Case 1.13: SABADILLA LINKS 1996
Sabadilla is a remedy capable of taking a person from self hate and revulsion of their own body to self love; from a sense of being diminished, shrunken and withered to dignity, self containment and inner beauty.
The following rubrics sum up the self image of sabadilla: • delusion erroneous ideas as to the state of his body
• delusion diminished, parts are shrunken
• delusion small, sensation of being smaller
• delusion body is withering
• delusion body shrunken like the dead
• delusion abdomen is fallen in, his stomach devoured, his scrotum swollen
• delusion thinks has corrosion of the stomach
The abdomen is the seat of feeling and action. We use expressions such as:
"I have a gut feeling. ": intuition.
"She has a lot of guts. ": courage.
"Give me the guts of the subject. ": most important part.
The Buddha is always represented with a very large abdomen. In Chi Gung and Tai Chi practise.
the student is taught to store energy in the abdomen. The middle eastern art of belly dancing displays the sensuality and sexuality of the abdomen. A baby grows in a women's belly, the culmination of her love and sexuality.
In sabadilla, all of these functions related to the abdomen, intuition, courage, strength to achieve important goals, sensuality and sexuality, are disturbed. More specifically there is a feeling of perversion about the sexual organs, of not being attractive, a mentalisation and an inability to achieve.
"I can't drive, I can't earn a decent income, I'm late. I don't take responsibility. "
Case
Sally is a philosophical person, a student and her conversation is marked with references to astrology, positive thinking and popular theories such as "you create your own disease".
"I feel poxy, how can someone feel erotic about a poxy person. "
"I feel I could never be beautiful or desirable. My genitals are white, it's weird, not a normal look, who would have me. "
This is how Sally describes her body:
"It doesn't feel like me, like some foreign thing. "
"An alien quality in my body. "
"I want to be somebody different. "
"How can I offer something when I'm not a perfect vessel. "
"How can I have pleasure if I don't have a perfect body. "
As a child Sally had a congenital hip dislocation. From the age of 18 months to 3 years she had a
plaster bandage and then callipers. For 6 months she was totally immobilised and encased in a plaster bandage from neck to ankles. Her parents gloss over it and belittle her experience. When she tries to talk about it, her mother says "Imagine how I felt, carrying you about", evoking sympathy towards the mother whilst diminishing Sally's feelings.
Sally is 37 years of age now and comes with the complaint of vitiligo on various parts of her body, a condition which has developed over the past ten years and for which she receives little recognition or attention.
"Others have a worse disease. I can't get recognition for the concern it causes me. " "I feel sad and lonely about it, I feel really hurt. "
"I'm not in pain, so people are not conscious about it. "
"I don't know how to communicate the grief and loss of it. "
I found myself listening deeply to the hurt behind what she and others see as her "negativity" and "overconcern" about her vitiligo. I gave my full attention to the hurt she was expressing without diminishing it in any way.
It often happens that by the very act of listening to a person's suffering, the patient receives a dose of their medicine. In telling her symptoms the patient enters fully into the energy of the sickness. The practitioner, like a mirror, reflects the medicine. At this point, I can notice a certain feeling in the room and I have sometimes commented "we are in the medicine, this feeling is both the sickness and the cure. Be assured that the cure has begun, I can't tell you the name of the medicine yet but I can feel it's nature".
Prior to this I had never used sabadilla, but I couldn't match the state I found before me with any other remedy I knew. How to solve the case?
At the beginning of our consultation, Sally put forward the theory that she had created her own disease. At the same time she feels her disease is incurable. The popular philosophy is that you create your own disease and therefore also have the means to cure yourself. This contradiction captured my imagination.
I took it to to mean "I have done something very wrong, and there's nothing that can be done about it".
• Delusion has committed a crime (created her disease)
• Unfeeling (to think you have created your own disease is unkind to yourself)
• Delusion has incurable disease
• Delusion diminished
I found myself in the realm of sabadilla!
Sabadilla also has the delusion that limbs are crooked, the exact situation of the patient!
Two other important rubrics for sabadilla are:
• Delusion thoughts being outside of body
• Delusion soul, body was too small for soul or separated from
"My mind left and went to the ceiling. "
"I used to leave my body when I was in plaster. "
"It's easy for me to leave my body. "
"I'm still trying to be here to find, the spirit in matter. "
"I don't know what I want to do. "
"I don't know my own nature. "
"Where do I belong, I'm not placed, I hate my world and my life. "
"My mother didn't help me to find my nature. "
"I don't know what my emotional connection is with the things that have happened. "
"I just don't fit in this world. "
"I'm not attached anywhere. Free floating, not attached anywhere in earth.
No marriage, job, mortgage, no passionate endeavour. "
There still remained a further major aspect to the case. Here yet again is how Sally describes her
vitiligo:
"It's about my image and sexuality. "
"I have a sense of shame. "
"I'm full of grief. I have it on my face, like the walking wounded. "
"I want to cover myself. "
"I feel lonely, no one can help me. I have to deal with it on my own. "
"I can't get help. I've caused it, it's my own fault. "
"I don't deserve help. I've caused it so I have to wear it. "
From the outset I felt this to be a case of sexual abuse, rape or an unwanted pregnancy. Words such
as shame, sexuality, cover up, and the sense of revulsion regarding her body all pointed in that direction:
From my study of sabadilla, I now felt sure that an unwanted pregnancy had taken place. Sabadilla has:
• Delusion thought herself pregnant
• Delusion enlarged
• Delusion body shrunken like the dead
A second consultation was arranged and without any prompting Sally begun to tell me the rest of
her story.
When she was 13 years old her sister, then 15, became pregnant. The baby was adopted out. "It was a huge, shameful thing. "
"Only I knew. "
"My mother lost her grandchild and has wept to me these last 24 years. The sadness has been
incredible. My mother was devastated, and I have been caught up in her grief and guilt. "
"It was kept such a secret, so much importance was put on what other people would think. The
impact it had on me has never been acknowledged. "
We can see that the way Sally feels about her life is a combination of her emotions around her
sister's pregnancy and her own feelings as a small child immobilised in plaster. About her vitiligo she says:
"When is it going to stop, when will it all end. "
"It feels unbearable. "
"It's been going on so long, it keeps going, I don't know how to go on bearing it. "
"It's unbearable, intolerable. "
"I feel so trapped in my world and in my body. "
"What will become of me, I'm scared of being stuck. "
These are the unresolved emotions of the small child encased in plaster.
From Phatak one learns that sabadilla is related to pulsatilla. The mother's grief, guilt, need for
consolation, selfishness and fear of the opinion of others is all pulsatilla. Likewise her daughter has an underlying pulsatilla state. She is mild, seeks reassurance and nurturing, theorises and is obsessive about her skin.
From the time when she was put in plaster as a child comes the beginning of the sabadilla state. The idea that her limbs are crooked, leaving her body, the separation of body and soul.
The feeling at age 13, during her sister's pregnancy, is that she has done something wrong, it is her fault, she has created the situation. There is a lot of sadness, grief and sense of loss. Shame. She cannot ask for help, does not deserve help because it is her fault. Then she feels lonely and isolated. It cannot be discussed, she cannot get sympathy, she has to cover it up.
In this case Sally has taken on the family's feelings. Pulsatilla is a remedy that needs sympathy and support. But here secrecy and silence predominate. There is fear of what the neighbours will think. The more she thinks about it the worse it becomes. A sabadilla state develops where all the intensity is turned inwards and projected onto the self as negativity.
Now she feels very negative about her body. No one will feel attracted to me. There is a feeling of perversion about the genital area. It looks weird. This now is a sabadilla state.
The following treatment has been given over 12 months
July 1994: sabadilla MK
November: stramonium MK
January 1995: sabadilla 50MK
April: sabadilla DMK
July1995: ignatia C200 Due to the sensitivity of the patient and desire to avoid unnecessary
September: sabadilla 10MK December: stramonium 10MK February: sabadilla CMK June: pulsatilla LM2 daily
aggravation, the remedies were given by olfaction, single dose only.
This is a case where one expects to give treatment over a long period of time. Where there has been such a deep revulsion of the self, strength of character can only be expected to be restored gradually. Sabadilla has been the main remedy, stramonium and ignatia significant intercurrents and pulsatilla is beginning to emerge as the underlying state, as anticipated.
In 12 months to date there has been no alteration in the presenting condition of the skin, numerous patches of pale discolouration.
Aside from this, the response to the remedy has been consistent and ongoing. Sally has completed her course of study and gained a well paid position for the first time in her life. Most recently she has found the courage to end a harmful relationship despite the fear of being alone and having nobody.
Initially Sally felt less negative, her spirits were better and she was not obsessing about her skin in the same way:
"I had been obsessed with my disease. Now I'm ready for the next adventure.
I'm not so consumed with my disease. "
"I have an incredible desire for change. I want change in my relationship, an urge to break out, to be
free of constraints, a sense of limitation and longing for freedom. "
"I want to be on the move. "
After 6 months of treatment Sally felt fifty per cent better emotionally.
"There is not the feeling of grief about my skin. Not the constant traumatised state. Not the
existential devastation. I'm not utterly despairing. "
Sally gives a sense of being more in her body. Less intellectual.
"I really want to be here, to experience a bodily life. "
"I want simplicity, a more sensual life; house, garden and animals. "
There have been dreams of dignity, warrior women, self containment, of being attractive and
desirable. She speaks of the thought of having dignity in the face of all your problems, of not being diminished.
"I just want to keep changing and getting truer. A determination to stand up for myself. I'm coming from a new place of self love. "
The issues around her sexuality and abuse run deepest and are yet to be worked through satisfactorily.
She hopes that someday, someone will come and unlock her sexuality and sensuality. Note again the image of being trapped like the child encased in plaster.
Most remarkable Sally spoke about her belly:
"I have a sense of my belly being rewoven. "
So many connections have been drawn together in what was said.
"My belly feels nourished. There could be strength in my belly, some guts, a sense of pleasure. The
possibility of inner beauty.
The patient gives us sabadilla and homœopathy is enriched.
Linda Beaver, Dip. Hom. Med. (Syd) Newtown Homœopathic Centre
1st Floor, 170 King Street
Newtown, Sydney, Australia
Linda Beaver practises in Sydney and lectures in Chemistry at the Australasian College of Natural Therapies and the Sydney College of Homœopathic Medicine.
Her research work, entitled Art in Homœopathy has been presented at a guest lecture and seminar series in Sydney.
Sabadilla, pregnant with meaning Coming closer to an understanding Linda Beaver, Australia