My Eye with Conjunctivitis and the Overwhelming City: A Case of ‘Visual Separation Conflict’
As a right-handed man, I experienced a few days ago the course of a Visual Separation Conflict SBS according to Germanische Heilkunde, as clear as a textbook example. The following story is what happened.
Act 1: The Promising Journey
My family and I set out to follow the call of the sea, also to explore potential new hometowns for ourselves. Perhaps to move from the city to the tranquil sea. The absolute highlight on our list was a city in the far south, where palm trees grow and lemons are said to go straight into the Aperol. It was supposed to be dreamily beautiful – and, as we knew, also terribly expensive.
The final day leg by car to reach this city was strenuous. Many hours of tight serpentines, up the mountain, down the mountain, left and right. I am not prone to seasickness, but on this route, my stomach was close to revolting. Finally, through the last three mountains there were tunnels, and so we reached the city in the late afternoon that had interested us the most of all. The GPS was supposed to lead us directly to the center, to the marina with the world-famous promenade.
Act 2: The Dream Bursts in Traffic
My enthusiasm was great – and short-lived. The city was breathtakingly beautiful, yes. But it was also breathtakingly full. Unfortunately, far too many other people had already had the same idea of wanting to live in this city before us. There are simply far too many cars in this city. One car pushed the next, bumper-to-bumper through the streets, no possibility to stop even for a minute, and any hope for a parking spot was illusory. After perhaps half an hour, I had experienced enough, I didn’t want any more. Nothing interested me here anymore, I didn’t want to see anything anymore, just get out of this city.
I could have understood it if it had been the middle of the high season, when the city is flooded with tourists, but no, it was the end of October, and this city was simply too much of everything. Too many people, too many cars, and also too many things we would have actually liked to look at more closely, but had no opportunity because we couldn’t stop for a single minute. Just get out, away from here!
Act 3: The Rescue – A Parking Spot!
I told my wife to use the GPS to find a destination behind the three mountains we had driven through via the tunnels, where we would stay one night and then continue northwards. But my wife found a hotel in this city that not only had a room for us but, more importantly, also a guest parking spot for our car.
The deal was clear: The car would stay here until we left the city. We would explore the overcrowded city center on foot, knowing that this beautiful place would never be our home.
Act 4: The Eye Does Its Own Thing
Hardly in the hotel room, it started: A slight itching in my right eye. My wife took a look at it and announced: “But it’s bright red!” At night, it then became truly peculiar. I woke up several times because tears were literally spurting from my eye – so thick and heavy that I could hear them plop onto the pillow. Presumably, this was the famous “crisis”.
By the next morning, my eye was completely photophobic. Equipped with an improvised eye patch made of cotton pads and my wife’s headband, I looked like a somewhat worn-out pirate. A city stroll was out of the question like this.
Act 5: Rescue in Tablet Form
Luckily, we had Ibuprofen with us. After 400 mg, I was socially acceptable again. With sunglasses and only a slight itch remaining, I was able to enjoy the day after all. And lo and behold: by the evening, my right eye was symptom-free again.
The Point of the Story:
According to Germanische Heilkunde, the conjunctivitis of my right “partner eye” is the healing phase of a “visual separation conflict”. However, one can only experience a separation from a living being – not from a parking spot. So, from whom did I want to be separated, whom did I not want to see?
Of course, I wanted to see the city, preferably everything, and I wanted to see a parking spot, which I didn’t get to see. But the many people sitting in their cars, who not only block the parking spots for me but also push me through the streets in my car – I didn’t want to see them, not so many. The thought of being here in the high season, when additional tourist masses flood into this city, was beyond anything I wanted or could imagine, I would never want to experience or see that.
The solution for my DHS was that we finally managed to park the car on what was indeed the last free guest parking spot of the hotel, with the knowledge that I would not start the car again until we left this city. My subconscious gave the all-clear, and my eye promptly began with the healing phase of my conjunctiva.
The Moral of the Story?
Even the most beautiful city in the world becomes a horror when too many people want to be in the same city at the same time. We found two places on our trip that we hadn’t had on our radar before, which we liked very much, where we can very well imagine maybe living one day, by the coast near the sea. However, the final city of our trip, the one we were most drawn to, does not belong to them.




