Dr. Prafull Vijayakar

Work shop 2002 at Mahabaleshwar

From Verbatim, reprint edition Jan 2005

The patient came in 1999:

This is a case of a lady who came in with this complaint of panic attacks. She does not know how it started.

Patient: It just started suddenly, one set of problems culminated and the other started. I had a problem of insecurity since childhood. I had problems with crackers, bright light, white light, light in general is a problem for me. I was a loner as a child, would remain in a corner. I would read and paint a lot. I am a painter.

On my way back from college to home, which is just ten minutes, I would just feel scared. I do not know about what. I would feel a black beast chasing me. I had a bad time as I stayed in a joint family where men were very dominating and my mother would just let go everything and I suffered because I had to adjust. I would not fight back. Also, some other children were staying at home (my father’s sister’s kids). So, there also I had to adjust. This became my second nature. For sake of peace, I will do anything, but now since past 6 to 8 months, I have decided to stand up for myself. I cannot fight back with my clients, so I am losing money. I am an interior designer. I adjust on unnatural demands to please the client and will not charge them extra just to be on good terms. Later on, I feel that I am doing wrong. I am aware of my traits and now I want to get rid of them and learn to say no. I make excuses and see if I can manage it or not, only to avoid confrontation. Confrontation is scary for me.

Dr. Vijayakar: So, till now we a get a picture of a lady who is timid, who has a fear of confrontation, cannot say no to people, and her reaction is escapism. Her intellectual level is quite high, she reads a lot of books, is very expressive, uses sophisticated language, and is artistic.

Patient: I have told a counsellor about all this. I have a friend he is my partner and guide. He is married and is ten years elder to me. He understands me and explains me to control my emotions. He shouts at me and asks me to fight back. Sometimes, he only fights for me and then again I start feeling worthless. My basic nature is crusader type. I like to wander on an unbeaten path. I cannot work where I have to ask or take permission. I am eminent. I used to trust people very easily within five seconds. Then I feel cheated and hurt. This partner has taught me a lot.

Dr. Vijayakar: This partner is coming too many times in picture!

Patient: I used to get this panic attack of a black beast chasing me so I was taken to a psychiatrist who gave me injections. I felt like a nuclear bomb bursting within my brain and then a black out. My previous memory is very hazy. This is all I remember. If I think back, it gives me a headache. This is disturbing me a lot; I do not know what to do about this. The only thing that has helped me is books and medication, not meditation. I tried yoga; I cannot concentrate on the root of the nose in yoga, feel giddy, disoriented and get a headache.

Dr. Vijayakar: Why is meditation not always healthy? This is because you are suppressing your thoughts. It should not be a force. Most Jain sadhus, even Ramakrishna suffered from cancers because of these suppressions. The other type is good that is Vipasana, wherein you just let your thoughts come and watch them go, you are not stopping your thoughts. Let exteriorization take place; you do not get influenced by it. This is what the patient did and she would say I am not feeling panicky or scared.

Patient: Soni is panicky and scared. I have a fear of getting into a plane. I cannot even think of getting into it. I feel a sense of helplessness and out of control. I cannot open the plane door and get out. To travel in a train also takes a lot of fighting. I avoid them, especially fast trains, because in a fast train, I am trapped for more than 14 to 15 minutes. The train will not halt at least 3 to 4 stations. A slow train will at least halt at every station; it will halt every 3 minutes. I also have this fear of heights, which started after this car accident. Till one week after the accident, I did not have any problems. Then after a week later I started developing this. I started getting hot and cold flushes and I would run in the house. I needed to walk fast, to move fast, and then this vertigo started. Now I have even stopped driving.

Dr. Vijayakar: What did you do after the accident?

Patient: I very calmly, in a balanced way, got up called my mother, lodged a police complaint. My sister was in the car. She had some head injury and she has a tendency to exaggerate. I started feeling guilty that she is hurt because of me.

Dr. Vijayakar: This is anxiety, conscience of.

Patient: This went on for a week and then she became fine. There was nothing wrong with her and then I fell ill. The doctor insisted that I take psychotherapy, I was forced to take anti-psychotic medicines and then I refused to go to work. I even refused to go back home. I went and stayed at my partner’s place with his wife, I went to his family doctor and took those medicines so that I will not have to take any of the psychiatrist’s medicines. I told the doctor that I was a type A personality. Now, I have changed my name legally to Soni. I am Soni and not Trupti. I have not told this to anyone. All these things are happening to Trupti and not to Soni who is a strong person. If anyone calls me by my old name, my reaction is different.

Dr. Vijayakar: What did you not like about Trupti?

Patient: Trupti is an inferior person, always adjusting, not being able to do what she wants. Soni is not like that. She has gone out into the world, she does what she wants, and she is doing what she wants.

Dr. Vijayakar: The patient is coming out of herself and looking at herself.

Patient: Soni is what she wants to be. She cannot even imagine being married. It is strangulation for her, staying at home and being a daughter-in-law. Soni will not do it. I am not against marriage, but I cannot take in the demands of marriage. Trupti was negative, could take things, she was sentimental. Soni is sensitive; she knows where she is going, what she should be doing. She is acting and reacting. Trupti was only reacting; she did not know anything. I also have claustrophobia, stage fear. I cannot bear people around me or crowding my space. I am the queen, it is my stage, but with lights I go mad. I am used to it now. Yellow light makes me feel warm, cozy, comfortable, and secure. White light makes me cold. I get disorientation within me with neon lights.

Dr. Vijayakar: What about green, violet, indigo, and red?

Patient: Initially I used to get scared, but now that is not a problem. Blue light causes some problem.

Dr. Vijayakar: What about music? I am trying to find out sensitivity to different frequencies.

Patient: I like low soft music, base music like the type of Hemant Kumar, not high-pitched, I get disoriented again and feel uneasy, like that of a violin. It drives me crazy. I can work along better with elderly people. I have always been a one-to-one person. Most of my friends are 8 to 10 years elder to me. I connect to them very fast, can relate to them.

Dr. Vijayakar: Any dreams?

Patient: Dream of a black beast chasing me, now it has stopped chasing me. Also I get a recurrent, strange dream wherein I am sleeping with my mother and brother and one man comes into the room crossing my mother and brother. I shoot him and he bleeds, there is blood on the floor and he disappears. My mother gets up and she cleans the floor and then I suddenly wake up.

Dr. Vijayakar: This means she is psoric-sycotic, now threatening to go into syphilitic. Her reaction is very hysterical, too much for a slight stimulus, she might go into a bad syphilitic disease.

Patient: The third dream is that there is a massive hall and the walls have holes and I seem to be zooming in and zooming out—feeling giddy, I cannot close my eyes also. Bold stripes keep dancing in front of me. I classify them into graphical design and put them away; I pile it and keep it away. Also I cannot bear vastness, cannot look at an open sky or sea.

Analysis:

♦ Intellect : High, again sycotic intellect, she piles and makes a graphic design of her dreams.

Also she is hysterical. This is a sycotic defense + reaction is that she must move constantly, walking up and down.

♦ Miasm : Syco-syphilitic, trying to cover up is sycotic.

Therefore, let us combine hysterical + intellectual + must move constantly. The remedies that come up are: BELLADONNA, IGNATIA, PULSATILLA, RHUS-TOX, VIOLA- ODORATA.

Now let us see the remedy differentiation:

Belladonna: Here there is no congestion, heat, redness, or suddenness.

Ignatia: She is not conscientious, as she is going after her married friend.

Pulsatilla: She is aggravated in open space.

Rubrics taken:

♦ Impressionable, susceptible (light, music).

♦ Sensitive to violin.

VIOLA- ODORATA is the only remedy. So, let us see VIOLA-ODORATA.

♦ Emotions need to be controlled by intellect. She was Trupti when emotional, sentimental, needing to give up and she did not like that, so she changed to Soni. She initially was right brain dominant-emotional, artistic, creative, imaginative, philosophical, hysterical, and poetic. But all the set of symptoms culminated after a particular period and another set of symptoms started. She then became left-brain dominant—analytical, logical, calculative, positive, strong, started saying no, She knows what she wants, that is intellect predominates emotions or emotions need to be controlled. She was cowed down, she had to adapt and adapt, and then came Soni, she was changed by that man. She was psoric at first and then that man changed her to sycotic and still further, she is now going into syphilitic.

The remedy given to her was VIOLA-ODORATA.

1st Follow-up:

I used to have panic attacks. After medication, I have literally calmed down to the point of; I think it is almost gone. I could not sit in a theatre, enjoy music, it would be a three-hour of constant fight for me. If the music went too loud, I would end up shutting my eyes, but today I can enjoy music. I could not sit in a merry-go-round and now I actually went to Essel world on the rides and enjoyed them. Depression is much better partly due to meditation. The feeling to do something has just begun. It is like a beginning and I want to start it. Fear of planes is still there.

2nd Follow-up: 8 months later:

Patient: I am now able to use my right hand. I am amazed to find myself using this, but it is comfortable. I could not even hold a spoon or pen with my right hand since childhood, it was so weak and now I can use it! I can write. Now if I am tired, I know my right hand is there. Previously when left hand was tired, I would take a break. Now I am not uncomfortable on the right side.

Dr. Vijayakar: Two weeks back, she developed pain in her left arm and she

was forced to use her right arm and she was surprised that she could use it. That is, she is getting balanced. We are shifting her. Her right hand was weak and now she can use it.

Patient: Another amazing part was the flights. I went on eight flights in this month! The only problem I had was during the take-off. The take-off was still a nightmare. I had some problem only 10 minutes before take-off. I enjoyed seeing the world from above.

Dr. Vijayakar: Previously, she did not like vastness. Now everything is getting balanced. First the reaction was that of panic, now it is that of anxiety. This is yet not a total cure. It still has to come down.

Follow up in 2001:

Patient: I developed skin eruptions from right to left.

Dr. Vijayakar: It has to be on both sides, as we need to balance both the sides.