Harry Potter Author Admits Struggle With Suicide

ap ^ | Mar 23, 2008 3:13 pm US/Pacific

[BenLurkin]

LONDON (AP) ― Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling said she contemplated suicide as she suffered from depression before her rise to success, according to an interview with a student journalist.

The British writer said she had suicidal thoughts in her mid-20s, when she was a single mother and struggling to establish a literary career.

"Mid-20s life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted," Rowling said, according to an interview posted online by student journalist Adeel Amini.

Rowling said in the interview, parts of which were published in Edinburgh University's Student magazine, that she sought help from doctors and spent nine months receiving cognitive behavioral therapy, according to Amini.

"We're talking suicidal thoughts here, we're not talking 'I'm a little bit miserable,'" Rowling was quoted as saying.

Amini provided The Associated Press with an audio file of his 29-minute conversation with Rowling.

Christopher Little, Rowling's London-based agent, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Rowling has previously said she suffered depression before her Harry Potter series brought her international success. She has acknowledged that characters featured in the series called Dementors were inspired by her illness.

The author has said she sought medical help following her separation from first husband, Jorge Arantes, a Portuguese journalist.

Amini told the AP in an e-mail that he had carried out the interview in Edinburgh last month. He said Rowling granted him an interview after a chance meeting several months ago in a coffee shop in the city.

"I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never," Rowling was quoted as saying in her interview with Amini. "What's to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time and I am quite proud that I got out of that."

Fortune magazine ranks Rowling, who wrote seven Harry Potter novels, as one of the richest women in Britain, with an estimated wealth of $1 billion.

[giotto]

However, 3 through 7 are, as fatima says, crap.

Whatever.

[fatima]

Everything you posted is Crap.

[fatima]

Crap.

[crusty old prospector]

As an unabashed atheist, I would hope that she seeks her own salvation before doing the deal.

[Nachum]

Many brilliant artists have struggled with their inner demons. She has done very well indeed. I look forward to the next book she writes. The woman has a gift.

[altura]

Where did you get that idea?

She is a Christian.

[giotto]

they want to escape the unbearable pain

I can understand that if someone is in actual physical pain, there is usually a physical cause, which may be incurable. But psychic pain will not kill you; it only makes life difficult. Who ever said life should be easy, or that you should NOT feel pain? Pain is not necessarily a bad thing. It means you're doing something wrong and you need to fix it. Instead of listening to Prozac, people should listen to the pain. And I agree, they should get help.

[fatima]

Crap.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

"Depression is self inflicted. Consumed with self."

Wow. That statement really highlights your ignorance on the subject.

[SuziQ]

You obviously don’t know anyone who is truly depressed.

[null and void]

I hope you never have to suffer clinical depression, and have someone tell you to snap out of it:(

You are kinder than I.

[Revolting cat!]

Oh, yes, the old chemical imbalance dogma. I thought we were into a newer hipper theory, whatever that might be (they change every couple of decades, while melancholy remains with us.)

Take a pill, get into cognitive therapy, and magically your desert island will become populated, Robinson Crusoe. If we're nothing but chemicals to be cured by other chemicals, then there is no God. But melancholy caused by life's circumstances can only be cured by a change in those circumstances, and that isn't always something that the melancholic can control.

[tiredoflaundry]

place mark

[null and void]

Ping

[null and void]

You obviously don’t know anyone who is truly depressed.

I hope not!!!!

I hope she never does. OTOH, I think it just might do her lamentable and ignorant attitude some good to have a brief bout of real depression.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

You, and those around you, have obviously led blest lives, because you obviously have never encountered Clinical Depression. If you had, you could not make a statement like that.

When someone like a JK Rowlings comes forward and says, I came out of the black hole of depression. I got better...look what I did with my life...it can mean a world of hope for someone battling the disease. And it is a disease, a chemical inbalance just like diabetes, or faulty thyroid.

[mysterio]

The brain of a depressed person fails to produce the right chemicals, much as type one diabetes is caused by the pancreas being unable to produce insulin.

Hey, that's far too logical for this thread. The Tom Cruise psychiatrists have spoken, and they stayed at holiday inn express last night.

[billva]

Though you might like this:

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” ....Mark Twain

Yep, it's so true.

[GAB-1955]

No, you’re mistaken. Depression is a mood disorder, and it affects people unequally, but it is caused by an imbalance in the brain chemistry, as many, many, recent studies show.

[null and void]

Yeah.

My Fellow FReepers have had more than one occasion to improve my knowledge accuracy....