Berlin Wall, A patient reports

[Marion P. Sessions]

Male 52 yo born in Germany reports his recent experience with the rx Berlin Wall (Ainsworth) . While his mail suggest repeatable doses, he recieved 10m and the rest is placebo. I especially like the dreams.

Wednesday, 5 February, 2003
I got a prescription today from XXX for a homeopathic
medicine
called Berlin Wall. It is literally made from pieces of the Berlin
Wall.
Homeopathic practitioners in England had found this to be an effective
remedy for certain types of depression. I decided to try it for the
reason
chicken soup is recommended for colds: it can¹t hurt.

I am aware on the day of bringing this stuff home of a certain
trepidation.
I am not afraid of eating a little concrete, but at the cusp of any new
treatment for this depression I have always found my self worrying that
it
won¹t work, and that, having tried everything except voodoo, that I
will
eventually run through all possible options and still be miserable.

Thursday, 6 February,

I am supposed to take four tablets of Berlin Wall today. I am waiting
for
the right moment, not being sure what the right moment might be for
eating
masonry. I have had some time to think hard about my procrastination,
and
have to consider that I am as afraid of being "cured" as I am of the
trick
not working. When you live with depression for a very long time, you
forget
what it¹s like not to have it, and it gives you a fear of the
unfamiliar.

I spent a mostly sleepless night, punctuated by frightening and uneasy
dreams. Woke up feeling burnt out. Resumed my worst habits: coffee,
bagel,
cigarettes. It¹s eleven o¹clock now, and I haven¹t accomplished
anything. I
haven¹t even shaved. I am going to have a cigarette, finish my coffee,
and
eat wall.

OK. Ate the first tablet. Took my other medications. Feel like taking a
nap.
Decide to do some paperwork instead to "clear the decks." Have the urge
to
talk to people on the phone.

Took an hour-long snooze on the couch. Wrote out my bills. Did five
pushups.
Cleaned up my desk. Have the craving for a really good Margarita and
some
meat.

Friday, 7 February

It snowed all day. I was never fully awake. I slept for almost three
hours
in the afternoon. I was seeking a suspended animation, a temporary
ignorance
of everything the weather, my own lethargy, my increasingly bad
habits.

Saturday, 8 February

Minor activity. I was conscious of each tablet as I took it, conscious
that
I was hoping something would happen. I wanted an epiphany. Spent the
evening
partying with friends. Slept badly.

Sunday, 9 February

To my complete amazement, I spent the entire night dreaming of the
immigrant
experience. Not just in the visual sense, but in a far more visceral
one. I
woke up recalling dozens of sensations and feelings associated with
coming
to a new country: the slight embarrassments of not knowing your way
around,
the feeling of being a complete greenhorn, the reluctance to trust
strangers, the resentment of getting everybody¹s cast-offs, etc. Many
of the
scenes on the dream were familiar, although none of them were
recognizable.
The dream was an epic on the experience of being a stranger in a
strange
place, on the periphery, on the outside looking in. I had been having
nightmares often during previous nights. This dream didn¹t have
anything of
the nightmare quality, but it was sad in its own way. My father,
especially,
featured prominently as somebody who never quite caught on, never quite
got
up to speed. I remember the slights he suffered when we first came
here, the
condescension, the laughs at his expense. For anyone else, these minor
injuries would have been easy to shrug off. For my father, who expected
to
be embraced by the country he chose at such great personal cost, they
cut
deeply. I was aware of them as they happened, and remember them still.
After
this dream, I realized my own role in his gradual decline; I, too,
wrote him
off as an increasing irrelevance, a comic, pathetic figure, someone who
just
didn¹t "get it." I saw how a culture treats someone who just doesn¹t
get it,
and I spent most of my energy making sure I would never be one of them.
But
I didn¹t spend much effort in helping him see this fundamental flaw.
Although in my own defense, my father was not big on having his kids
point
out any shortcomings he might have had. The more untenable his
situation
became, the harder he held on it.

Monday, 10 February

I was up and out of bed before eight. Not a big accomplishment on the
face
of it, but progress for me, as I had been trying to shut out daylight
until
ten on a regular basis. I went right to work on unfinished business
mail, a
few paragraphs of copy, errands. I am aware of more clarity: the water
running down the sides of the shower, the black paint of the doors in
the
house, the geometry of the rooms. I am conscious of a greater awareness
of
three-dimensional space. My mind is calmer. Even the disgust I feel at
the
shape I let myself get into is changed into a resolve to do something
about
it. I am making mental inventories of things that need to be repaired,
overhauled, cleaned out and cleaned up. At noon, I am still
"interested,"
unlike days in which the only thing I would be planning is when to take
a
nap, and whether to drink my evening cocktails at home or at the local
Mexican joint. The one world I would use to describe the new feeling is
"interest," I kind of want to see what¹s next, what¹s doable, what
solution
I can come up with for this or that problem.

Had sardines for lunch. Smoked a total of three cigarettes by 2 pm.
Organized some files and imagined not having any files to organize.
Four
file drawers full of minutiae. There are millions of people on the
planet
who live in grass huts on a beach in the South Pacific who don¹t have
any
files. I sense my own impatience.

I play some guitar. I am not as antsy as I usually am when snowed in.

Tuesday, 11 February

Last night was the first night of the 2nd dosage stage, one tablet at
bedtime. I fell asleep without taking the Klonopin. I had the best
dreams I
was traveling through Europe with a bunch of really pretty women. No
lie. I
usually dream about being stuck in an ocean liner that is sinking, or
in a
crowded theater that is burning, so this was a nice change. Toward the
end
of the dream we were all standing on a bridge because we were trying to
catch the last of the sunlight, and we were all bunched up in this
dance-like embrace that took me deeper and deeper into a trance; that
must
be what it¹s like to stop thinking and just abandon oneself to pure
feeling.
In any case, I would take out a two-year subscription to this kind of
dream
in a minute.

I got up again before eight, and popped right out of bed like piece of
toast. I took the dog outside, registered the fact that it was 14
degrees,
and went back inside toot sweet.

Checked e-mail, fiddled with computer. My only worry right now is the
single-mindedness with which the world is planning for war. If we
planned to
attack world hunger, illiteracy, violent crime and drugs with the same
delirious passion, we could all be living in paradise. It¹s disgusting
to
watch old men in suits kicking around "acceptable" casualty figures
ten
thousand here, fifty thousand there when will be become a planet on
which
one casualty is too many?

Did get drowsy at around four o¹clock and slept for a solid hour. I
really
try to fight this, because heavy Zs in the afternoon play havoc with
your
sleep patterns at night. But at around three in the afternoon, it¹s
like
somebody hit me on the head with a baseball bat. Of course, two glasses
of
wine at lunch don¹t help, but I was catching up with a woman I hadn¹t
seen
in a couple of years, so I didn¹t want to rush. All in all, it¹s been
several days since I¹ve felt that typical "nothing makes any sense"
feeling.

Wednesday, 12 February

All in all, a good day. Felt overheated all day. Sweating and
claustrophobic. But had a great session with Trish. Came home worn out
from
all the energy cruising around in my system, and had a couple of drinks
and
a pizza. (Two slices.) paid for it with intense and vivid nightmares.
Sheisse, I¹m thinking this feeling good is short lived. Woke up in a
sweat
in the early morning and remembered that I hadn¹t eaten my "Berliner."
Got
up and helped myself to a midnight portion of wall. Went back to sleep.
Got
up at eight. Took my usual regimen of meds, and went about the day with
good, positive attitude.

Just as an aside, still have the feeling of needing a vacation from
everything. Talked to my brother who is anxious about the terrorism
thing.
Living in Manhattan, he is probably more on edge than me, living at the
edge
of a cow pasture. My number one fear on that issue has to do with Ted
living
in Brooklyn. With the prevailing winds, he is directly in line for bad
gas,
should there be a terrorist fart in New York City. I try to keep a
perspective, but that takes 24 hours of mental effort. I need room
service.
I need an escort service. I need a suite overlooking the ocean, and a
woman
with nice brestes to rub oil on me.

I eat the wall as a symbolic act. I bite down on the insanity the wall
represents. I think of the countless people whose lives were destroyed
by
the brutality of that wall and everything it stands for, and I take
them in.
Give them a place where they can continue to live. When I eat the wall
in
this time of terror, I also say to all oppressors, bullies,
totalitarians,
brutalizers and egomaniacs, "fuck you."

Thursday, 13 February

Work all day. Jittery from too much on the brain. Almost fell asleep at
the
wheel driving back from New Haven. I have a sense of wanting some time
to
let all this work. I need a complete vacation, not the kind where you
call
in to check your messages. Impatient for change. I take the last, high
potency tablet that night.

Friday, 14 February

Work all day. Big pitch in the afternoon. I am preoccupied with the
mechanics of my job, although I feel the usual rush of making a
presentation. I look at the slides on the screen that showcase our
work, and
I suddenly realize how good it is.

Saturday, 15 February

Wake up to an unfamiliar sensation: normalcy. Ted is home for the
weekend,
and we take a ride to Avon to go idea hunting. We have the best
conversation
we¹ve ever had. No agenda, no pulling rank. We talk about hip hop,
drugs,
clothes. We talk about Ted¹s friends who have not found their direction
yet.
In an electronics store, we discuss at length the concepts of design
and
miniaturization how things are becoming almost too small to fit the
human
scale. Once a telephone gets smaller than a bar of soap, you don¹t have
anything to hold onto. We look at the flat-screen TVs ten thousand
dollars
just for the screen. We look at Burton jackets, and the
"ahead-of-the-curve"
designs of skateboards. We talk about graffiti artists whose "tag" or
signature is recognized the world over, and the question of art vs.
vandalism. We talk, and we listen to music, and I feel my life slowly
getting some color back. We talk about dying, and I try to tell Ted
that men
in their fifties are in a big risk group; it¹s an age bracket where a
lot
weeding out takes place. I remind him how much he means to me and to be
careful. I don¹t know what that means-- I didn¹t know what that meant
when I
was nineteen-- but I say it just the same. We talk about the existence
of an
afterlife and the vividness of dreams. He describes some of his artwork
to
me, and I realize how good he is at what he has chosen to do. He tells
me,
finally, that living at Pratt he is on top of the world. I get the
feeling
that all of the worrying has this as its reward: he would never have
been on
top of the world, unless he were free to chose exactly where that might
be.
It¹s not going to make me worry any less, and realize that the top of
the
world is a huge target for the killers of life in all their forms, but
to
feel it even once in your life is a great prize, and worth the danger.
Sunday, 16 February

I have eaten my Berlin Wall all up. I kind of miss the little ritual. I
think I have made some big changes over the duration of the treatment.
I
wonder if the practice of homeopathy allows ongoing administration of
medicines that work. I could see my self taking this stuff every
winter,
when things look bleak.

Last night I dreamt that I met Alexander Calder. The man in the dream
did
not resemble Calder in the least. Everybody that came up to him had to
give
his name, so that he could look up in a book how much this person had
spent
on Calder¹s art. I wasn¹t even in the book, and I tried to put a good
face
on things by mentioning a friend who had ten or twelve Calders. He was
entered in the book at $15,000, not enough for a bag of Calder scrap
metal.
I woke up with the sense of confusion you would expect after a dream
like
that. It¹s kind of like the feeling you have when you greet someone at
a
party by name, and find out that you got the name wrong.

Our friends Carol and Rodney call from London. We have become very
close to
them, and they stay in touch even if just to chat. I try to picture
myself
in Europe, far from all my comfort zones. I wonder if I could get out.
I
wonder if you can have more than one chance in your life to define a
broader
horizon. I wonder if I could make it over the wall.
--
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Dave Hartley]

Interesting, thanks Marion,

I removed some extraneous line-breaks for better readability; hope the
[un]formatting make it thru the listserv.

regards,

Dave Hartley
www.localcomputermart.com/dave
San Francisco, CA (831)464-8127

[George Kaplan]

It would have been even more interesting if the gentleman had not known what
the "remedy" was.

What exactly is the clinical proving difference between this and any other
wall made from similar bricks and mortar anywhere in Germany? Has anyone
done a proving of any other walls nearby and done a comparison? No, I didn't
think so.

George A. Kaplan
_________________________________________________________________
It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today!
http://messenger.msn.co.uk

[George Kaplan]

It would have been even more interesting if the gentleman in question had
not known the remedy he was taking. The problem with Berlin Wall is that a)
it was just another wall, and its supposed significance and connotations are
only a figment of the human mind / and b) when the wall was brought down
there were hundreds of canny opportunists selling all sorts of bits of brick
and mortar to gullible tourists! It is quite likely that the person who
collected the material for this remedy, unless they personally went to the
wall site, could have been using a bit of any old wall.

Apologies if another message similar to this one pops up. My original one
seems to have gone missing.

George A. Kaplan
_________________________________________________________________
Overloaded with spam? With MSN 8, you can filter it out
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junk ... 32&DI=1059