ABSTRACT
Forsaken or abandoned feeling is a “feeling of being neglected”. When we consider “Repertory of homoeopathic materia medica” by Dr Kent, Aurum, Psorinum, Pulsatilla, Argentum nitricum, etc are few remedies of prime importance mentioned under the rubric forsaken feeling. The expression of forsaken feeling in all the remedies has a particular characteristic feature which individualize each remedy. In this article an attempt has been made by the author to differentiate the first and second grade remedies under the rubric forsaken feeling in the Kent’s repertory.
Key words: Forsaken feeling, Abandoned, Aurum, Psorinum, Pulsatilla, Kent’s repertory
INTRODUCTION
Feeling of abandonment is not a standalone mental health condition, such as depression, but it is a form of anxiety and even a phobia in some senses. People with abandonment issues may experience problems in their family, work places and other social relationships. Forsaken or abandoned feeling is a mental symptom which can be seen associated with many psychiatric disorders such as borderline personality disorders, depression, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, eating disorders, substance use disorders etc.
Meaning of the word forsaken
According to the Cambridge dictionary the word forsaken means:
-to leave someone forever especially when they need you
-to stop doing or having something
-to leave forever or to give up completely
-abandoned or deserted
Interpretation of Rubric ‘forsaken feeling’
A constant feeling of being neglected by others, it may be by friend, relative, kith and kin etc. A person is constantly having a feeling that he has been or is being unobserved, unloved, unnoticed etc by his children or others and nobody cares for him. Sometime patients won’t be able to hide this feeling from physician while talking about his sickness.
Patient feels that he was loved in the past (to what degree no matter). But now, he is not loved in the same manner (by whatever cause doesn’t matter), he is not appreciated in the same manner. He is not respected in the same manner. It is not about the degree in the past or the present, but his feeling that he is made lower in anyway, either love or care or respect or anything.
Scope of homoeopathy in consulting the feeling of abandonment is discussed by differentiating the higher grade remedies mentioned under the rubric forsaken feeling in Kent’s repertory
1st grade remedies of the rubric forsaken feeling in Kent’s repertory
- Aurum
- Psorinum
- Pulsatilla
AURUM
As mentioned in the literature, Aurum patients feel the reason for being lowered in the love, care, respect etc. is because he can’t perform his duty. In past, he used to be duty bound up to the perfectionist level but now may be because of some accidents or some other cause, he is unable to perform the same duty and now he feels that others have lost the respect or love upon him. This feeling can become so high in case of Aurum that he might go into suicidal disposition.
Some symptoms include:
- Melancholy with inquietude and desire to die
- Irresistible impulse to weep
- Longing to see ones relations, resembling nostalgia
- Imagines he has lost the affections of his friends this make him weep
- Sees obstacle everywhere, hopeless, suicidal, desperate
- Inclined to jump off heights, to dash himself into a chair
- Sad feels that all is against her and life is not desirable and the thought of death alone gives pleasure
- Great anguish, which even induce a disposition to suicide with cramp like contractions in the abdomen.
- Excessive scruples of conscience
- Despair of oneself and of others
- Ill humor and aversion to conversation
- The least contradiction excites his wrath
- Weakness of intellectual faculties
- Alteration of gaiety with melancholy
PSORINUM
Psorinum patients develops forsaken feeling because they feel themselves inadequate in everything. They might feel inadequate of stamina, inadequate of money, inadequate of beauty etc, which they used to have enough in the past. And thus they feel, as they have no stamina, money, beauty etc others neglect them. To this feeling of inadequacy the food is the relieving factor most of the time, thus we rank Psorinum as one of the hungriest remedy.
- Sadness, hopeless: he sees no light breaking through the clouds above his head; all is dark about him
- He thinks his business is going to be a failure that he is going to the poor house; that he has sinned away his day of grace. It is a fixed idea during the day and he dreams about it at night.
- Overwhelming sadness; dejection; he takes no joy in his family; feels that these things are not for him.
- His business is prosperous, yet he feels as if he were going to the poor house. No joy or realization of benefit. Extremely irritable wants to be alone. Doesn’t want to be washed.
- Full of anxiety, even of suicide. Despair of recovery. Though there is no eruption at night he is driven to despair by the continual itching. If he throws the covers off then he becomes chilly. If he covers up then there is itching.
The Aurum and Psorinum feeling of forsaken of being abandoned is seen mostly in old age. Because one can be very active and perform his duty well and one might feel adequate in his youth: which is not the case when he is old enough. Thus Aurum and Psorinum both are present in the rubric forsaken feeling, old age in.
PULSATILLA
This is the main remedy to be thought of upon getting forsaken feeling of being unloved, uncared and needing more attention or affection which many a times is visible in their acts and talks. They constantly need company, assurance that they have being loved, respected and they are the one of the important member. If not they will develop this feeling and for Pulsatilla the expression will be from weeping as it was suicidal disposition in case of Aurum.
Pulsatilla is applicable for complaints which are found to occur in patients of a mild, yielding or good natured disposition also in those by their sickness or naturally are very easily excited to tears. They are very apt to burst into tears whenever spoken to or when they attempt to speak as in giving their symptoms
Some symptoms include:
- Melancholy with sadness, tears, great uneasiness respecting ones affaires or about the health
- Involuntary laughter and weeping
- Weeps easily, timid, irresolute
- Fears in evening to be alone, dark, ghost
- Highly emotional, an April day
Second grade remedies of the rubric forsaken feeling in Kent’s repertory
- Argentum nitricum
- Cyclamen
- Lachesis
- Platina
- Stramonium
- Anacardium
ARGENTUM NITRICUM
In Argentum nitricum there is a feeling as if person will be accepted only if he can perform at the time of crisis. There is a feeling of being neglected and despised if he does not perform at the time of crisis. They are troubleshooters of the highest degree and see their roles as that, feeling very much neglected or isolated and feeling a failure if they can’t perform in a crisis.
They are in a situation in which they themselves have to struggle and nobody is going to help them: they try their best without any success.
- Mental anxiety, very impulsive, always in a hurry but accomplishes nothing; in continual motion
- He walks fast, hurries restlessly to fulfil engagements, fears to be late when there is plenty of time.
- Melancholic; does not undertake anything lest he should not succeed
- Impulses to throw herself from the window
- Frequent errors of perception, mistakes distances. Fears house corners
- Time seems to pass too slowly
- Apprehension when ready to go to church or opera, bringing on diarrhea.
- Easily angered or excited, anger brings on symptoms, cough, pain etc.
CYCLAMEN
The situation of Cyclamen is that of women who feels that she has done something wrong or that she has not done her duty and something bad has occurred as a result. She feels solely responsible for what has happened and feels like a criminal. She cannot reveal the crime to anyone, keeps everything within herself and tries to rectify things as much as possible. She avoids all social contacts, does not talk to anyone and feels totally alone.
- Taciturn, depressed, out of humour
- Sudden change of sadness and cheerfulness
- Weakness of memory
- Secret vexation and troubled conscience
- Ill humor and slovenliness with dislike to conversation by fits
- Love of labour, alternately with indolence
- Memory alternately quick and weak
- Dullness and confusion of mind with unfitness for every kind of labour
- Hallucination as if two persons lay in her bed and that the body of the other overlapped her by half.
LACHESIS
The specific problem of Lachesis seems to be the problem of jealousy, or how to get the better of (be one-up on) a rival, especially in the situation of male female relationship or in the sphere of sexual relationship. It is the situation of someone who has to compete against a person with better qualities.
Some mental characteristics include
- Great loquacity, amative, sad in the morning
- No desire to mix with the world
- Restless and uneasy
- Does not wish to attend to business. Wants to be off somewhere all the time
- Jealous, suspicious
- Mental labor best performed at night
- Religious insanity
- Derangement of the time sense
- Mental dejection and melancholy, with apprehension uneasiness about one’s malady, great tendency to give way to sorrow, to look upon the dark side of everything and to think oneself persecuted, hated.
PLATINA
The Platina feels forsaken or more isolated because of their haughtiness, high presence of themself and that no one is of the same level of them. Thus naturally they might think themself as achiever most of the times but at times they feel alone, no one belongs to their own level and to the people of lower level they don’t like to have company.
They treat their acquaintances inferior to themself. A strange thing about this remedy is that this imagination extends to the body. They imagines that their body is large and that the bodies of other people are smaller in comparison with them.
- Contemptuous mood
- Anxious
- Serious over matters that are not serious
- Irritable about trifling things,
- Moody and sulky over slight vexations
- Weeping
- Palpitation, trembling in all limbs during every little excitement, fears death and loathes life.
- The mental symptoms alternate with physical
STRAMONIUM
Stramonium lives in fear that there is some kind of immediate danger, they feel disoriented, they stammer and will kick, bite and scratch to escape. The causation can include witnessing death, violence and life threatening situations (PTSD).
These patients feels helpless, as though abandoned and left in a terrifying place. Fear of darkness and longing for sunshine, light and company is strong. They feel alone, lost and try to escape a perceived terrifying situation. Specific fears of violence, cemeteries, ghost, water, suffocation, strangers, demons, tunnels and animals.
They feel helpless, like a child left alone and there is an impression of danger, he feels abandoned, forsaken left in a terrifying place alone in the wilderness. Facing the sudden realization of this terrifying situation his brain refuse to work; he cannot recognize who is around him, he just clings to whoever or whatever is there.
They don’t seem to know anyone around them or recognize anything around them in this situation of terror. They feel alone, lost and tries to escape from this situation. They have no support and cry for help. Begging, preying in panic situation. All they want to be in a safe and secure place.
- Full of excitement, rage, everything is tumultuous, violent; the face looks wild, anxious, fearful; the eyes are fixed on a certain object; face flushed
- Sings amorous songs and utter obscene speech
- Crazy with distress, jumps out of bed, acts as if the bed were being from under him.
- Violent laughter with sardonic expression on his face.
- All sorts of illusions and hallucinations
ANACARDIUM
These patients have a guilt feeling. They feel like they did something wrong and feels badly about it. This idea may show up as a sort of acceptance of something being wrong with them. They feel bad about themselves, blaming themselves for what they have or have not done. They experience a helplessness in that they feel this is just the way they are, that there is something wrong with them. For example if they get a skin pustule or a boil, they feel there is something wrong that they will never be well and “why this is happening to me?” “Who gets this god forsaken disease?” They may even dream of having some sort of illness, that there is something wrong with them and that they will not be well.
- Full of internal anxiety. No peace. He is separated from the whole world and he despises to do that which is required of him. Cowardly in the extreme.
- Fears some dreadful things will happen. Morose, Sulky, Sullen.
- Unsocial, slight causes makes him excessively angry. He feels cruel can do bodily injury without feeling.
- Full of strange notions and ideas.
- Dwells on thoughts about his salvation.
CONCLUSION
Being abandoned can be one of the most difficult situation anyone will ever have to face. Abandonment issues can trigger depression, mistrust, and irrational amounts of fear. These issues affect daily life, careers, friendships and other relationships. We see a person who previously enjoyed the love of friends, and later lost it and feels alone, deserted, like a castaway. Therefore we may conclude that the key ingredient to feeling forsaken is an intense alone-ness secondary to that is the conviction of having lost in value. In this article an attempt has been made for the better understanding of the rubric forsaken feeling and differentiated the individualizing characteristic features of the higher grade remedies under the rubric forsaken feeling in Kent’s repertory.
REFERENCE
- Kent J.T. Repertory of the homoeopathic materia medica. New Delhi: B Jain Publisher 1961;1
- Clark John Henry. A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica. New Delhi: Jain Publishing co.
- Sankaran, R. The soul of remedies. Bombay, India: Homoeopathic Medical Publishers.19972.
- Kent J.T. Lectures on homoeopathic materia medica. New Delhi: Jain Pub. Co.; 2012.
- https://www.homeobook.com/understanding-the-rubric-abandoned
About Author:
Dr Aleena Thomas
Department of Case taking and Repertory
Under the guidance of Dr Praveen Kumar Government Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Bengaluru
