Sorrow, Sadness or Depression?

Sorrow is an emotion, a feeling. Sorrow is more intensely felt than sadness and can develop into a chronic / long-term state. Sorrow is a natural response to the loss of someone dear to you. Modern medicine incorrectly classifies it as depression. Antidepressants are prescribed and what follows can wreck havoc on a patient e.g. addiction, mood swings, joint pain, nausea etc. More than half of those beginning an antidepressant have one of the more common side effects (Brambilla et al. 2005). Conventional doctors classify sadness or sorrow as depression and suggest medication and anti depressants. Sadly this is not the case. You are sad because you have lost someone dear to you and sorrow is                                                a natural response to loss.

The chronic use of antidepressants to treat grief and sorrow promotes dependency on drugs rather than empowering the person to make positive life changes to deal with their loss. Homeopathy offers a gentle way to handle delicate emotions as one of my patients will testify:

“I found it very difficult to deal with my husband’s death. I became lethargic and unable to carry out even the most simple of tasks. I was put on medication which made me feel dull. I was unable to sleep or eat. I went from being a size 18 to a size 10. My daughter had attended Noirin in the past and suggested I pay her a visit. I was very comfortable in her presence and found her very understanding and caring. A year on I am feeling so much better. “
(Susan, Galway City)

The body reacts to this state of sorrow differently. Some suppress their emotions, some cry. Homeopathy has wonderful remedies that recognise the body’s reaction to grief and sorrow. It is a great way to bounce back to a normal state without the use of sedatives or anti depressants.

Here I will list some remedies that are indicated in grief, sorrow and sadness:

Ignatia. Grief and sorrow, with shame; suppressed internal vexation, which continues ; sad indifferent aversion, full of fear; vertigo, headache, pressing pain in stomach, emptiness in pit of the stomach ; amenorrhoea ; attacks like epilepsy or chorea; broods over imaginary troubles.

Staphisagria. With apprehension for the future ; hypochondriacal, apathetic, with weak memory, caused by unmerited insults, or by persistently dwelling on sexual subjects ; great indignation about things done by others or by himself; grieves about the consequences ; nervous weakness ; convulsions, with loss of consciousness ; sleepiness in the daytime.

Arsenicum album. Sad, tearful, anxious mood ; exhaustion from the slightest exertion.Mental derangement; averse to meeting acquaintances ; imagines he formery- offended them, though he knows not
how ;

Causticum. Chronic complaints after long-lasting grief or sorrow ; taciturn and distant; hopeless; thinking of complaints aggravates them, especially haemorrhoids.

Lachesis. Great sadness and anxiety; chronic complaints after long-lasting grief or sorrow.

Mercurius solubilis. Grief, with fear at night; disposition to quarrel; complaining of his relations and surroundings; acrid running coryza ; looseness, with tenesmus; sleep prevented by seeing frightful faces.

Nux moschata. Palpitation from sadness; weeping mood, gloomy, fears to go to sleep; sleepy from overtaxing the mind; gastric ailments; hysteria; staggers in walking, falls often.