I have a new analogy. I thrive on analogies, as they’re the only way I can explain and understand my OCD and anxieties. So, here’s the latest, with a bit of a lighter twist: Harry Potter. (Disclaimer: this will make no sense to you, the reader, if you aren’t a Harry Potter person.)
I’m not a Harry Potter DIE-HARD FAN, but I loved the books, I’ve read them all a bunch of times, though I haven’t seen all the movies. And I was re-reading the 7th one and reading about the dementors and the Patronuses that they all create to get rid of the dementors, and boom, an analogy was formed.
Sometimes, I feel things too strongly. I literally feel the weight of the world: everyone’s sadness, fear, anger, frustration, hopelessness…and I even feel imagined emotions. When I’m home with my dad. I feel his sadness, even if they’re not sad; but I feel the would-be-sadness, if they WERE said (which is hard to explain). All the emotion, imagined or real or my own or the world’s, just crushes me, and I feel it all pressing on me until I feel like I’m going to crumble under it all. Now, isn’t that just what the dementors do? Make Harry and everyone feel so miserable, that they don’t think they can ever be happy again? It’s a little different for me, as it’s not so much of a depression as an emotion-overload, but the principle is the same. So what does Harry do–he sends out a Patronus, by shouting “Expecto Patronum,” which gets rid of the dementors.
Well, I may be a nerd with analogies, but I’m not delusional (though OCD sometimes likes to make me worry that I am!) and I know I can’t do magic…but I have my own tools, and I can use them. So my Patronus is deep breathing. I sit and I channel my yoga breathing, the deep inhalation, and the deep exhalation, that breathes calmness and trust in, and sends the emotions and the spinning out. And through each breath, I feel it start to leave me.
Thank you, J.K. Rowling, for giving me a tool to combat my OCD and anxiety with!