I have friend who I worked with for over a year. And, although we are no longer working at the together, we are still friends and she's quite interested in homeopathy.

She keeps saying a person we both know from our work has this tendency to make her angry. He worked with us at the same place.

And, though none of us are there any longer, she still sees him occasionally because she is a good friend with his mother.

I do believe this person says a lot of stupid things, and doesn't seem to be the least bit sensitive toward others, but I have not noticed him intentionally trying to make her angry whenever we were together discussing something or other on our breaks or lunch. I may be wrong, but I think I would have noticed it in his behavior - either through a glance at her to see what effect his comments had on her, if that was his intent, or some other evidence of what she believes to be his motivation.

I've now noticed she seems to have similar suspicions about others too - strangers in fact. We will be walking down the street together in the evening. She is sensitive to bright light, especially the headlights of vehicles approaching us. If a vehicle has their bright lights on, she's feels people drive with their bright light on because they know it affects her and makes me her angry. She feels that they can sense her anger as they drive past us, or even when they just turn the corner way up the road. She feels they thrive and feed off of it and she feels that unless she can suppress her anger and not "let him/them get to me", they have won the battle. She feels they can almost read her mind and know her angry thoughts the moment she thinks them.

What are a few remedies for a person with this belief about the actions of others?

Dear Condor,

This is a very interesting set of symptoms! We really don't have enough information, though, to come up with a remedy. Your average homeopath would sit down and talk with this woman for 2 hours before reaching a decision. We would consider such things as food and beverage desires, body temperature, fears and phobias, sleep position, digestive issues, other problems which may seem unrelated like sinus troubles and skin rashes; we would look for an etiology (a cause)
which could be anything from a head injury in a car accident to the suppression of foot sweat from a medicated powder.

From the information you gave, The following Repertory rubrics came to mind:

Delusions: conspiracies against him, there were
Delusions: enemy, everyone is an
Delusions: insulted
Mind: Anger, suppressed, ailments from
Mind: sensitive, light, to
Mind: Paranoid

I charted these rubrics and no one remedy comes through as definitive, that's why we would need a fuller case.

I can print out the questions for you, and it's up to you if you want to go through the time and trouble to answer them.

Snoopy

[ 22. February 2003, 22:11: Message edited by: Snoopy ]

Here's the questionnaire:

1. What is your chief complaint (CC)? Tell as much about it as you can, including what is the worst part of it and why it's the worst: the sensations, the kind of pain, the location, how your energy has been affected (for example, has the complaint made you restless, weak, nervous, anxious, irritable, hypersensitive, effected your thirst and appetite, your body temperature, and so on). In other words, how you are different since you became sick?
2. When did this problem begin? What happened in
your life around that time? What do you think
caused it?
3. What aggravates the CC and what brings it on?(for example, certain types of food or weather, movement, light, noise, company, talking,
heat/cold, or anything else that you can think
of; please be specific) and what makes the CC better (for example hot or cold, massage, eating, lying still, music, company...)? In other words, what does it make you do to try to feel better, to cope?
4. At what time of the day or night is the CC the
worst? Specify an hour if you can.
5. What symptoms can you identify that accompany
the CC (whether directly related or not; for example, headache with nausea; or menstrual cramps with diarrhea; a cold with irritability and anger)?

GENERAL QUESTIONS
6. Environment: With regard to the seasons, weather, outdoor temperature, indoor temperature, drafts, air quality, airconditioning, ocean air, mountain air, humidity, the sun/rain/thunderstorms/clouds/fog, etc.: what environmental factors give you comfort and relief, and which ones cause discomfort and distress? Try to give examples.

7. What position is most uncomfortable for you?

8. a)Do you tend to be chilly or warm? Are there parts of your body that are colder or warmer than the rest of you? Is there a special time of day or night when they are colder or warmer? b) Do you perspire a great deal? If so, when? And where on the body? (feet, head, hair, chest, armpits, etc) Does it leave a stain of a particular color? Is there a particular odor?
9. Describe what your tongue looks like.

MENTAL/EMOTIONAL
10. What do you worry about? How do you deal with
worries?
11. How do you keep your house/your desk/your room/your study/your bathroom?
12. How easily do you cry? In what situations?
13. When you are upset, what do you do to help yourself feel better?
14. What makes you angry? What do you do when you're angry?
15. Do you have an emotion that predominates; such as anger, depression, irritability, anxiety, jealousy, joy...or possibly two emotions that tend to alternate predictably?
16. What fears do you have?
17. What have been the most difficult circumstances in your life? How did you cope?
18. What are the greatest joys you have had in
your life?
19. What was your childhood like?
20. What bothers you most in other people? How,
if at all, do you express it?
21. What causes the most problems in your relationships?
22. Do you have any recurring dreams? What are they about?
23. What would you need to feel happy?
24. What do you do for work? Ideally, what would
you like to do?
25. If you were made President for a day, what would you change?
26. When people have criticized you, what were they complaining about? Similarly, when people have praised you, what did you receive praise for?
27. What would you like to change most about
yourself?

FOOD
28. How do you feel before, during and after
meals? How do you feel if you go without a
meal?
29. What would you most like to eat (if you did
not have to consider calories, fat, anything
you've read about the right way to eat)?
30. What foods do you dislike and refuse to eat?
What foods do you react badly to, and in what
way?
31. How much do you drink in a day? Include
sodas, juice, coffee, tea, milk, and
alcoholic beverages as well as water. How
thirsty do you tend to get? What temperature would you like your drinks to be?

SLEEP
32. How is your sleep?
33. Do you do anything during sleep? (speak,
laugh, shriek, toss about, grind your teeth, drool, snore, walk, talk, etc.)
34. Do you have trouble falling asleep? What keeps you awake? Do you wake always at a certain time? What causes you to wake up? What position do you sleep in?

WOMEN
35. Number of pregnancies, number of children,
number of miscarriages, number of abortions
36. At what age did your menses begin? If you
have gone through menopause, at what age?
37. How frequently do they (or did they) come?
38. What about their duration, abundance, colour,
time of day when flow is greatest; any odour
or clots?
39. How do you (did you) feel before, during and
after menses?

HEALTH HISTORY
40. What medications are you taking at present?
41. How frequently do you get colds and flus?
42. Have you had any childhood illnesses twice,
or in a very severe form, or after puberty?
43. Have you had any vaccinations since the
standard childhood ones? Have you ever had an
adverse or unusual reaction to a vaccination?
44. Have you had any surgery? What and when?
45. Have you had at any time (mention year):
warts, cysts, Polyps, or tumors? Where were they located? How were they treated?

46. Do you tend to have any discharges (nasal,
vaginal, etc.)? What is the color, consistency?

SENSITIVITY
47. a) Do you tend to need a smaller dose of
medications than most other people?
b) Do you need less anaesthesia than others,
or have a hard time coming out of it?
c) Do you tend to react to vitamins and herbs
and/or need hypoallergenic vitamins?
d) Are you sensitive to paint fumes, exhuast,
dry cleaning fluid, fragrances etc.?

48. Family history: Mention diseases, causes
and ages of deaths of father, mother,
sisters, brothers and grandparents on both
sides.

49. Construct a time line: Mention from birth
on to the present day, all IMPORTANT events
(emotional and physical traumas,
heartbreaks, divorces, work-related events,
diseases or traumas your mother had while
being pregnant with you, family stress,
death in the family or of friends,
disappointment, etc.) Mention the symptoms
experienced at those moments or which you
can date to those traumas.
50. When you stand in line at the bank or supermarket, how do you feel?
51. When your family member was last sick, what did you do?
52. How is your sexual energy?
53. How do you react to consolation
54. What part of your life do you have the most difficulty coping with.
55. What are your hobbies?

Conder, As a homeopath when we want to scratch thoughts of disease of a patient then we generaly put them on long unwanted questionnaires in order to make them (patient) busy so that patient may not think about his/her disease in this way the patient will automatically recover from his /her ailness without medication.

__________________
<b>Love rules without rules.<br />Love rules his kingdom without a sword.<br />Love is like scarlet fever -- one has to go through it and get it over. <br />Where there is love, there is peace. <br />Love is not obedience </b>

This is indeed an interesting symptom. While working on a case, I came across this in T.F. Allen's MM for Lachesis:

Becomes easily peevish and mistrustful; believes himself intentionally injured by all his environments, and attaches the most hateful significance to the most innocent occurrences.

I thought it sounded similar to what you described.

[ 11. September 2003, 20:24: Message edited by: Tomi C. ]

Tomi, you're right, Lachesis is a very strong contender. A few confirmatory symptoms would be all we'd need, but, it seems that Condor was interested only in an off-the-cuff reply.

Snoopy

Snoop,

I looked up your rubrics in Murphy and found that, under the first one, Lachesis and Arsenicum were the strongest contenders. It could be that this person does not want to be treated and does not recognize that this is, in fact, a symptom. What's interesting, in dealing with psychic symptoms, is that these pathological ways of perceiving and experiencing life are considered to be real and normal by the person doing the experiencing and perceiving. She probably doesn't think there's anything wrong with her. At any rate, what I'm learning is that you can lead a horse to water.... I get frustrated sometimes because I see so much imbalance around me and, at the same time, so much complacency and lack of awareness. Perhaps, at some point, homeopathy can become influential enough that people will begin to see these more or less subtle imbalances for what they are, and realize that they can be healed homeopathically.

[ 11. September 2003, 20:24: Message edited by: Tomi C. ]

Thank you, Snoopy, et al., very much for responding -

I had a job crisis for a couple of weeks and couldn't get back to the web. I don't have web access at home, so it may take awhile, at times, to respond to you all. However, I greatly appreciate the comments. What's the general physical appearance of Lachesis and Arsenicum - are they tall or short, thin or heavy. That may help to narrow it down. I feel that those two remedies are most definitely the top contenders also from what little I know.

Thanks so much again,

Condor

Dear Condor,

Just very quickly: Lachesis is very hot, Ars. is chilly. Lach. cannot tolerate tight clothing especially around the neck and waist. Lach. has left-sided complaints. Ars. tends to have right sided complaints. Lach. has an agg. from sleep and worse when waking. They're better from cold drinks.
Very talkative and sarcastic. May dream of snakes, have a fear of snakes or an attraction to them.

Ars. people are known for their anxiety, they worry about money, security, their health, they're nervous and restless, need for others to be with them, support them, worse alone; they're suspicious and don't trust, yet at the same time are needy -- they believe they can't trust the people they're dependent on. Fear of death, cancer, AIDS, etc. They're very fastidious and will go around straightening pictures, picking lint up off the carpet and so on.

It would be a better bet if you were to fill out the questionnaire.

Snoopy