Case of Oxygenium
By Dr. Mahesh Gandhi, M.D. (Psychiatry), Senior Consultant and Faculty, the other song
Co-authors:
Dr. Sneha Vyas, Resident Doctor, the other song
Dr. Devang Shah, Resident Doctor, the other song
Another case was of a 27-year-old female patient who presented with complaints of panic attacks and she says that all her problems began after marriage. She found it very difficult to get married and was married just last month to a boy whom she was in a relationship for last 3 years, and considered him as a part her family. She felt strangulated in marriage. 2 years ago, on a visit to Prague with her boyfriend, where she was separated from him for an hour, she was in panic and became hysterical. She felt that her boyfriend was childish and not talented.
After marriage, when they had gone to visit her father in New York, she woke up one night, feeling stuck in this marriage, with no way out. She woke up her husband and in the middle of the night asked him to divorce her. While verbalizing this with vehemence, she pulls her husband physically closer, holding on to him quite tight. She was not attracted towards him and she often freaked over why she was still in this marriage. It felt like she was tied up, strangled like a bird in a cage. She found it difficult even to wear her marriage ring. Marriage to her meant, losing power. There is a strong desire to burst out free, exploding to do big things. According to her, this marriage prevents her from blooming. Within the marriage, she felt that she was not connected, not alive. She felt no freedom, feeling of narrowing and constriction gradually locking her in completely.
The patient then went on to narrate a childhood incidence where her father molested her friend and she filed a case on him. He left the house and the patient had to shoulder the responsibility of her mother and her sister. They told people that father worked abroad and sent them money. She had to play role of elderly member of the family. She detested this as she wanted to be in control of her life. The patient resented her family as they robbed her of her childhood. To her, her life seemed like it was stuck, as if there was a hole in her stomach, her lungs felt narrowed and life seemed frozen, with difficulty to inhale. ‘I want someone to pull me out of here’, is her expression.
Her hobbies include performing, acting, writing as all these give her a feeling of being ‘me’, a feeling which makes her feel free like a bird, almost like she can fly. The opposite of this free feeling, she said, is being locked up, stuck and caught. The caught up feeling is like being ‘locked up in an egg shell made out of elastic. It is very small, closing around me. I sit folded inside with not enough room to stand up’. (She makes a gesture of fetal position) everything is stuck, no air, as if I am in a coffin.
The main experience of the patient was suffocation, no air, locked up, caught up and stuck as if in an egg shell, in a fetal position. This is a typical expression of patients needing Row 2 remedies. However, this womb like structure is not comfortable, cozy, and warm for her. This hints towards the right side of the row 2. This is seen where she wants to divorce her husband with whom she was in a relationship for more than 3 years. We we see that the energy of the case is more towards separation from the boyfriend who is like a family to her. But the way she demonstrates divorce is interesting, she uses the word divorce but she pulls her husband towards her and holds on tight. So we see there is clinging and separation which is the main thing. Lithium has only clinging, Fluorine has separation but Oxygen has clinging and separation both together. So, she received Oxygen 200.
Panic attacks much better. She has normal physical relationship with her husband now. She is a now mother to a lovely son. The suffocation has lessened significantly. She has developed a positive orientation to the demands of the world. She now feels like a woman. Her relationship with her mother and sister has also improved. Words like locked up, suffocation, caught are no longer a part of her vocabulary.