When I was five years old, my uncle killed himself. I remember the expression on my aunts face as she took the call from my mother. His body had been found. He had gone missing the night before and was found late the following morning in his car, with a hose attached to the exhaust, feeding in through the mostly closed window. I remember being at his home after the funeral. Everyone was very somber. It was 1970. My cousins dressed in formal wear, the baby grand piano he had played with such love, just sitting there all alone, waiting to be touched. A short time later I had a distinct feeling of the presence of his spirit as I played alone one day, lining up chess pieces on my grandmothers Persian rug. The depths of shame my uncle felt from failing in the family business coupled with some challenging family relationships, had sent him into a state of despair so profound, that the only relief he could imagine was to end his life. He was a hard working, responsible man who conformed to the expectations of his role, and the emotional breakdown he experienced from his own perceived failure, was simply too much for him to carry. This is the Aurum state.
When I was fifteen, my boyfriend broke up with me. I was so devastated that I swallowed a handful of codeine phosphate because really, the only way I can describe the pain I felt was that it hurt so much, I just wanted to die. The next morning, my father woke me up for school, as usual, and I stumbled down the hallway, collapsing into my mothers arms. I was very groggy, I don't remember much except that I spend the morning with my cousin who did her best to cheer me up, but I was shattered by the break up. I couldn't eat, I couldn't breath, I couldn't think about anything else. My emotional body has always been my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. I am extremely sensitive, probably oversensitive. I am a creative type, I can't face violence or injustice, I follow my heart, often against my better judgement, I trust everyone, I am open and I share too easily, but I cry alone. I idealise romance, and I can be hysterical. In the months that followed, during long frustrating calls with that same boyfriend, as I tried to squeeze some emotional juice out from him, I slammed the receiver down so hard so often, that I broke three phones. It was always the boyfriends who broke my heart. Not the death of a dog, not the death of an uncle, but the emotionally traumatic death of romance. This is the Ignatia state.
The theme of suicide remained through my teenage years, hovering. It wasn't a full blown depression, but rather a sense of it that stuck around. But in my early twenties, after the birth of my first child it returned with vengeance. We were living in the rainforest, miles away from town, with no community and no family around us, and while the sweet scent of the dense damp earth fed my soul, as the mist settled over the valley, all thick and rich and suffocating, I sank into a state which would later be identified as post natal depression. I was a good mother and I loved my little one, but it was hard. She was hungry, I was depleted, we had no money and I felt like I had simply run out of steam. I had nothing left to give. I felt indifferent and detached, stagnant and joyless. It wasn't that I wanted to kill myself, I just had no energy with which to live. This is the Sepia state.
After moving back to the city, I struggled again, but this time, the depression was more alive with outbursts of all consuming rage. I felt victimised by my life and unable to move past that stuck place. Frustrated by my husbands seeming lack of care for things I held sacred, like the emotional wellbeing of our children, (I was too sensitive, he wasn't sensitive enough), in rare moments of anger and frustration, I could throw whatever was in my hand at the time towards him, smashing it against the wall as he ducked to miss my rage. I felt indignant, unsupported, like I was doing it all alone. And yet, most of the time, I was sweet. Nobody would have guessed the extent of my internal suppressed rage, and the depths of despair to which I was taken by my emotionally intense world. I was so unhappy with my lot and I just didn't know what to do with the rage I felt within, and again suicide crossed my mind. This is the Staphisagria state.
Thoughts of ending it all continued to plague me most of my adult life. My homeopath struggled to find the right remedy match. I was not a classic Aurum, because I had little ambition to succeed in the world, and felt no shame about not having done so. In untangling the picture, it seemed I carried a certain burden. Something like the archetypal wound of women throughout time, an existential heaviness, and yes, probably a hereditary predisposition towards depression. I was a dutiful mother, daughter and friend with a serious orientation and a sense of morality with religious overtones and emotional weakness*. I had also experienced some subconscious Holocaust imagery, which came up in a past-life clearing. So there was this inherent sadness (for no real reason) which she saw in me and for this she prescribed Aurum-muriaticum which I took for ten years. (link unavailable for this remedy as I have not found a site which represents the remedy well).
*I must clarify that being emotionally available or in touch with ones emotions is not the same as being unable to control ones emotions appropriately. This may be seen as weakness on the emotional body, and Aurum has this element.
These days I don't think about killing myself anymore. I still have moments of sadness, regret and guilt, self blame and hopelessness. I still feel overwhelmed with injustice and shattered by cruelty, but that place to which I used to sink so often slowly closed, pushing me up to the surface.
Suicidal ideation and depression runs through my family line. As a practitioner I tread gently when I see it but at the same time, I am not scared by it. I know what it means to sink to a place so dark and unforgiving that the only way out is to end it all. Homeopathy has seen excellent results with suicide and depression. My personal experience attests to the deep changes homeopathy can make in the psyche and the mental and emotional state of those who suffer. I believe that depression changes, it is organic. As we grow and life presents us with different challenges, our predisposition towards suicide and depression changes form and expression. Homeopathy can help manage these periods of despair and hopelessness, eventually lightening the heaviness and bringing balance and healing to the organism.
These examples are just a few of the remedy options. Please see a qualified Classical Homeopath and do not treat yourself based on these short descriptions. Homeopathy is a very complicated, multi-layered process and must be respected and not taken lightly. Patients need to be carefully monitored and remedy potencies adjusted accordingly.
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