I’m having a hard time coming up with an idea for today’s blog. I have all these ideas written up in a little note on my phone and for some reason none of them seem to be sticking out to me. This is always the difficulty that I have found with writing, if an idea doesn’t “catch” me in some way I really struggle to write about it. Hence the fact that I have started two books in my lifetime and I have not finished either of them. I think this is also due to the fact that I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of writing ahead of me and then instead of taking it piece by piece I just stop (remember my freeze response I mentioned in an earlier post?). Now though this opens the debate that if this was meant to be a challenge for me to write no matter what for 25 days then I really just need to pick one of these ideas and write about it.
I was going to go grab a book that I have that is full of writing prompts and ideas, I find it helpful sometimes for just sparking an idea but it’s ALL THE WAY upstairs and I’m ALL THE WAY in the basement and I’m just, well, too lazy. That and I have this irrational belief that if I go and grab it from my room my youngest will wake up and it will make grabbing it a moot point.
One idea that I keep mulling over in my head is looking at mental health/family systems/ counselling related topics in fiction. This topic consistently comes up in conversations with friends, specifically surrounding Harry Potter. The problem is that I want to do it justice and I haven’t done the research and found examples and book pages etc. But, you know what, let’s just go for it and we’ll see where it takes us.
Harry Potter, I feel like he’s a character that people either love or hate. If you read the books growing up you most likely liked him because he’s the main character and he’s a WIZARD and he does all sorts of brave and cool things and you probably didn’t overanalyze the books when you read them like I am about to and have over the years. When I talk to people about the books now who have read the series in their adult lives (and especially if they’ve read them more than once)they have had the experience of not really liking Harry Potter at some point and finding his character quite annoying. I totally get it- he’s whiney, he often seems over-dramatic and moody, he seems to have unfair expectations for his friends, he’s quick to assume the worst and he doesn’t really seem to be that smart or do anything spectacular except by sheer luck or by the suggestion of someone else.
With all this in mind though it’s interesting to consider the beginnings of the books and how we meet Harry Potter and what we learn about him. Recently, a lovely friend of mine treated me to an outing to the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and in the playbill they had this interesting article by a child psychologist discussing why Harry Potter and Voldermort turned out so differently even with their similar beginnings. It was such an interesting article, I wish that I had kept the booklet so that I could quote parts of it here. Unfortunately, in a cleaning frenzy I believe that I threw it out. They made the point that Harry did experience, while for a short period of time, being loved and cared for and wanted while this was something that Voldermort never experienced. The importance of this being that it gave Harry some resiliency that Voldermort didn’t quite seem to possess. Harry did still make himself vulnerable, talk to his friends and share life with other people- whereas Voldermort considered all this to be a weakness.
Anyway, if you’ve never read the books when we first meet Harry we discover that he has been neglected and abused for much of his childhood. He sleeps under the stairs, he is sometimes locked away in this dark space for days at a time and not given food. He is not given affection and is constantly treated as he is either not there or a nuisance to be dealt with. Even at school it seems that he is treated poorly and there does not seem to be any adult in his life that takes an interest in him nor looks out for him. To be honest the fact that he is able to connect with others, have a sense of humour and be a bit…”smart” with his aunt and uncle who “care” for him shows a lot of his resiliency.
I’m not here to argue that he isn’t frustrating at times, because there are certainly times where he is stubborn or stops talking to people that obviously care about him and you think (or find yourself saying aloud in frustration), “Just talk to them! They obviously care about you. Stop being so stubborn!” This happens the most after he sees one of his classmates murdered in front of him and the most evil wizard that ever lived basically brought back to life and this is after he is put through some physical torture so that this evil person can return. If anyone experienced something similar to this in the real world, we would completely understand why they might be experiencing some PTSD or depression.
I write all of this and the trauma just seems so much more clear. He understandably has nightmares, feels incredibly alone and snaps at his friends…in his life he goes through a fairly great amount of trauma. Now when I read these later books as an adult I mostly just feel heartbreak for Harry- while I am equally frustrated with him for sometimes making choices that make him feel worse (like him not talking with his best friends). Also, he’s a teenager and I think sometimes movies can make us forget what it’s like to be a teenager or be around teenagers a lot. They don’t tend to be the most rational bunch and they also tend to make rash decisions so Harry in some ways is quite on par with his peers. His actions might be more irrational because of all of the trauma that he’s experienced.
The other thing that stands out to me, that I mentioned earlier, is his ability to make friends and build relationships due to the neglect that he experienced starting at such a young age (he was just over 1 when his parents were killed). His attachment to his parents must have been quite strong and positive for him to have the ability to form attachments later in life. I would hazard a guess to say that Harry Potter has an avoidant attachment style. Often people develop this type of attachment style when their caregivers are emotionally unavailable and the child learns that their attempts to get care and connection beyond basic needs will go ignored/unmet. As an older child/adult this might look a lot like someone being independent and taking things on on their own. They probably seem very confident and don’t often express needs they might have, or even have difficulty recognizing them.
You can see this in Harry in the way that he often tries to do things on his own and in some cases refuses help (some of this comes from him not believing that he is very valuable or lovable). You can also see his caution in sharing emotional or vulnerable things with Ron and Hermione because he has never had the experience of being heard or seen in his expressed emotions. The wonderful thing for Harry is that at a fairly young age he gets to experience positive and nurturing relationships, with his peers and also with some of the adults in his life. This allows him to see what it’s like to express emotional/social/physical needs and be heard and seen and have those met (beyond just the necessities for survival). As he “tests” his friends and people in his life he discovers that they are constant and that they can be relied on to care for him and respond. This is not to say that by the end of the books he is functioning like a secure person all the time but he does seem to begin to develop a more secure attachment style- which, I would like to reiterate says a lot about his resiliency given how much more loss he experiences over the course of the books particularly the loss of more parent figures in his life.
Those are my thoughts for now. I do have a lot more but I think that if I add any more of them here it will become even more disordered than it already is! I know this post has been a bit of a long time coming and I think that I have adjusted my expectations for this and will aim for a post every other day. This means that I’m still writing every day but I have more room to do so and still do other things during the “down” moments of my day. Thanks for journeying with me!
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