FEAR OF BIRDS (A look at the truth buried underneath)

Patient reports the following:

Extreme PMT - for 14 days before menses
- irritated by noise
- hate my children (feel terrible saying that)
- bitter, angry
- not fair I have to do everything (housework)
- aggravated by everything
- so sensitive, off balance
- drop things, run into things
- < being interrupted
- > 50% as flow begins, >100% by 2nd day

Menses are very painful, but somewhat > since birth of children
- heavy weight in lumbar, bruised feeling
- cramping, sharp pains
- > bending double, > warmth

Fear of birds +++, of flapping of wings+++
- fear bats, moths, insects, cicadas
- used to be attacked by magpies at school – scared of them, that they will hurt me
- reappeared 5 yrs ago during first pregnancy
- froze with fear, protected neck ,face
- 4 yrs ago another magpie attacked, I was swinging my bag and screaming, trying to protect my baby, shaking and crying. I kept looking behind me to see if it was coming to get me.
-3 mths ago, attacked by another magpie, no-one to help me
- 10 years ago was scared of my mother’s chickens, couldn’t go in the cage with them. Now I cannot go into my mother’s aviary.
- they will hurt me, attack me

Fear of dying+++
- daughter has this fear also, so I have to be strong in front of her
- can’t talk about funerals
- very vivid dreams of being killed
Dreams

Being chased by a man with a knife or a gun
Being shot – I can feel the blood oozing out of me – shot in the head or the back.
Feels so real
Mother being murdered – woke up believing she was dead
Violent
Daughter has them too – wakes screaming
< after scary movies or news items about murder

Tell me more about this fear

Ask husband if the doors are locked
Hear noises at night – think someone is breaking into the house
Check the children 6 times a night
Must leave the light on at night when husband is away
Only frightened if children are at home – how will I get them out of the house – start planning an escape
Sleep with the light on when the children are home
Always been conscious of safety
Ever since the movies “ Friday the 13th” must check under the bed
Must check cupboards, under beds, move clothes around to make sure no-one is there, check windows and doors.

There are bad people out there who will break in and hurt you – rape, kill

During pregnancy, the bad dreams were worse

Generals

Crave sweets before menses. Averse cheese, raw oysters, broccoli
Averse to water before menses
< Heat (headaches > cold applications)
< Cold (is like death)






Analysis




Because it seems so peculiar, there is a temptation to use the rubric ‘Fear of Birds’ – aesc, Apis, bufo, calc-ar, calc, gels, ign, kali-c, lyss, Nat-m, op, ph-ac, tub.

But this would be ignoring a more complete understanding of the state of the patient. Even though it is a Mental (a high grade general), it does indeed represent the state but does not reveal the state on its own.

Choices based on repertory – eliminated through rubric “Delusion he will be murdered” which is the actual meaning of this particular patient’s fear of birds.

- Rhus-tox, Calc, Kali-br, Opium, Stramonium, Zinc, Merc, Nux-vom, Bell

What is her miasm – this may be the best way to decide between these remedies.

I had trouble with this choice at first. This case was many years ago, and my use of miasm to classify and choose remedies was not particularly well-developed. I went to bed one night after studying the case and something interesting happened.

I had a dream, that I was attending a festival with some of my lecturing colleagues. I sat down with one of them, and she said to me ‘You need to work out the miasm, your choice must take that into account.’ She went on at length to talk about miasmatic theory and when I woke, I knew the patient’s miasm. (dreaming about cases and receiving an inspiration like this rarely happens to me)

She reacts to her condition with panic, minor incidents become life and death situations, she perceives attacks from things that are really quite harmless.

Her dreams quite clearly showed me the miasm – they displayed the reaction to the internal reality for her. She is being attacked and murdered, and must try to get away as quickly as possible, with great panic and fear. It is life and death, there is great urgency, escape is vital and must be secured with enormous activity and effort and haste.

This is the Acute miasm.

In the above list the remedies are catagorised as follows:

Acute: Bell, Stram
Typhoid: Rhus-t, Nux-v
Psoric: Calc
Sycotic: kali-br
Tubercular: Zinc
Cancer: Opium
Syphilitic: Merc

So the choice based on miasm, is really only between Stramonium and Belladonna. Both belong to the Solanaceae family, so their underlying sensation and feelings are very similar – fear of violent death, at the hands of something or someone else, with terror. Belladonna specifically has the dreams of being murdered, and so the choice I made for prescription was:

Belladonna 200c, one dose.

The results were remarkable. The patient’s next period came without any warning – no PMT at all. Her fears diminished over time, although she still feels wary of birds. All menstrual pain vanished, and the dreams stopped completely. Over further time the wariness of birds also faded away.

So in this case, the Fear of Birds was actually a metaphor for the truth that was deeper inside.