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Hogwarts: A Mental Asylum?


Illustration Credits: Mary GrandPre

Harry Potter books have been the magic of my childhood, and my motivation to get up in the morning just to read another chapter for years. I have read the whole series thrice, and believe that there are a lot of subliminal messages to take from it. Some of the evident ones are about “blood-supremacy of wizards over muggles” and Voldemort trying to get rid of the half-bloods. Parallels can be drawn to Hitler wanting to get rid of anybody who is not of the Aryan race. However, at a closer look, there is so much to learn about mental health from it as well.

J.K. Rowling was suffering from depression when she came up with the character of “Dementors.” The character, thus, can be interpreted as a personification of depression. The word is said to come from the two words ‘dement’ and ‘torment,’ both of which are feelings one undergoes during depression. When Harry is attacked by dementors, he feels extremely weak, as if all the happiness and energy is being drained out of him. When he inquires about why the dementors affect him so badly, his professors informs him that it is because Harry has horrors in his past that others don’t have. While there are no defined causes of clinical depression, abuse and loss of loved ones increase the chances of depression, both of which Harry had experienced. “They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, and drain all the peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.” These experiences closely resemble the symptoms of depression. A number of characters in the book, wizards and muggles alike, report that they felt like they’ll never be happy again. This illustrated the commonality of depression as a mental disorder, which can affect people regardless of their social and economic status.

Another mental disorder which has been explicitly illustrated is anxiety. In the novel ‘Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix,’ Harry is shown to be “possessed” by Voldemort, as his thoughts seem to be controlled by him. Harry doesn’t realise where these thoughts and feelings are coming from, but can’t control them. At some point, Harry tells Sirius “I just feel so angry all the time.” Every time Harry felt controlled, he felt restless and used to sweat a lot. These unwanted thoughts and irritability are very common symptoms of anxiety. Harry also had flashbacks of when his parents died and after the second wizarding tournament, which show that he was suffering from PTSD as well. His agitation showed in the way he fought with Ron and Hermione and had angry fits with Dumbledore. Harry also had the tendency of putting himself down a lot by claiming that all his achievements were just out of luck. He had fainting episodes, and didn’t socialise with anyone other than Ron and Hermione, which made him isolated.

All these episodes and examples mentioned are just for Harry. A number of mental disorders, however, have been illustrated by J.K. Rowling. Characters like Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, Mad-Eye Moody and others have very evident disorders, while a lot of other characters display symptoms of autism, anxiety, depression, etc. Not to forget Bellatrix Lestrange, who can become a complex case study by herself. There have been a number of fan theories suggesting that Harry Potter was an abused child, and was sent away to a mental institution (Hogwarts) by his parents, the Dudleys, for his aggressive behaviour towards his brother. While I refuse to believe this theory for the sake of my childhood, the descriptions and examples of mental disorders in the Harry Potter series are quite vast.

The beauty of the way this book is written is that at no point do we start equating a mental illness with the character or even let the illness overshadow the other characteristics of the individual. All the behaviours have been justified by giving context, and normalised rather than sensationalised. I believe that it is an active attempt to break the stigma around mental disorders.
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