6.2.1 Barium bromatum, Case 1
This concerns an 8 year old girl. The first thing she says is that she is afraid of being laughed at, especially at school. She is afraid that the other children will laugh at her hair or laugh at her clothes, which she likes very much herself.
She never dares to try out something new. She is also afraid that she isn’t doing her work properly. She constantly asks her teacher how she should do things. She doesn’t put her hand up to answer questions in class, too afraid that she‘ll be laughed at because it was the wrong answer. She assumes that it will be wrong even before she has said anything. She has difficulty with maths, difficulty with any new subject, difficulty making choices, even simple choices like which flavour ice-cream to take. She doubled a class last year, but now she finds it difficult to make new friends. She is very shy. She doesn’t like to be away from her mother. Her mother has a part time job in another town. On the days that her mother is away she doesn’t feel well, complains of stomach pains and doesn’t want to go to school in the morning. When she was still at nursery school she used to cling to her mother and wouldn’t let her go. She is afraid of strangers. When there is anything exciting going on she complains of cramp in her stomach, worse in the right hypochondrium. She doesn’t like to go to stay with other people because she gets homesick, especially for her mother. She is also afraid of the dark, there might be ghosts who will come to get her. She is a very mild and quiet little girl. She likes to please people and is very afraid of making mistakes in case her mother gets angry and blames her for doing it wrong.
Past history: She is the eldest of twins, born at 37 weeks. She was a bit behind in her development and has never really caught up. She remained a bit on the small side. She was late learning to walk, not until 16 months old, late dentition and late being potty trained. She had her tonsils removed when she was 4.
Generals
Build: small, slight, face, long and thin, blue-grey eyes, dark blond, thick hair, large and crooked teeth.
Weather: warm.
Desires: sweet (2), spices(2), chocolate (3), egg, (2), fruit (2).
Aversion: sauerkraut, spinach, strawberry ice-cream, buttermilk.
Sleep: on right side or stomach.
Skin: wart on sole of right foot, peeling skin around her nails.
Analysis
She starts by saying that she is afraid of being laughed at: Barium carbonicum. But this remedy did not do very much. So we had to look further. The second theme is the fear of making mistakes, particularly connected to the fear of being laughed at if she does make mistakes. This brings us to Barium bromatum. (Homeopathy is that simple ?!)
Further confirmation for Barium: unsure, shy, afraid of new situations and strangers, indecisive, slow development, late teething, walking, potty training, small, -> sweet, throat affections, retarded growth and > lying on stomach.
Bromium symptoms: throat affections, -> chocolate, skin peeling around the nails, blond, blue eyed.
A striking symptom is her aversion to strawberry ice-cream, while she loves other flavours of ice-cream. In the repertory we can only find an aversion to rich cream ice-cream in Radium bromatum. Radium is placed directly underneath Barium in the periodic table.
Reaction
First she got Barium carbonicum. The reaction was a few days of constant stomach pains and some slight sore throats. Her fears did not really go away.
The next time she got Barium bromatum. And the time after that she came into the consulting room skipping and she hopped onto a different chair from the one she had sat on the previous times. Things are going very well. She looks much more at ease. Her teacher says that she is more self assured. She isn’t so afraid of making mistakes and she doesn’t ask for help all the time anymore. She is able to make choices and decide what she wants, regardless of what others think of it. Today she is wearing a jersey that she never dared to put on before, because it is rather large and the other children might have laughed at it. She mixes better with other children, is even talking to boys! She doesn’t cling to her mother when she visits other people, but will go off and explore. No more stomach aches, even on the days when her mother has to work. She went to stay with a friend for 2 nights. No homesickness, no stomach pains, no fear in the dark. A slight fear of ghosts from time to time is all that is left. She feels as if she has been set free, freed from the little cage she had been locked up in.