That’s perfect.

Rowling knew what she was doing when she designed dementors.

It’s been a few weeks–I hope you’re doing better…Duno if you’ll read this so far out.

These dementors have affected both family and friends of mine. I myself dealt with OCD in my childhood, and I remember feeling like something was really wrong with me when I was to see a therapist for the first time. But through the help and understanding of a family support group, and the option to open up to a counselor removed from the situation, I no longer have OCD at all, and have my anxiety mostly under control. My experience have taught me how mental illness doesn’t mean weakness, and that opening up is about one of the bravest and often most challenging things to do. I admire all of you for your strength.

As I have learnt, is that mental illness is very common, and not something to be ashamed of.

One thing that really touched me at a stressful time in my life, when i was very worried about a friend admitted into a psychiatric ward, was reading the “order of the phoenix”, when Harry, Ron and Hermione see Neville visiting his parents in the psychiatric ward at st mungos. I remember how Nevile’s grandmother’s courage in discussing the mental illness plaguing her son and daughter in law. And how she was unashamed of their condition.

But he was eventually given an honorable discharge after being shot in the forearm, and he collapsed into a state of both depression and compounding guilt. I took him out to dinner two years ago, and he just sat there, only answering questions minimally, and eating emptily. He would not look me in the eye, and would not engage me in conversation. He couldn’t take medication for the doctors’ fear of any possible adverse reaction sending him into either a permanent mania or a coma. Not that I think he would have done so anyway. He was too much of a shell.

About a year ago, I began reading to him. I started with Harry Potter, and he seemed to react to it. When I got to the description of a Dementor’s effect on a person, he gasped, the first sound he had let out without prompt since he had come home. I asked him why, and he said, “That’s how I feel.” It hurt to hear, and I almost cried, but he said before I could, “can the person in the book make it go away?” So I continued reading. When I read the part where Harry casts the patronus across the lake to save himself from the Dementors, I looked over to see him smile for the first time I had ever seen. He was crying, whispering, “I knew it. I knew it!” We finished reading the series after a month, and we proceeded to read through Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings in the next two months. He then requested that we read something longer. The only thing I could think of was the Bible. Now those who don’t believe in the truth behind the Bible, don’t feel upset. Take note of the books we had read before that. All fiction. Lots of truth there. The only reason I decided on the bible was because it was the only thing I could think of that was longer than all those other books.

But he started reading it on his own after a while, actually taking notes and leaving bookmarks. He began smiling regularly, and he now takes ME out to dinner sometimes, and I must say, that smile makes him quite handsome. He has gone through three different sizes of Bible and now has one he made himself to leave more room for notes, and that one’s already chuck full of notes and worn out. He’s only had it for about seven weeks, too! He has done the same damage to JRR Tolkien and JK Rowling’s works, and I must say he has become quite the literary enthusiast.

I once thought that my (boy-)friend [:)] was going to die of anguish, but he is now more generally happy than myself. Harry Potter saved his life, and I am eternally grateful.

thank you for sharing your stories. it helps me to see that i am not alone and that it is possible to escape from these dementors.

i am still alive and i will continue to live.

Emeline, I can understand this too. It used to be (and sometime still is, though rare) that I felt I didn’t deserve their help and that they were just wasting their time.

Emeline, I totally understand how you feel about your mom, it’s like a catch 22.

I’ve been struggling a bit with depression this year myself; most times I feel like I can’t tell my friends about it because there is no overt reason for me to be depressed. Other times, I can’t tell them because every time I start talking about it I start crying in earnest, which makes it difficult to talk. My bouts of depression don’t last longer than a week, so for now, I’m trying to get myself through it, if it gets worse I’ll definitely seek help.