Depression ... in OotP

[Kate Harding]

No: HPFGUIDX 110702

Thank you Caesian! You defended my theory better that I could.

Depression is not just a weird, chemical thing that happens to some 
people and not others. It doesn't always happen at random. For most 
people it happens as a direct result of life events. It is far more 
common than people think. I'm told that 1 in 3 people will experience 
it. But a lot of people don't realise that's what they're 
experiencing. They think they're just having a rough patch - and in a 
sense they are, because this is a spectrum, not on-off. You either 
have chicken pox or you don't - depression's not like that. 'Normal' 
people have it too! And very commonly.

There *are* some people who struggle with it all their lives, 
seemingly without reason, and perhaps this is the kind of depression 
that many people think of when they hear the word. This is not the 
kind I was thinking of with Harry. Depression also happens to people 
for short periods of time, people who may recover in a few weeks or 
months and show no sign of it ever again. It is a natural state, with 
good adaptive reasons (which I will go into if people like but seems 
out of place here) (the real problems come when you get stuck in that 
state, when it doesn't pass). As others have pointed out, it is 
natural to be depressed after a bereavement. That doesn't mean that 
it's not depression. And a natural depression like that can be 
exacerbated by other factors, such as time to brood. If a person with 
that kind of temporary depression shuts themself away and doesn't 
talk about it (which is largely what depressed people want to do!), 
it will probably get worse because they have nothing to stop them 
brooding. If they are able to occupy themselves and talk about how 
they feel, they will probably recover faster.

I'd like to reemphasise that all depressions are different. Some 
depressions are chemical, neurological, and permanent. Some are 
temporary and a reaction to events. Some are mild, some severe.

The fact that Harry is not miserable all the time does not mean he's 
not suffering from depression. In my case I had short periods where I 
was able to be fairly cheerful, mostly when my friends were around 
being entertaining, and periods when I felt fairly normal, mostly 
when I was able to be busy and distracted, when I had something to 
do. Harry's mood seems to work the same way. As my doctor says, when 
you're depressed you have good days and bad days, and you know you're 
recovering when the the good days start to outnumber the bad ones.

The extent of Harry's depression (in my view) changes a lot over the 
course of the book, and this is natural too. To use my own experience 
as an example again, my depression went in waves. As I recovered I 
began to have weeks of feeling bloody awful most of the time followed 
by weeks of gradully improving until I felt almost normal most of the 
time. Each peak was followed by a trough. 


Del:
Well sure his sleep is disturbed, but not by depression


psyche:
I don't understand what you mean by this. His sleep was disturbed by 
feelings of guilt, regret and anxiety. Which are all part and parcel 
of depression. My sleep was disturbed, too, but not because I was 
lying there thinking, 'oh, I'm so depressed'. It was mostly that my 
heart was racing for no decent reason, that I was anxious that I 
wouldn't be able to sleep. But these were the result of the 
depression - in my case it had raised my adrenaline levels.

Del, your experience of depression seems to have been very much more 
severe than mine, and prolongued. Mine was a 'moderate' case. Your 
criteria for depression seem to be correspondingly more demanding. 


Mel:
I believe it's possible he's suffering from "reactive depression"
which is very common in teenagers. JK has said that "Harry has to
constantly fight depression" in Time Magazine. Certainly it's
not "clinical depression" or "bi-polar disorder" which would be far
more noticeable and show constant symptoms. Not all depression does
(post partum, seasonal effective disorder, etc.). Plus I believe
it's almost normal for teenagers to suffer mild depression.


psyche:
Very well put. I certainly agree that Harry does not have bi-polar 
disorder or similar. However, I do think he's showing signs of more 
than mild depression. Not severe, I believe, but more than mild. And 
I agree with Caesian, that his learning to cope with the things life 
has thrown at him will be an important part of his journey. 
Personally, I learnt an *emormous* amount from my depression, and 
have a much stronger coping mechanism as a result.

psyche
(with apologies for so much personal comparison)