here’s my story…
for a few years i had been severly depressed, suicidal, hated everything about myself, and wanted to die but didn’t have the courage to actually do it (much less the courage to do things that thoroughly frightened me).
my uncle, who i share more traits with than any other known relative (even birthday), is a hospitalized schizophrenic. ive spent a deal of time with his father and the similarities between the stuff my uncle did to get put in a hospital were very similar to the stuff i was beginning to infatuate myself with. so you can see where i’d be right now without adequate intervention.
luckily for me, my parents put more time and effort into keeping me from being like my uncle than most parents would. i took a couple different anti-depressants and did a lot of high-quality herbal programs. neither helped. finally my mother and i went to see a man named Dr. Richard Stephen Mann, a professor and clinical homeopathic practicioner with a few decades of experience treating patients.
he was a small, eager, old guy who foamed at the mouth when talking. i was a self-hating young man with a respect for nobody with closemindedness (ironically, ive now found that i was extremely closeminded).
Dr. Mann first told me that the “homeopathic remedies” that my mother showed him ive taken were, in fact, microdoses; and that homeopathy is an extract, not dilution. he then told me that he’s seen homeopathy do some amazing things and he’s been in love with it since he first experienced its power. next he told me that if he was going to attempt to find the remedy that would help me i had to tell him about myself, starting with my childhood.
i spent three hours telling him the intimacies of my life, from beginning of memory to current, while he asked specific questions along the way. it was rather interesting because he asked me questions about things only after i mentioned them and delved into them with more related questions like they were meaningful points.
at the end of the session he told me that he has a remedy that he thinks is the one for me, but it may not work. that he’s had patients have to take a few different ones before they found the right one. he explained that if it is the one for me i’ll feel like shit for the next two days, and then very very gradually i’ll begin feeling like a different person. he describe homeopathy as a whirlpool from within that begins teeny tiny and slowly but surely grows and grows.
i took the dose, said my goodbyes, rode home, was in a better mood than normal because when tears are shed the aftermath is a kinda nice, and Dr. Mann was indeed the wisest man i’d met (if i’d met Alan Watts before he died he’d have some competition).
well, the next two days i felt like absolute shit. i didn’t just feel down, i couldn’t do anything (had zero responsibilities at the time). the only good thing in my life was sleep and even that was bad. the shittiness tapered as the second and third day passed by. a week later i had hernia surgery. three weeks after that i got a call by Dr. Mann because i didn’t go with my mother to see him. he asked me pertinent questions and i told him that i was feeling better regularly, didn’t think about killing myself every woken hour, not even at all anymore (except for one day, i was reminded how incredibly suckass it is to hate yourself and wannna die) and was looking forward to looking for a job when the affects of my surgery subsided. he said he was surprised that i got any better due to the fact that surgery tends to halt homeopathy. a few weeks later i went back to work where i had before i went off the depressed deep end (a place i enjoyed working at at the time, btw, i just couldn’t handle breathing).
it’s been about 1.5-.6 years since i first saw Dr. Mann. ive made more progress through joy than most people make in a lifetime. even when i think things are going to get bad and i’ll became a frightened coward again, i just get better. things that i thought were once evil (eating, yes i believed eating was evil) have been gradually leaving my mind. Dr. Mann described it to me and ive experienced this myself, that homeopathy cant necessarily make you “better”, but that it can “change” you. he’s had many patients who didn’t notice any difference until a month later when he asked them if they’re still experiencing the reasons that they seeked help in the first place. oftentimes, they replied with an astounding “no”.
i haven’t noticed any change in myself because it just seems that ive always been this way, that i never was a guy who couldn’t get intimate with women, who couldn’t be in the spotlight, who couldn’t take stress in any way shape or form, who counldn’t love his parents, who couldn’t appreciate Christians and Christianity, who couldn’t wake up every morning and think that Western Washington is one of the most beautiful places on terra firma (i used to hate this place and was diagnosed with SAD, but now i enjoy walking in the rain in shorts and a tee-shirt starring up into the mouth of heaven).
each month im a better person than the month previously, despite the things i do and dont do that im sure will send me into regression. honestly, if the homeopathy cotinues to grow, i’ll be the single happiest individual to ever live.
now, for anybody who will deride true homeopathy without knowing it or experiencing it: i would pity you, but i’d prefer to laugh at your steadfast ignorance as i pass you on the road to where ever it is we’re bound.