Carbo-veg case
Male, 36
Schizophrenia, OCD, Depression
First seen on 28-08-07
D: So tell me whatever you can.
P: First of I would like to say that it is a privilege to be in your presence. I have heard so much about you and sir please heal me sir [folds both his hands together as in prayer] I need healing tremendously. I am grievously wounded by a lot of events and diseases. I need to be cured sir, please do that.
} P: Sir I had a lot of faith in God and karma. That whatever one suffers, one suffers because of one’s karma. And God is the silent witness to the process. He does not interfere. But sir I also had a deep love for God and a deep desire for reaching God and liberation since my childhood and I used to believe that some where down the line he would protect me and I would do the right things and I would overcome all these failings and all these diseases. How ever in the last 21/2 or 3 years after 5 hospitalizations, a dozen ECTs, I have sort of lost my faith completely in God. I was looking for some protection. And I think that when I really needed the protection God did not come through.
Note
} The word ‘protect’ comes up many times.
} P: And some how I had this notion that I would die with my mother and I would never be without her. And so I was completely unafraid of anything because I thought I will live alive, I will die with my mother so there is no need to marry or feel lonely.
} This is very important.
} This indicates the 2nd row.
} It means, ‘I am part of my mother and if she dies I will die too.’
} P: To have the right thoughts. To be saved from having the wrong thoughts. [Again brings both hands together in form of a clasp] Or making the wrong decisions. And subsequently harm befalling you.
} P: This is what I mean to be safe is to be free or to be protected from any kind of physical, mental, emotional or circumstantial, social, financial problems.
Free from any kind of problem.
} P: It means where one is free and without fear also. Where one is free and is free of any kind of suffering. And where one is also without any fear. He has that assurance within himself that there is an assurance of safety or [Both hands clasped] protection.
Again makes the same gesture.
But here I will not ask about the gesture. Only when he describes his experience through the gesture, that is the time I will ask him to talk about the gesture.
D: Just describe lightness.
P: Lightness means not having any burden on the body or not having too many thoughts in the mind. When your mind is free from thoughts and your body is free from stiffness that is how I would describe lightness.
He associates the protection and security with lightness and the opposite is burden.
D: What is burden? Describe burden.
P: Burden means some sort of weight pulling you down or a sort of weight weighing over you mentally or physically. That would be burden.
Burden means weight pulling you down.
} D: Describe just the word pulling you down. Forget about yourself. Just the word pulling you down what does it mean?
} P: It means something which depresses you, or binds or stifles your true nature or your spirit.
} D: Describe binds and stifles.
} P: Stifle would mean like some thing strangulating you [Gesture showing strangulation by hands]. Something which does not let you breathe freely. Something that does not let you live freely. And something binding would be like tied you down, something tightly bound around you which is preventing you from living your life fully.
} D: What is free?
} P: Free is to be unbounded, to be relaxed, to be happy, to be light and easy in your mind and body. To be cheerful. To be unafraid. To be not worried, to be not anxious.
} D: Little bit more about free. How does free feel inside?
} P: Oh! Free feels very good. To feel free from inside gives you a lot of confidence. Gives you a lot of breathing space. Gives you a lot…..
} D: When you say breathing space what you mean?
} P: It means like a sort of a person who is in prison [opens both hands wide] released and comes in the open world and may be he comes and stand near the beach. And sees the vast ocean front of him. And he feels a breath of relaxation in his whole [Hands coming together] in his lungs. That he is finally able to breathe freely without [Hands intertwined] anything pressing down on him or without anything binding him. Sir, am I doing OK?
} P: It’s like a person who has been in prison for so long and now his prison term is over and that he will be released or he will be released on a particular day.
} D: How does anxiety feel inside?
} P: You can’t sit in one place at all. From inside you feel like something is choking [Gestures by showing grasp at neck] you. You can’t just relax in the present moment.
} D: Describe the experience of choking, how does choking feel?
} P: It means like someone is strangulating or stifling you completely. [Hands intertwined].
Strangulating you, stifling you
} D: Describe this hand movement.
Ø When the person is saying something else and his movement of the hand are involuntary then I don’t ask about the gesture, but I note it. But when he uses the gesture to emphasize something that he is describing, his experience that he is describing, then we can ask him about it. Then it will be easy for him, he can go into it. Because he has used the gesture to emphasize his experience.
Ø Wait till the word and the gesture match.
} D: Describe locked. Whatever comes to your mind when you do this? Just describe this.
} P: I feel like a strength and stiffness as if something [Hands intertwined and closed together] is binding you, something is holding you back.
} D: Holding you back means.
} P: [Hands intertwined and closed together] something which is not allowing you to live or express yourself freely.
In the earlier part he used the same gesture and described the experience as protection.
And here he does the same gesture and says… something which is not allowing you to live or express yourself freely.
} D: Describe this action again, whatever comes to you.
} P: This would be like something as if a lock is formed between two hands. So something is locking you, you and your spirit down that is what it means.
} Here we see both:
} The need for protection.
} Feeling like a lock or prison, where you cannot live or breathe freely, and the need to get out.
} This indicates the middle of row 2, i.e. the carbon.
D: So what happened when you moved from Calcutta to Baroda, you said you regretted.
At this point I know the remedy, that it is the middle of 2nd row, it is a carbon. Now I want to confirm the remedy and want to know which carbon.
} P: After we moved from Calcutta to Baroda, we asked my grand mother and grand father to come to Baroda, they came to Baroda. My grand father fell ill and within one and a half or two months he died. Of course I know he died due to some medical negligence. He died due to some extra insulin was given to him and he died due to hypo glycemia. How ever of course he was old and that did not pain me so much. But the following when we came here my brother became very depressed. He could not handle the change that came after shifting from Calcutta to Baroda.
} ‘He could not handle the change’ is very important.
} The main story for carbon is ‘to adapt to change’. Womb means stability and to come out, is one of the biggest change in anyone’s life.
} D: You said handle the change, what you mean?
} P: Means he could not adapt himself or be comfortable in the new atmosphere.
} D: So what is your feeling with that situation?
} P: Sir, when my brother died I really felt as if my soul had been torn into two parts. And one part had left me and I just could not take it. And I felt very guilty also at that point of time.
} This feeling is the main story of 2nd row:
} Of separation.
} The feeling that you are one and to be torn apart.
} D: Describe just that statement ‘My soul is torn into two parts’.
} P: [Deep sigh] Sir, my brother was such an integral part of me. [Hands intertwined and closed together] I felt that it was like one soul in two bodies. [Hands wide open] That we were one completely in spirit. [Hands intertwined and closed together] and when he left me it was like this.
‘Such and integral part of me’
‘Like one soul in two bodies…
we were one completely in spirit.’
Here he shows his experience with his hands, and at this point one should probe deeper in the gesture.
} D: When you show like this what you mean?
} P: [Hands intertwined and closed together] it means that we were together; we were intertwined in each others life inseparably. He also told me and he also wrote on a grain of rice and gave me, he told somebody to write ‘I love you bhai (brother) and I treasured that very much. I really feel that we were one. That we were one in all senses of the world.
With his brothers illness
} I mentally was myself shocked by this experience.
We go into the experience of shock.
Dreams
} I felt that my grandfather had a gun and he was taking out the gun from his waist pocket. And I felt like taking the gun from his hand and shooting myself in the head.
} From the dream of kissing the girl, we come to the same experience:
} Light
} Free
} Unbounded
} P: Inside you feel pressed down by a heavy burden which is placed on you mentally or physically.
Somebody cares about you
Reassured and safe
} P: Sir, I can’t think of anything more.
} The moment the patient says this, you know the truth is coming, as he has now stopped thinking and will no sooner reach his experience.
} D: When you say reassured and safe what is the experience inside?
} P: The experience is one of security. [Hands intertwined and closed together].
Tell of the same experience with the same gesture.
When probed further…
} D: What is this security? What are you showing with your hands?
} P: I am showing [Hands intertwined and closed together] as if one hand is protected by other hand. As if a protective cocoon is forming around.
} P: Protective cocoon is sort of an onion like there are concentric rings [Shows both hands making a rounded structure] around an onion as if there is something within the womb or something within the core of something.
} P: Womb. [Shows both hands making a rounded structure] Like a mothers womb protects the child and then [same gesture again] there is a protective cover around it.
This is one part, the protected part.
The other part will also come soon i.e. of being choked and wanting to come out.
} D: So what is the experience there?
} P: I think when one is [Both hands intertwined and closed together] protected by something as if something around it is protecting itself from any physical harm. [Shows both hands making a rounded structure] Then the feeling is one of reassured.
} P: There would be feeling of safety and warmth. [Both hands intertwined and closed together].
} D: So what is the opposite of that, safety, the warmth, what is the opposite of that?
} D: How does it feel inside you, the sensation, the experience of that turmoil and the restlessness? Just go into it and think, just close your eyes and experience the turmoil and the restlessness, what is happening inside?
} P: [Hands going outward and then again coming together to form the clasp] Sir, it feels as if a darkness engulfing you when you are in such a negative state. Where you feel apprehensive or anxious ….
} P: Sir, it feels as if there is a darkness enveloping you. And it also feels as if somebody, I don’t know why this thought come to my mind, but somebody is taking a knife and sticking it in your stomach. [Gesture of stabbing] I don’t know what relevance that had…
Going deeper into the experience
That finally it is all ending.
I see flames sir. I see flames which are keep on dancing around.
Fire
} I can see ashes sir, ashes as a result of the fire.
} Brittle ashes which we can pick up in our hands and crumble the moment you touch them.
} Grey or black in color like a fine powder or something which would turn to a fine powder the moment you touch it and ….
} Brittle and dusty.
} Brittle, dusty, grey or black in color, very light which if you would blow your breathe would fly away.
Here we are going right into the source. This is beyond the kingdom i.e. the qualities of 2nd row. When we touch deep into the experience we get the actual qualities of the carbon. This is very rare in a mineral case. Very difficult for a man to relate to ash.
Easy in an animal case.
Further he says,
} But then if you satisfy the desire then also you may be bound in some way which will bring you back to this world. So I thought this is a very difficult situation. Because even if you satisfy you are bound, even if you leave it unsatisfied you are bound. So both ways you are bound.