Scabies

It begins with an itch that does not stop. Not on the surface — deeper. Between the fingers, at the wrists, in the bends of the elbows, on the abdomen. A crawling sensation that intensifies at night, when you want to come to rest and your body will not allow it. You scratch, and the scratching brings no relief — it makes everything worse. The skin becomes raw, inflamed, cracked. And beneath the surface, tiny tunnels are being dug through your tissue, invisible to the naked eye but felt in every fibre.

Medicine sees scabies as a parasitic infection — mites that bore under the skin, lay their eggs there, and trigger an immune response. That is correct. And yet the psychosomatic perspective asks an additional question: Why now? Why you? What has prepared the ground on which this symptom could take hold?