Dramatic Remedy for Depression: A Case of Red-Tailed Hawk

The first of all homeopath introducing and document bird remedies is Jonathan Shore, MD, of California. However, recommendations within the Reference Works software program info on many other bird remedies that we have used with our patients. I've prescribed homeopathic medicines produced from macaw, peregrine falcon, crow, dove, eagle, seagull, hummingbird, and others. For those animal lovers available , do not concern yourself that any bird is sacrificed or suffers in order to make the medication. It's prepared, whenever possible, from a drop of blood.

Bird Remedy Clues

How will it become clear that a patient needs one of these medicines? First, obviously she needs an animal, as opposed to a plant or mineral medicine. There are problems with survival, victim/aggressor, dominance, attractiveness, competitiveness, human/inhuman, and, often, a feeling of dirtiness. The patient is likely to possess a strong association, negative or positive, with animals generally and, often, using the particular one that the medicine is ready. Clues that the bird prescription medication is indicated include references to soaring, flying, wings, heights, and then any other bird-like images. Raptors may have violent, prey/predator images. Polarities may emerge of being bound, held, captive, restricted, and restrained versus free, unrestricted, and able to go wherever she would like. Perspective is another subject that comes up in a few of these cases. Flying high infers the ability to view from a broader viewpoint.

Themes which are especially characteristic of those needing bird medicines include 1) movement, especially in the air; 2) bone structure ; 3) rapid metabolism; 4) migration/travel; 5) freedom; 6) a nervous restlessness; 7) stabbing or stitching pains, generally, and particularly in the heart, chest, and abdomen.

A Dramatic Reaction to Depression – Patient Case

J.C. is a 44-year-old female patient who given a very interesting case. Thanks to the Red-Tailed Hawk proving of Jonathan Shore, we were capable of giving her Buteo from the beginning of the case. The following sections are written in her very own words, and that i have italicized phrases that I consider really important to understand the case.

April, 2001

“I'm a mess. I'm taking Prozac for outright depression. I have had days which i call black-hole days, when I couldn't even deal with creating a list, a smaller amount get to the store. Low, low energy. I've had 5 miscarriages coupled with a lot of grief. I had a genuine attachment to bringing a second child in to the world. Then needed to face my husband's addictions. I'm still thinking about adopting or foster parenting. I attend Al Anon. [Al Anon is perfect for families of alcoholics – J.C.'s husband was an alcoholic addicted to marijuana.]

“On my worst days I'd feel immobilized, scared to death, bordering on panic attacks- helpless and powerless, full of anxiety and despair. I just couldn't stop my mind. I wasn't capable of being present. I was stuck within this mindset of 'What should I do? What should I do?' Unable to make a decision. Leaving my husband has never been my first option, but exactly how could I accept this person? On bad days I just want to shake him and get, 'Why are you still doing this?'

“On bad days, Personally i think so, so tired. Oppressed by fatigue. I wanted to go in a hole, wrap myself in a blanket, and pull the floorboards over me. This is when I went to my doctor and requested antidepressants. I had been laying on the sunspot on the kitchen floor. I possibly could have laid there all day long. I felt so tired which i would close my eyes at stoplights.

“I've had a lot of people check my thyroid. I visited a homeopath who kept changing remedies for me. Walking and becoming in fresh air always helped, however i didn't seem to have any motivation. I did not even care about washing the house or fixing my hair.

“I'm very shy, introverted. My energy is drained when you are around people for too much time. Shallow talk zaps and bores me. I freeze in social situations- I talk too much. Nervous prattle. Personally i think embarrassed. I wish to be liked. Whenever we visit my husband's family, Personally i think disconnected from him. It pushes a lot of buttons of insecurity, lack of confidence, and I get mouthy. I had just graduated with college and was at a cocktail party given by a company that was interviewing me for income. I remember walking around having disjointed conversations, saying totally moronic things. I attempt so difficult which i just blurt things out.

“Intense would describe me. I've big feelings, big desires, big ideas. I don't stay tepid.

“I get foul-mouthed and fairly dramatic when I'm angry. Plenty of gesticulating. I transfer to the other side when I'm pushed too far. My hubby lied in my experience and was out till the wee hours. He came in pretty toasted. I was so angry. Just crazy, crazy. I had been throwing my arms around. Then my husband will applaud my performance and that we both laugh about this. Once I was working for a mortgage company and the workload was getting way out of hand. I had been handed the umpteenth-million file. I threw the whole stack up the environment. A kind of a release. Everyone laughed.

“I'm a kind 1 in the Enneagram: self-righteous, always trying to perform the right thing- the dutiful child, student. I can be supercritical of myself and others. I'm really good at troubleshooting. The trouble spots leap out at me. My focus has a tendency to visit wrong.

“I try to fix every small part of the planet. I'm not happy when my hubby says I'm not doing things the proper way. Even deadheading petunias, I got defensive. I must be right. 'Opinionated' is a word many people would use to explain me. Kind of a narrowness. I'm able to argue towards the death after i know I am not right. I'm somehow protecting myself that way. If I weren't right, I would feel belittlement, embarrassment, shame.

“I took lots of teasing from my older brothers after i was little. Their taunting hurt my feelings a great deal. They explained, 'Don't go away crying. Just go away.' So, most likely the tough, outer mask was for them. The face area I present to husband's family or to him about deadheading. Inwardly afraid, trying to protect myself. Just being belittled, shamed, embarrassed, humiliated. When i state those activities, my brothers come to mind, so there should be an association there.

“I was raised the middle of 6 children in a tiny town. I didn't contribute, and so i started being mommy's helper because my older sister didn't want the job. I tried to place order into the chaos. I took on that role fairly early, from my very own need for order and from caretaking. I had been always aware of how tired and overwhelmed my mother was, but I really never had a domestic bone within my body. I had been a tomboy. My dad wasn't emotionally present. He was more involved with hunting and fishing with my brothers. He'd a horrific, grassfire temper. I remember been sizzled with that – torched at that moment. I walked around on eggshells, tippy toes.

“I would be a good student – competitive, but I lacked confidence and really was shy. It is going beyond shy. I could not face the crowd in the Christmas concert. I was even shy to accept things that I wanted. I didn't want that attention on me. Just forget I'm here.

“I've always were built with a spiritual orientation. I had been raised Methodist, but knew this didn't fit for me personally early on. I'd spiritual experiences as a child. The rapture. No one else in the household had those convictions, experiences. Those small boxes of religion failed for me personally.

“I needed to be outside absorbing sky. My personal favorite was at night searching for at stars. I possibly could blow a gasket when I was little by trying to absorb the infinity from the sky. I'd go out and try to absorb with my thoughts the number of stars there have been out there. To understand the enormity of infinity. It would tweak my brain. Something about the indifference or sameness from the sky comforted me. It's there- always the same. There is however this peace that isn't emotional.

“I just were built with a requirement for it. My mother called it 'sucking sky.' When I was irritable, she told me to visit suck sky. I love sleeping out under the stars. I think this is exactly why I moved out West. They call it “Big Sky Country.” I tend towards claustrophobia. I do not like elevators. You couldn't get me into tunnels or caves. From an earlier age I was absorbing the universe-ness – the bigness of space. I was looking outward to find big, expanding, vistas.

“That continues to be my orientation with work. I am a broad-brush person. Detail jobs are actually painful for me personally. I thought the business courses attending college were gonna kill me. I've learned to tolerate detail work. The sky is still huge. We live up on a hill. Vistas that people love. I'm thankful for having the area simply to inhale.

“It's this need to soar into the sky. I feel really drawn to birds. I've been my very existence. The flying aspect. I enjoy see hawks circling. I'm able to get into a space where the joy starts bubbling. Among the finest to consider served by them and soar.

“As a child, I'd plenty of dreams about running down hills and flapping my arms. I quickly would remove. The joyful, lifting sense of taking off in to the air. Sometimes when looking out at a vista, I have a need to take off and fly.

“Outside and air is essential in my experience. I've got a lot of trouble with those long flights, like to India. I almost feel like I want oxygen. What helps is pressing my face towards the glass.

“I need space and air. At concerts, I can't sit in the centre. After i what food was in church and had to sit in the centre pew, I had to plan my escape so I could get out. Small spaces are really hard for me.

“There's an association beside me with cats soar – expansive. It is a spiritual thing for me personally. I'm also able to consider it when I'm inside a joyful space. I did a sweat having a Native American medicine man. He touched my head and explained to return to the womb and realize that it is also the universe. The area was pitch-black. It became the womb. Then it became infinity. Therefore it is not necessarily physical space. It's really a mental thing.

[I asked her, “Which bird would you like the most?”] “Clearly a hawk. I just like them circling. The way they glide. It simply seems so free. Like they're above it all. Noble comes to mind. They think noble to me. Maybe I'd believe that way about eagles basically saw them more. Hawks tend to be more common and I discover their whereabouts frequently.

“I've had irrational dreams of ending up as a street person, of my material needs not receiving met. I've often thought those were a direct result my father not there. I never thought anyone would take care of my security. So I'd have to do it myself. Not feeling safe on the planet still raises its ugly head. Not long ago i experienced some panic attacks for a couple of days. Yesterday I had been driving past the flophouse hotels, feeling so sorry for anyone living there. I discovered myself thinking, 'But for the grace of God, there go I.'

“I worked for some time in a Under developed country. I acquired every GI disease you can imagine. Was down to 84 pounds. We're referring to survival. I had to find kids to obtain me food in the jungle. The thing I ate most consistently was cassava leaf – a green leaf with a poison that had to become pounded out of it. Additionally they ate palm butter, which is a sauce produced from palm nuts. I didn't take care of that. I had people send me the lower limb of a deer. They would singe it with the fur on. The smell was horrendous. So the food would be flavored with that burnt hair. I wisely recognized I would not survive there, and I moved to another village. Everyone was being poisoned.

I have 2 other recurrent dreams and they both involve my mouth. One is my teeth falling out. Another is having a mouthful of gum which i can't escape. In the dream of losing teeth, my mouth was disintegrating. Full of this black, sawdust-like material. One tooth, then increasingly more and more. They simply kept being released. Within the gum dream, I'm trying to pull this sticky gum from my mouth. Again there's increasingly more and much more.”

Medical History

• Musculoskeletal: Large cyst at base of middle finger on left hand; stress in upper spinal; severed right ACL in skiing accident; right bunionectomy. Bone structure in feet is not good, resulting in foot pain.
• Head: Most chronic physical symptom is a 10-year good reputation for headaches. Pain throughout head, with intense pain focused around left eye. Accompanied by sinus congestion and stiffness in neck. Better from heat, tai chi, meditation, massage, and anti-inflammatories.
• Gynecological: Dysmenorrhea, 5 miscarriages with D&Cs; recurrent ovarian cysts; adenomyosis

Analysis of Case

This patient sought out homeopathic strategy to depression and fatigue. She didn't emphasize her physical complaints, mentioning them limited to the end of the situation, as indicated above. The case unfolded with minimal prompting of any sort from us. This can be a clear illustration of the significance of allowing the patient the required time throughout the case-taking to tell her story. Given 2 1/2 hours, she revealed beautifully her state arising from childhood, the household etiology, and numerous life situations that brought out their state quite vividly.

When she began referring to the expansiveness from the sky and the universe, “the infinity from the sky,” and “the enormity from the universe,” we began taking into consideration the remedy, Hydrogen. But as we remained quiet and allow the patient continue, the story evolved to 1 of the bird soaring in the sky. Each one of the images to come confirmed the prescription of a bird remedy. Having little experience in this area, I contacted Jonathan and studied his bird provings. The individual appeared to be telling me that she needed Buteo-j but it was our very first time prescribing this medicine and that we didn't wish to jump to conclusions without researching other bird remedies. In the end, that is what I gave her.

Buteo Themes/Rubrics

The Red-Tailed Hawk themes/rubrics from Jonathan Shore's proving that emerged in this instance were the following:

• Themes: Freedom; Carefree, desires to be, and Zooming through stars
• Rubrics: “Negative Relationships: Exploited being, feels as though; Taking, people, more than desired to give; Rudeness, sadness, causes; Relationships, people, relating, having trouble in. [His proving also elucidated an aspiration, which could obliquely apply in this instance because of the recurrent drug abuse of the patient's husband]: Dream. Divorced, of getting, because husband abusive.
• Mind: Attempting to “curl up” for hours
• Energy: Lethargic, unmotivated and, feels; Sit, hours for; Delusion flying, feels as if, while walking
• Physical symptoms: Neck and shoulder tightness

My Assessment from the Case

This woman was raised in a family where she was very sensitive to being taunted by her brothers. A tomboy, she craved the affection of a father who had been fairly distant and who favored her brothers. From the very young age, she sought freedom, and found it most profoundly underneath the night sky where she contemplated and located solace in the expansiveness and enormity from the universe. Her search for the heavens took the type of a noble bird circling, gliding, soaring, free. The need for freedom and her primal, animal nature took her to a Under developed Country where she could, in fact, live a scene of nearly starving to death. She found herself inside a marriage and career where she felt a lack of freedom. She was torn between your alternatives of leaving her marriage due to her husband's problem's with substance abuse, and somehow rising to meet the problem and maintain a nurturing family life. The decision was to pick the latter. Her spiritual inclinations, also from the very young age, were another way for her to fly high and explore the enormity of the inner and outer universe.

Plan

I prescribe Buteo 1M.

Follow-ups

After 7 Weeks

“I am doing well. I cut my Prozac in two, to twenty milligrams. My mood has definitely improved. My dream activity has been incredible. The cyst on my small left-hand is no longer painful and contains reduced in size. The doctor told me before he'd never seen one so large.

“My last period was just A couple of days. That's amazing. My headaches are only minor.

“I feel upbeat, confident, and positive. A general, general sense of well-being. I'm tripping lightly and it feels great. My security buttons aren't being pushed. I'm able to rely upon God, a higher power. Those are really big strides for me.

“I don't feel that indecisiveness is a concern either. My confidence has come back. Before, I felt conflicted about whether to go back to work or not. Everything solved; I am not going back to work. End of story. I additionally feel a lot clearer about getting together with my husband's parents.

“I feel less pushed by duty. I'm not making to-do lists anymore. My new mantra is 'I do not have to do anything whatsoever if I don't want to.' And it's all working fine. I'm just walking lightly.

“My confidence is originating in relationships, too. I am feeling less isolated and I no longer need to engage people in conversation. I'm researching listening. Irrrve never realized how wonderful the power of silence could be. My husband is expressing appreciation based on how non-reactive, supportive, loving, and compassionate I am.

“I haven't felt the need much to get out and suck sky. I feel happier with my very own bit of sky. I'm just at ease with the space that i am in. Many nights I like to go out in the backyard and take in the night sky, but I've been doing the work less.

“I've not had any hopes for ending up like a street person or about my teeth receding. There's a real possibility of my husband getting fired, and I haven't moved into fear. The worry of being in a place like this is finished. I no longer want to manipulate, control. Walking on the path feels great.”

Plan

I instruct J.C. to accept Buteo 1M in a liquid form two times a week for 30 days, then once per week.

After 3 Months

“I'm can not maintain some sanity. My hubby is quitting his job. Our son is picking up on our financial problems. The wedding is in jeopardy, however i don't want to leave my husband. I've been taking the remedy once per week. My mood is okay.

“The cyst on my small hand is completely pain-free. I have absolutely pain-free menstruation. I'm doing work with my counselor about attempting to know very well what I would like from my husband and to be able to communicate that to him.

“I feel a lesser have to 'suck sky.' I mostly go out for the coolness from the air. I've found it refreshing. However i not have the need to escape into space anymore.”

Plan

I instruct J.C. to take the Buteo once per week throughout the current stress, then 1 dose every 14 days.

After 10 Months

“I feel like the remedy did beautifully. I'm taking it twice a month. I'm feeling fine. No pain with menstruation. The cyst on my small finger never hurts. My moods and energy are good. There is no fatigue. I haven't been sucking air at all – just haven't had the need. I'm enjoying using the dog out for fast walking and fresh air. I am going out every night and toss some food within the fence to the creatures – skunks, deer. We are selling our home and moving near my husband's parents, so he is able to get support.”

Plan

I instruct J.C. to take Buteo 1M when needed.

Thirteen Months Later

“I'm still doing really well. Since i have spoke with you, I've taken the Hawk twice during some anxious moments. I felt an immediate bounce both times. No gynecologic symptoms. I recently had a very early miscarriage from surprise pregnancy. It's the most normal miscarriage I've had. I will be moving soon.” At this time the individual gone to live in another state and I lost connection with her.

Closing Comments

Since this case, I have had numerous successful installments of Buteo along with other bird remedies. Actually, I'm going to present an attractive long-term case of the child with Asperger Syndrome and rage who responded dramatically to homeopathic Peregrine Falcon. But that is another case for an additional article!