Skip to main content

Celebrating Canadian Mental Health Week



In the Harry Potter universe, a current of unnatural cold and overwhelming dread announces the approach of Dementors, soul-sucking creatures who deal in despair. “Get too near a Dementor,” Professor Lupin warns Harry in The Prisoner of Azkaban, “and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you.”

Fortunately, we at St. George's School have a leg up on Hogwarts: we operate sans-Dementors. Unfortunately, there is another monster from which we are not immune. It doesn't fly around donned in black, it has no tangible form. You guessed it, Dementors are here a metaphor for depression.

As students, staff, and faculty at a school for not witchcraft and wizardry, we don't have the same nifty tools to ward away these dreadful feelings. We have no wands, we can't yell “expecto patronum!” and chase mental illness away with a cool Patronus (though, I will tangentially take a moment to brag about the fact that mine is a fox). But there are some steps we can take to combat it. The simple, but often difficult starting point? We can talk about it.

When Harry faints upon his first encounter with a Dementor, he is overcome with confusion and shame. Nobody else is fainting, so why is he? It isn’t until Professor Lupin and Harry have a conversation that Harry learns how to fight these wraiths, and comes to understand that he has no reason to feel shame for this reaction. We all react to feelings differently, and we can all cope with those feelings, even when they might seem monstrous.

Today kicks off Canadian Mental Health Week; this week and every week, we have the power to dispel that harmful shame that no one should feel. This stuff affects every one of us. If not necessarily a clinical mental illness, we all have big feelings and days on which we might not feel 100%. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, 1 in 5 people suffer from a mental health problem, but stigma prevents 40% of people with anxiety or depression from seeking medical help. So, let's talk about it! There is always help.

At St. George's School, there are many avenues of support. If you are looking for some quick links to resources, check out our Mental Health page on the Learning Commons website. Additionally, you are always welcome to come into the Learning Commons for a chat and/or a book suggestion.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Asian Heritage Month and the Importance of Diversity in Publishing

It's the second week of Asian Heritage Month, a time to appreciate the history, present, and future of Asian culture. Of course, this appreciation shouldn't be limited to May exclusively. Everyday is an opportunity to celebrate Asian creators and art. In recent years, the importance of diverse representation and equitable publishing is becoming an increasingly widespread priority. The positive psychological, social , cultural, and political impacts of diverse representation are profound. Unfortunately, Asian characters in popular media are often tokenized, stereotyped, underdeveloped, and tertiary to white characters.  In an interview with Room Magazine , author Mariko Tamaki noted, "There is not necessarily a lot of young Asian people in books. When I was a kid, there was Obasan , that’s like the only book you can read about a young Asian girl. I think it is really important that the people you see and whose stories you see unfolding are not just the same character every ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Happy Pride & Queer-Coded Characters

Happy Pride Month, everyone! Every June since 1970 queer folx (whether they are openly queer or "closeted") and allies march to celebrate their true colours and advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights, while acknowledging the history of pride and those in countries where queer people are unprotected and criminalized by law. Without the work of activists such as Marsha P. Johnson , North America would likely not be as safe of a space for the celebration of queerness, though even in 2021 there aren't always accessible safe spaces. At times when queer folx have been isolated, attacked, and underrepresented, we have turned to our favourite queer-coded characters for comfort.  Historically, queer coding  - which here refers to the process by which characters in fictional media are implied to be queer - was used in a time when it was all but banned for LGBTQ+ characters to be represented on screen (and it was banned from the 30s until the 60s in accordance with the Hays Code ). For this r...
Post a Comment
Read more