Dementors and Self-Doubt

“Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They 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.”
—Remus Lupin (“The Prisoner of Azkaban”)

Depression. Self-doubt. Self-hate. Dementors.

I don’t have a citation for it (if you know it, please put it in the comments), but it’s reported that JK Rowling based the dementors off her battle with depression. An apt comparison if nothing else.

I was talking with someone about self-esteem recently. He made the interesting point about self-esteem not being all-or-nothing. He talked about having self-esteem in some aspects and self-doubt in others.

What if I could focus my thoughts on the the self-esteem I have, instead of the self-doubt? When the dementors and self-doubt overwhelm my soul and cloud out the self-esteem, what if I could focus on the happy memories?

Very likely, my good memories and my self-esteem outnumber the world’s darkness, but what’s in my focus?

Focus on that Patronus memory. Your happiest memory. For me, it’s my wedding. My wife, my family, and my best friends. All that love surrounding me. How can the dementors get me if I’m surrounded by those memories?

EXPECTO PATRONUM!