Homeopathy helps resolve Anxiety and Depression
Lora, an executive in her mid-30s, had moved to New York City from Italy seven years before coming to see me for homeopathic treatment. Just before the pandemic, she broke up with her boyfriend when their relationship became “mentally and emotionally abusive.” After the breakup, she hit rock bottom emotionally.
Lora knew she needed to take good care of herself, and she did so by getting psychological counselling, doing regular exercise and eating healthy foods. But her mood continued to fluctuate wildly, and her hormones and weight refused to stabilize.
When she came to see me, she was focused on finding her place between two worlds, she said. Her single friends in New York City “live a glamorous life of travel and beautiful apartments.” Friends from her hometown in Italy are “all in long-term relationships and have children.” She didn’t feel that she belonged squarely with either group, and this unsettled her.
I eventually hit upon the remedy Lac Caninum that helped Lora move beyond her unsettled life.
Before I reached my conclusion about the proper remedy for Lora, I had to learn much more about her life and her complex and confusing feelings.
With each piece of information Lora revealed, I was able to move closer and closer to discovering the remedy that was right for her. That’s how homeopathy works, by building a more and more complete picture of the patient until one remedy clearly matches the individual’s situation. It explains why homeopaths can take up to two hours with each patient before determining the first remedy they wish to try.
Lora explained to me that while she loves her independence, “it can get kind of lonely. I feel time slipping from me,” she said. “I’m really scared of commitments.”
As a young child, little Lora was “so ashamed, always the black sheep, the wild child,” who had “a hard time fitting in.”
That was the crux of the matter: “If I move home [to Italy], would I fit in now?” she wondered. Lora said she was very homesick, but was obliged to put on a happy face in her work and in her personal relationships.
When I ask her about her anger, she shared a childhood incident:
I was 10 years old. My siblings pushed me out of the hammock. “You f*ing bitch!” I yelled. My body was screaming and shaking at the same time. A neighbour came over to ask if I was okay.
I asked Lora about how anger feels in her body. “It’s painful, intense, bottled up. So much tension, like a high-intensity workout,” she said.
I encouraged her to just let it all out in the safety of my office and tell me how she felt: “I’m not being seen. I’m picked on. It’s so intense in the body. I see darkness and black. Rage!”
After the rage, the sensation in the body shifts:
I want to clench my fists, punch, kick, throw a full-body tantrum, shaking till my head is going to blow off. If I didn’t block it, it would be intense.
What does she do then?
The fire in my belly feels so intense. Energy is shooting down my legs. I need to escape. I run. I do high-intensity workouts. I get hot as well. I’m always warm.
This is red-hot passion! (She even showed up to our appointment in a vermillion dress.) I asked her when she feels her best. “When I’m vivacious and fun-loving, especially when I’m hanging out with people whom I’m close to. But then this moodiness suddenly hits me.”
Lora associated her out-of-control feeling with the 10-day run-up to her period, when “I either have no energy and become sad or depressed or I fly off the handle.”
She has a history of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) with irregular periods that responded well to conventional treatment. This treatment - basically, hormones similar to those found in contraceptive pills - numbed her emotionally and destroyed her libido. She stopped the treatment after developing a benign lump in her breast.
We explored one of Lora’s dreams in which someone lay on top of Lora, “pushing me down and constricting me. My tongue was so suppressed that it couldn’t move. I choked myself out of it, and still couldn’t move.”
Lora said that she often wakes up coughing from the saliva pooling in her mouth overnight. She has to sleep semi-upright in order to not choke.
As a child, her sleep was interrupted by bathroom trips several times a night, trips which continued into her adulthood. Ultrasounds did not detect any physical issues.
At this point, I could see that her body, her emotions and her mind expressed the same pattern, one likely corresponding to the remedy Lac Caninum. I asked her if she had had any problems with her throat as a child.
When she answered that she often had tonsillitis, I had the key missing piece of the puzzle. Now, it all fit. Patients needing Lac Caninum often suffer from repeated tonsillitis.
They frequently feel rage and are oftentimes cross with others. They fear being alone. They often have reproductive issues specifically including problems with ovaries and breasts. Such patients regularly cycle between having little or no energy accompanied by feelings of depression and extreme anger.
I recommended Lac Caninum in the 200C potency. (Homeopathic medicines are highly diluted and nontoxic and therefore suitable for people of all ages with practically any condition.)
Within a week, Lora had decided to move back home to Italy. She started working with a recruiter to find a job with a better work-life balance.
For a couple of days after her first dose of the remedy, she felt like she was going to get tonsillitis, but it never happened. Sometimes homeopathic remedies initially aggravate symptoms. That generally means that you’ve found the right remedy and that it is working.
During our first follow-up a month later, Lora told me she had given herself permission to enjoy a “Summer of Yes!” She booked a trip to Las Vegas. And she was determined to enjoy the best that New York City had to offer before returning to Italy. She felt “a whole different level of confidence” at work and in her relationship with family members back in Italy. She stopped holding back. She no longer craves alcohol. She is more comfortable with occasional sadness and loneliness.
When she envisions the future, she sees herself “dating someone, setting up my apartment, and enjoying my work and my partner.”
Lora no longer wakes up coughing from saliva buildup. She is more comfortable with her anger. “This is who I am. This is the fire in me,” she acknowledged. She loses her temper occasionally, but she is open with people. Her feeling of rage has diminished to a whisper.
I saw her again for a follow-up two months later. With each now monthly dose of Lac Caninum, she has more clarity and motivation. At the same time, it has brought up some unresolved issues. In dreams with “weird scenarios” involving ex-boyfriends, she saw their struggles clearly and was able to resolve them in the dream state. In real life, she was dipping her toes into a new romantic relationship.
Just when she seemed to be doing really well, I received an email from her two weeks later. Lora lost her temper and was impatient at “everything and anything.” She could not sleep well. She had many memory lapses, mixing words and appointment times. She collapsed on several occasions when she rolled her ankle while walking - without heels. She wondered if it could be due to stress at work. Lac Caninum did not make a difference.
As we talked, she realized that her sudden reversal of health occurred right after a novel medical procedure she received. I helped her to detox the procedure, and within four weeks, her new symptoms resolved completely. She decided that she was not going to put herself through any more experimental procedures.
Within five months after our first session, Lora was back in her home town of Florence and settling into her new life and new job.