Harry's Depression in OoP

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 110783


Brenda wrote :
"Apologies for being too scholarly and on constant lecture-mode. Most
of posters here are SUCH good debaters that the only way to make some
intellectual contribution is to shower everyone with scientific 
facts. Sort of defence mechanism, if you will. *shrugs* "

Del replies :
I have no problems with people giving expert information on difficult
or complicated subjects. In fact, I appreciate that, as it prevents
the discussion from deviating too far from reality.

Brenda wrote :
"I'm simply wondering why some manages to get out and others fall
deeper and deeper. Prolonged self-indulgement of "I can't do anything,
I'm hopeless" will most definitely slow down the activities of
neurotransmitters and neurophysiological processes as whole."

Del replies :
Well, yes, of course. But if you don't think you can do it, if you
know you're going to fail, why would you try anyway ? If you asked a
normal person to jump up 2 meters high, just like that, they wouldn't
do it, right ? They'd look at you like you're crazy and they would
dismiss your request because they would just know they can't do it.
That's the way it feels when you're depressed : people telling you to
do this or that simply don't make sense to you because you *know* you
can *not* do those things.

As for why some manage to get out early while others sink deeper, it's
a complicated issue. Recognising what's going on is important, and
unfortunately the depressed person is quite often the last to see
wha'ts going on. Even friends and family can be blind. It took me
several years after I realised I was depressed to figure out that my
mom's annoying behaviour was simply due to her being depressed too. On
the other hand, it took me 5 minutes to figure out that my husband's
best friend's ex-girlfriend was psychotic, when neither guy had been
able to figure things out for months. 

Then there's having a strong support network, finding the right people
to guide you, and so on.

I, Del, wrote: 
"Harry keeps feeling bad because the events that make him feel bad are
*never* lifted. Harry is attacked from everywhere (including his own
classmate in his own dormitory !), so of course he's not being overly
happy."

Brenda answered :
" But that's how depression starts?!"

Del replies :
Sure ! What I meant is that I get the impression that Harry is only
still in the stage where only really depressing events make him feel
bad. He hasn't reached the stage where he overreacts to small events,
and he's nowhere near the stage where he starts feeling depressed for
no reason at all.

If we compare his low mood to physical pain for example, I think he
only suffers agony when something hits him badly for example. He
hasn't reached the stage where a simple scratch will make him suffer
very strongly, and he's nowhere near the stage where his body will
start hurting badly for no reason at all. Yes he's in pain and that is
to be expected, but his pain seems to me to still be strictly related
to the blows he's receiving, and I don't get the impression that he's
suffering from unexplicable and unprovoked pangs of pain.

I'm not sure this helped, but I tried :-)

Brenda wrote :
"I always viewed Harry's tendency to blame everything on himself as 
typical teenage hero's problem. He believes he had chances to fix it
but he didn't or couldn't. Very desperately trying not to go into 
Occlumency and Sirius' death here, but except for those occasions 
Harry feels helpless and blames himself because he is the hero, 
Marked One to conquer Voldemort. He knows he has powers to stop more 
tragedies from happening."

Del replies :
I'm really confused by this. First because I don't see that Harry
blames everything on himself, not at all ! If he should have blamed
himself for anything, it would have been for Cedric's death, and yet
he didn't. Can you point me to times where he blamed himself wrongly ?

As for blaming himself because he is the Hero, the Marked One, I don't
understand how he could, since he only discovered about the Prophecy
at the end of OoP. So what do you mean exactly ?

Del