Harry Potter’s Dementors & Depression

When J. K. Rowling created the Harry Potter universe, she naturally drew on her own experiences to flesh it out. This is true even for such alarming creatures as ‘dementors’. These are soulless beings that stand at around 3 metres, constantly breathing in a human being’s positive emotions and memories of others, such that their victims relive only the worst. Intriguingly, Rowling has said that they ‘grow like fungi in dark, moist places, creating a dense, chilly fog’, which makes it sound remarkably as though their natural habitat is a cave! This serves to make them effective guards at Azkaban prison. 

It is no surprise to learn, therefore, that Rowling’s inspiration for the dementors was her own period of clinical depression. They are a brilliant personification of its effects. The tragedy, just occasionally, is that others can have a dementor-like effect on us. I would never stoop to the suggestion of anyone being soulless. I also fully appreciate that each of us bears our own deep scars. The oft-repeated adage puts it well: be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. On reflection, it is probably not repeated enough.

Nevertheless, a handful of individuals in the past twenty-five years have had this effect on me. I emerge from each encounter depleted and despairing. Their interactions reinforce the news-ticker negativity that perpetually scrolls through my head. I believe that stuff more when I’m with them. My instinct is to flee and hide, to curl into foetal protection.