upworthy

j k rowling

J.K. Rowling gets many, many messages from fans. But a particularly personal one got her attention on March 19.

"Dragging myself through another bout of severe depression and re-reading the 'Harry Potter' series to strengthen my Patronus," the fan wrote on Twitter, referencing the mystical, protective force that plays a key role in the series. "A million thanks to J.K. Rowling for the magical escape that's always there when it's needed."

Rowling, who often enjoys engaging readers online, was moved to reply.

Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images.


"Those stories saved their author, too," Rowling wrote. "Nothing makes me happier than to think that they went out into the world to do the same for other people. Keep that Patronus powerful."

A few minutes later, the author responded to another fan asking what other books Rowling has turned to when times get tough. "To tell you the truth," Rowling answered. "When I'm really stressed or overwhelmed I turn to biographies of people who've led turbulent lives. I find it soothing and inspiring to read about people who've endured and overcome."

Since living in the public eye, Rowling's been candid about her own struggles with mental illness.

In the years leading up to her "Harry Potter" success, a recently divorced Rowling was on the verge of homelessness, desperately trying to make ends meet for her and her young daughter. She felt like a failure.

"It’s difficult to describe to someone who’s never been there because [depression is] not sadness," Rowling once explained to Oprah Winfrey. "Sadness is not a bad thing — to cry and to feel. Depression is that really hollowed out feeling. And it was because of my daughter that I got help."

Rowling said her experiences with depression inspired the idea of Dementors in the "Harry Potter" series — dark, soul-sucking beings that drain their victims of all hope.

J.K. Rowling at a book signing in 1999. Photo by Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images.

Finding personalized ways to combat depression is key for many people living with the mental illness.

Self care is critical. And whether it's reading "Harry Potter" or biographies — or any other method to help you prioritize your own mental health — it matters.  

You deserve to keep your own Patronus powerful, too.

"I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed — never," Rowling once told a student journalist. "What’s there to be ashamed of?"

If you need help, don't suffer in silence. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-8255 or visit their website for more information.

More

J.K. Rowling approved the first-ever 'Harry Potter' comic — for a great reason.

The comic's proceeds go toward the victims and survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

In September 2016, DC Comics and IDW Publishing announced "Love Is Love," a charity comic anthology to support the victims of the June shooting at Pulse nightclub.

Teaming up with more than 200 artists and writers, Marc Andreyko (best known for his work on "Batman" and "Wonder Woman '77") led the charge in curating the anthology of more than 100 short graphic stories packed into 144 pages. In DC's announcement, "Love Is Love" was described as a "love letter to the LGBTQ community."

In addition to featuring some of the biggest names in comics, the anthology also features stories from actor Matt Bomer ("White Collar"), documentarian Morgan Spurlock, and comedians Taran Killam and Patton Oswalt.


The big-name affair got even bigger when J.K. Rowling signed off on a "Harry Potter"-themed illustration — the first time an officially approved version of the character has appeared in comic form.

DC co-publisher Jim Lee created a sketch featuring Harry, Ron, and Hermione standing with Dumbledore, who Rowling famously revealed was gay after the final book in the series was released. The final version of Lee's illustration will include the words "Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open," a quote from "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" published in 2000. As Lee notes in a caption on his Instagram page, it's the first time Rowling has given her blessing to an illustration of this kind.

Check out @georgegustines lovely article in the @nytimes in which my "Love is love" contribution is revealed. This first of a kind illustration was done with #jkrowling's blessing, inspired by her quote: “Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.” –The Goblet of Fire #harrypotter #Loveislove is an amazing anthology and collaboration among so many of comicdom's finest talents with all proceeds going to the victims, survivors, and their families of the Orlando shooting tragedy via EQUALITY FLORIDA. I want to thank @idwpublishing editor #SarahGaydos and @dccomics Vertigo group editor @jamie_s_rich for their tireless work in making this book a reality. The full uncropped image available in the book in stores 12/28. Colors by the magnificent @markchidc!

A photo posted by Jim Lee (@jimleeart) on

While events like the Pulse shooting are tragic and devastating, it's heartening to see people respond in solidarity however they can.

In the months since the shooting, which killed 49, a number of Pulse benefits have been held to honor the victims. The OneOrlando fund raised more than $30 million to pay out to victims of the shooting, Orlando-area hospitals are taking steps to ensure that survivors won't be billed for treatment, and a number of entertainment industry fundraisers have been held in support of the victims.

That's what superheroes do — and that's what makes the "Love Is Love" anthology so appropriate. Harry Potter will appear alongside some of the most famous DC characters — such as Batgirl and Superman.

While we could all use a Superman in our lives, especially amid these sorts of senseless acts of violence, we'll have to settle for the next best thing: regular people with a lot of heart.

For "Love Is Love" pre-order information, check out IDW's website.

On the worst night, when our 1-pound daughter was fading in the darkness of her incubator, my husband opened a book and began to read aloud.

"Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived."

He needed to say those words. I thought it was strange that he’d chosen the first book in a seven-volume series, a series that totals more than 4,000 pages, for a little girl who might not survive the night.


Juniper in the NICU. Photo by Cherie Diez. All photos used with Kelley Benham French's permission, except as noted.

"How about 'Goodnight Moon'?" I offered. "That’s a good book."

Tom saw it all more clearly than I did. He wanted Juniper, born barely viable at 23 weeks gestation, to hear a story about children who could fly. He wanted to read to her about a baby who survived the most powerful evil in the world because his mother stood by his crib and protected him with her life.

In our family, the Harry Potter books are dog-eared and worn.

My husband wanted to initiate our daughter into our tribe. My stepsons, Nat and Sam, grew up reading the books criss-cross applesauce underneath restaurant tables. They played Quidditch on rollerblades and made wands out of chopsticks and string. On their 11th birthdays, they began checking the mailbox for their invitations to Hogwarts, clinging to the hope it could all be real. J.K. Rowling’s stories, along with the Springsteen canon, made up our shared mythology.

Photo by Alex Wong/Newsmakers/Getty Images.

Now, as Tom held that faded book, the dust jacket long lost, he was reaching out to our daughter with a protective incantation of love and belonging.

Stories were invented to conjure meaning from randomness. They give us our history, even our identity. It made no sense that Juniper came crashing into the world 16 weeks early and the size of a kitten. It made no sense that machines could keep her alive or that she could be snatched away. It made no sense to parent a baby in a plastic box, but that was what we learned to do.

"Stories are a promise," Tom told me when he’d had time to think it through. "They are a promise that the ending is worth waiting for."

Juniper didn’t understand a word of the story, of course.

But she could tell us, by the monitor pinging at her bedside, that she loved the parts about Hermione and that she hated the gruff voice of Hagrid the half-giant.

Juniper in the NICU. Photo by Cherie Diez.

When Tom read to her, she breathed better, held her temperature better, seemed generally more content. Tom read every paragraph in a soothing, sing-song voice, and when he stopped, her oxygen levels would plummet and the alarms would blare.

"Keep reading!" the nurses would shout.

He was nearly finished with book one when Juniper had another awful night. We were rushing to the hospital when he started crying at the wheel. "What if she never hears the end of the story?" he said. "What if she never learns how it ends?"

Five years later, Juniper is a wild and joyful kindergartner. And one day this spring, while she was off at school, a large box arrived at our house.

The shipping label showed an address of Mailboxes, Etc. in Edinburgh. I waited until Juniper got home to open it.

"Is dat for me?" she asked. She didn’t notice my shaking hands.

I hadn’t told her that a month or so earlier I’d gotten a Twitter message from Jo Rowling. She said she’d heard about Juniper on an episode of Radiolab and had been jolted when she’d heard Harry’s name. She said that she’d cried and that she wanted to send us something.

When I saw the message from Rowling the first time, I screamed. Then I tried to seize the moment to tell her what she’d already given us. I’m sure I didn’t capture it.

I told her that her books brought our family together in midnight lines that snaked through Walmart, where we always bought four copies so we wouldn’t have to share. In our all-night family readings, we raced each other to finish but then slowed in the last chapters because we couldn’t stand for them to end.

When Juniper arrived and Tom started reading, those stories helped me see that being a parent wasn’t something I might get to do someday, it was something I could do right now, for however long it lasted. They helped Tom and I write the story of our own lives — of who we were in those long, wrenching months. They gave a generation of children the most powerful gift imaginable: the lessons of love and friendship and bravery and decency and the ability to apparate to a better place with the turn of a page. They gave our family its sacred text. They guided us through the dark.

I sent Rowling this photo:

Juniper, all grown up!

And now, I unwrapped Rowling’s books from the box, sent all the way from Scotland, and handed them to my daughter.

"She loves me," she said, because she already knew it. She hugged the books tight.

I opened the first book to the first page and read her what it said:

"To Juniper, The Girl Who Lived! With lots of love, J.K. Rowling."

A few months later, our own book was published. It tells the story of Juniper’s six months in that hospital, in that yawning neverland between the womb and the world. It’s about the science that made her possible and the love that saved her in the end.

Harry is in it, and Hermione and Ron and Ginny and Dobby and all the rest, because they were there with us as surely as the doctors and nurses and God himself.

When the book came out, we mailed one off to Scotland, to Rowling, signed by Juniper:

"To Jo, Who made us believe. With love and gratitude, Kelley, Tom, Juniper."

Now, our little girl sorts her chickens into the houses of Hogwarts. She voted for Hermione for president. At night, she tells me, she sees Hermione in her dreams.

Last night, we opened "Sorcerer’s Stone" and started the story all over again. This time, Juniper was old enough to follow every word.

Ahead of her lies the hippogriff and the golden snitch and the time-turner and a sprawling, dazzling world where girls are the smartest, the strangest people make the best friends, and you can’t judge someone until you see what they have seen. She will be reminded that no one gets through life alone, and children carry the strength inside them to right the world.

I hope she will remember that she has carried a bit of that magic with her, all this time.

Family

What I want you to know about finding your own depression-crushing Patronus.

Depression was the dementor in my life. But J.K. Rowling inspired me to take action.

I’m a Harry Potter fanatic.

I have been ever since I picked up the very first book over a decade ago, when I was in fifth grade, and I especially love “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.”

I’m also in recovery from major depressive disorder and attempted suicide. For seven years, I felt like I was in a very dark place. I feared I'd never see the light again. I didn't understand how an illness could suck the life out of me completely.


I found the dementors in Harry Potter to be especially terrifying.

For those of you who have never read the book, a dementor is a very dark creature, almost like a demon.

Image via iKobe!/Flickr.

As Professor Lupin explains in the book, "Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this Earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places. They glory in decay and despair. They drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. ... Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you.”

Back then, I had no idea that dementors were based off J.K. Rowling’s own battle with depression.

Photo by Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images.

But now, I can see the characters pretty clearly: the dementor was depression; Professor Lupin, the therapist; Harry, the patient; and the Patronus, a treatment plan.

In the book, Harry was attacked by the dementors many times. He grew tired of it. He didn't want to feel despair anymore, so finally, he sought help. He went to someone he trusted, and Lupin spent many sessions with Harry.

At first, Harry’s Patronus only lit dimly. However, over time, his Patronus became so powerful and so bright that the dementors started to actually flee from him.

I read this book over and over again after I learned about Rowling's depression, and it powerfully changed my perspective of how I dealt with my own depression.

At first, I was afraid of the stigma attached to mental illness. I felt so alone. I was afraid of being called weak because it felt like life affected me much differently than others. But, finally, after suffering for so long and nearly dying, I found the strength to get help with my dementors — just like Harry did. And in doing so, the light turned on again in my life.

Just like Harry, I was able to eventually find my own version of Lupin, someone who I was able to speak to about my illness. And while antidepressants never really helped me, things like exercise, writing, and music became my Patronus. It wasn't entirely easy (remember, being able to ignite a Patronus is really advanced stuff!), but eventually I got the hang of it.

What’s most important to remember is that Harry didn’t do any of this on his own.

At one point during the third book, Harry and Sirius Black are attacked by dementors. They both nearly die. However, because Harry has worked hard to learn about his Patronus and his own power, he saves himself and Sirius too. Like Harry, I’ve learned that I can help others.

Photo via Warner Bros. Entertainment.

I also had help along the way, and it brought me out of the darkness. And my hope for you, if you struggle from depression, is that you can also find this relief. Your Patronus might only shine dimly at first, but if you keep working at it, eventually the dementors will run in the opposite direction. Once you learn to wield your own power, you will be able to drive those dementors away every time.

Expecto patronum!