a black mask or was held down on the bed by someone. The patient expresses the feeling of wearing a mask himself coupled with the sensation that his skin is stretched. He suffers from olfactory hallucinations.

The patient grew up as an only child, always felt lonely and would have liked to have siblings. He was not popular at school. He was a loner who did not get on with his classmates and was often used as a scapegoat. At times the situation caused him great distress. He had poor concentration, learning difficulties and could only manage his time moderately well. He was very unhappy in primary school.

He perceived his father as a stranger — a father who existed only on paper, his mother's husband. His parents slept in separate bedrooms. Many years later the patient discovered that his “father” was not his real father. Everyone had known except him. He felt loved by his mother.

To me the man appears very sensitive, gentle and vulnerable; he looks very young.

Intolerances: Alcohol, beer.
Cravings: Sweets, cake.

Analysis

Hydrogen series: hears voices; confusion; disorientation; understands nothing; dizziness.
Carbon series: left alone as a child; the father existed only on paper, did not care for him; felt as a child abandoned and defenseless.
Nymphaeales: strange feeling he cannot name (= cannot act, only feel).
Nymphaeaceae: lost in the world and sexually abused, tormented; pains in the genitals and groin.
Nymphaea odorata: The case felt more like stage 12 than stage 6: he is pursued by a black man; it feels violent.

Prescription: Nymphaeae odorata

Follow-up

The patient no longer has genital pain. The dizziness, the nausea and the fatigue have also disappeared. In the days after taking the remedy he experienced olfactory hallucinations and heard a whispering voice in his head. He knew they were things from his past that he could not properly understand or classify: the darkness, the smells and the noises came from earlier. They were childhood memories. “I was very young when I was abused, I could not understand it, it did not penetrate my consciousness.” Previously the patient felt overwhelmed by his feelings — by the pain, the nausea and the dizziness. It was like an avalanche. The worst thing was that he had no control over it at all; he could only wait until it was over. With the help of the homeopathic remedy he was able to work through his childhood. As a small child he had no opportunity to understand his experiences and feelings. Today he knows that everything he felt really existed, it was true. Before taking the remedy he felt like a small child; now he perceives himself as an adult.

Comment

The central conflict of the Nymphaeaceae is the conflict between being and feeling (hydrogen series) and the inability to act or react (carbon series). Here the beauty of plant systematics becomes evident: we can better understand our patients' problems, the central themes they bring with them. In the present case it is the childhood trauma. We can use the series of the periodic table to prescribe precisely; the homeopathic treatment thus gains depth. Remedies from the Nymphaeaceae family are indicated for profound traumas, particularly when there has been a split between soul and body. The bodily sensation is present but cannot be processed by the consciousness.

*****************************************

This article was published on www.interhomeopathy.org.

Photos: © shutterstock Brian Lasenby, © shutterstock.com hikrcn
Category: Cases
Keywords: Depression, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, migrating pains, insecurity, childlike, learning difficulties, sexual abuse.
Remedy: Nymphaeae odorata