SEPIA'S LOVE & Affection

Sepia experiences love not as excitement or enjoyment (Phosphorus), not as a blessing as natural and necessary as the sun (Pulsatilla), not as a rare and beautiful gift or unattainable ideal (Natrum muriaticum), nor as a human's inherent due which can almost be taken for granted (Sulphur, Lycopodium), but rather as a responsibility — or even a burden. She thinks of love somewhat as follows: "These people love me. They expect something of me. I must live up to their expectations and not disappoint them. I've got to do well as wife, mother, sister, or daughter." Yet how does one express love toward, for example, one's children? Phosphorus and Pulsatilla easily pour out affection and caresses; Natrum muriaticum provides instruction, instinctively assuming the role of teacher; Calcarea indulges her children and enjoys them in an effortless empathy; Arsenicum enjoys taking command and organizing her charges' lives. For Sepia, however, love has no easy outlet, no natural form. Kent has an interesting phrase in this connection, "Love does not go forth into affection." Love is not absent, but the manifestation of love is benumbed and cannot be expressed.
So she falls back on duty. Even when at the end of her resources, her sense of duty keeps her going until gradually she begins to resent her incarceration and struggles against the ties that bind her. In her wretchedness she projects gloom, just as the cuttlefish ejects its cloud of ink. No one can spread darkness around herself like a discontented Sepia. Then she begins to think of leaving home, to escape from the burdens of imposed love