Five Harry Potter Quotes I Love
As someone who grew up addicted to the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, the books hold a special place in my heart. They’re great novels and something comforting and nostalgic that I can fall back to, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve begun to appreciate the heavier and more adult themes that Rowling introduced in the later novels in her series. The first few books were quite whimsical and innocent, still filled with the magic of a new world to explore and characters who were still growing up. In contrast, the later books ended up digging into some heavy themes: death, loss, uncertainty, and fear - all things that the main characters experienced as they transitioned from childhood into young adulthood, and something that I (as well as I’m sure many of my blog readers) can empathize with.
Although some people may regard the Harry Potter series as childish, I actually find that there are some great pearls of wisdom contained in its pages that are applicable to anyone of any age. And, as I’ve gone through my OCD recovery journey, I found myself drawing some parallels to the struggles and tribulations that Harry went through in the books as well. I thought it would be a useful (and fun!) blog post to write about some of my favorite Harry Potter quotes, and how they can apply to OCD recovery.
If I had to pick only one quote from Harry Potter, this would be it. “What’s coming will come. And we’ll meet it when it does,” is such a simple and elegant way of expressing one of the core fundamentals of OCD recovery: getting comfortable with uncertainty.
When I was battling with OCD, and throughout most of my recovery journey, I struggled mightily with accepting uncertainty. “What if I had left the stove on and burn my house down?” “What if I hadn’t locked the door and I’ll get robbed?” “What if I said something bad at work and get fired?” “What if…?”
OCD is often called the doubting disease for a reason, and this constant struggle of asking “What if?” questions and then ruminating on them is one of the worst facets of dealing with mental compulsions. When you are in the throes of OCD, it’s extremely difficult to accept even the slightest possibility that maybe your worst fears could happen. OCD demands us to gather 100% certainty that everything will be OK (which of course, is impossible to guarantee) and as a result, this cycle of constant “what if” rumination plays out ad nauseum while we constantly seek the certainty that our brain craves.
Hagrid’s quote is a good reminder to take a step back, breathe, and remind yourself: there’s nothing you can do right now to “figure it out.” Maybe you did leave the stove on and you’ll come home and find your house burned down. Maybe you did leave the door unlocked and all of your worldly possessions will get stolen. The key is to accept those fears, and instead of ruminating on them, tell yourself: “OK. Maybe my worst fears will come true. But worrying right now won’t solve anything, so I will simply carry on with my life and deal with the consequences if and when they occur.”
I know it’s difficult for OCD sufferers to simply “accept the fear” and move on, but getting comfortable with that sense of uncertainty is a key framework of OCD recovery. Once you learn to accept uncertainty and not let it prevent you from living your life, OCD loses much of its hold on you. If you find yourself struggling, remind yourself of Hagrid’s wisdom: whatever may happen, you will handle it to the best of your abilities in that moment - but until then, you will continue to live your life without ruminating or worrying about those fears or uncertainties.
This quote from Albus Dumbledore ties into the idea that sometimes, as OCD sufferers, we tend to get so wrapped up in our head with rumination, intrusive thoughts, and mental compulsions, that we forget to live our lives. I see many OCD sufferers complain that they can’t do X activity until it “feels” right, or that they can’t enjoy a hobby they love because of some OCD compulsion. As an example, when I first started my OCD recovery journey, I would avoid sending emails at work or attending meetings where I had to speak, because I was so wrapped up in anxious thoughts and worries that I felt like I couldn’t possibly do those activities until I had figured out and unraveled all the tangled thoughts in my mind.
This is a trick that OCD plays on you in order to get you to perform compulsions. Instead of listening to OCD, choose to LIVE YOUR LIFE! Take valued action! Do things that you enjoy and which add value to your life, even if OCD is telling you that you can’t. When you put your life on hold to “deal” with OCD, you are only reinforcing the idea to your brain that OCD obsessions and intrusive thoughts are legitimate threats that it has to deal with before it feels safe enough to move on. By continuing to live your life and acting in accordance to your values, you are teaching your brain that the OCD fears are nothing to be concerned about and that there is no need to perform compulsions to make them go away. When you choose action - and choose to live your life instead of performing compulsions - you are actively re-training your brain and teaching it that the intrusive thoughts and mental obsessions have no power. What truly matters is your actions.
It’s common for people first going through OCD recovery to say, “OK. I can act and do X activity - but I still feel miserable because in the back of my mind, I still feel all the anxiety from my intrusive thoughts.” That’s great! Something I always advise people is that you shouldn’t judge how you’re doing by how you’re feeling. If you hate feeling anxious and are always trying to make anxiety go away, then you are only reinforcing OCD compulsions. Instead, judge how you’re doing by how many actions you performed today: did you make the bed? Did you show up to work? Did you have a nourishing breakfast? Did you spend time with your significant other? Did you work out?
OCD recovery is all about actions. The more actions you can do without letting feelings of anxiety, fear, or uncertainty limit you, the faster you will recover. A big fallacy that I see from many OCD sufferers is that they say, “I can’t practice OCD recovery techniques until I feel good enough to do so.” But you can and you should practice ERP and ACT techniques - especially when you’re feeling anxious! You should keep living your life and doing things you enjoy, even if OCD is telling you otherwise. Because by doing these things, you teach your brain that you are always the one in charge, not OCD.
Remember Dumbledore’s quote and don’t spend time wrapped up in your head, spend your time living instead!
I love this advice from Sirius: “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” I especially feel like this quote will resonate with many OCD sufferers who struggle with horrific or terrible intrusive thoughts.
Something I struggled greatly with during my initial stages of OCD recovery was accepting all the horrific intrusive thoughts that would pop up, unwanted, in my mind. Terrible things like wishing people that I loved would go to hell, or reading about a murder in the newspaper and thinking “yeah, they deserved it.” These thoughts would cripple me for days on end as I struggled with feelings of guilt and self-hatred. I would spend hours trying to convince myself that I wasn’t a bad person and that I would never want those thoughts. Or I would try to think “counter” thoughts to make up for the bad thoughts (e.g. - if I had thought someone was going to hell, I would then try to think repeatedly in my mind, “they are going to heaven instead, I would never wish anything bad upon them, please don’t let anything bad happen to them!”) Funnily enough, I am atheist, so thoughts of heaven/hell don’t even make sense to me, but OCD is quite the irrational mental disorder!
What I eventually came to realize was that by attaching my self-worth to these intrusive thoughts, and by performing all sorts of mental compulsions (ruminating, thinking “counter” thoughts, etc…), I was only strengthening OCD and telling my brain that these were legitimate fears to address. It’s important to note that everyone (yes, even “normal” people) have weird or disturbing thoughts - the difference is that the average person can immediately disregard them as irrational, whereas OCD sufferers get hooked on the thoughts and think they must reflect something horrible about their morals or values.
Two things really helped me with regards to accepting my thoughts and learning to let them go:
Acceptance Commitment Therapy. More specifically, in ACT, there is a principle called the “Self as Context” where you learn to separate your thoughts from who you are as a person. Fundamentally, you are taught that you are not your thoughts - you can observe that thoughts (even horrible, disgusting thoughts) are just a naturally occurring part of your brain, like clouds floating by. You don’t need to judge those thoughts as good or bad any more than you would judge a cloud as being good or bad. You can observe those thoughts curiously, but you don’t need to spend time arguing with them or trying to chase them away. You can let them sit in your mind while realizing they are wholly separate from you, just like the clouds are.
Another ACT principle, the idea of “Thought-Action Fusion,” which is when you “believe that thinking about an action is the same as carrying out that action.” For example, if a random thought of you murdering someone popped up in your brain, the average OCD sufferer would equate that to being equally evil as actually killing that person, and would likely feel extreme waves of guilt and anxiety. The key is to embrace Cognitive Defusion, the idea that you are not fused to your thoughts and that you can have these thoughts independently of your actions. The only thing that matters is your actions.
This is why I love Sirius Black’s quote so much, because it feels like it was taken straight out of an ACT therapist’s notebook. Realizing that we can have any thought - good or bad - and accept them for what they are is extremely powerful. And understanding that ultimately, our actions truly define us, not our thoughts, is a core principle of Acceptance Commitment Therapy and something that was extremely helpful in my own recovery once I fully understood it.
Albus Dumbledore really is a treasure trove for providing great and relatable quotes. “It is the unknown we fear,” is extremely relatable to OCD sufferers, because at the core of this mental disorder is the fear of things we can’t control and the fear of uncertainty. OCD obsessions often relate to things we can’t really be 100% certain about (“What if I hit someone while driving?” “What if I left the door unlocked?” “What if…”) and the compulsions we do in response are driven by that fear of uncertainty. OCD sufferers feel anxious because they lack absolute certainty and control over the fears, but in reality, we can never achieve that 100% sense of certainty that the brain always craves. Beating OCD involves getting comfortable with uncertainty.
Much like the first quote from Hagrid that I included in this blog post, the core theme of this quote is to embrace the unknown. When you are struggling with OCD obsessions and fears, the worst thing you can do is to react to those worries. Whether that reaction is mental rumination (“what if?” questions) or physical compulsions, by reacting to your OCD obsessions and thoughts, you are only reinforcing to the brain that these are real, dangerous threats - when in reality, it couldn’t be further from the truth. By accepting uncertainty and by recognizing that, although you may never be able to achieve 100% certainty about your fears or obsessions, you can still live your life and do things you value and enjoy, you gradually teach your brain that reacting with fear and anxiety to these OCD obsessions is completely irrational. In turn, as your brain habituates to feelings of uncertainty and anxiety, it becomes easier and easier to accept those uncomfortable feelings… until they no longer feel uncomfortable!
I feel like I’ve been stressing this theme quite a lot in this blog post, but it bears repeating because it is such an important and fundamental tenet of OCD recovery: you cannot recover from OCD until you learn to accept uncertainty. Getting comfortable with uncomfortable sensations like anxiety and uncertainty, like a weightlifter who struggles at first with heavy weights but then acclimates to lift heavier and heavier things, is a great way to train your mind and build your mental health and fitness.
Finally, the last quote I wanted to include is a simple and straightforward one: “Worrying means you suffer twice.” OCD sufferers often spend so much of their lives worrying and ruminating on irrational fears and obsessions. At the end of the day, you simply have to understand that worrying gets you nowhere. Ruminating is not beneficial in any way. Don’t try to “figure things out” - instead, focus on living in the present moment and doing things that add value to your life.
I know it’s much easier said than done, and if it was easy, OCD wouldn’t be the painful mental disorder that it is. But when you are struggling with OCD obsessions and thoughts, remember that the only thing that matters is action. Living your life and taking valued action, whilst accepting OCD thoughts and feelings, is the true path to recovery. So if you’re worried about some fear or obsession that may have happened in the past or could happen in the future, remind yourself that:
We can accept uncertainty about the past or future without letting it prevent us from living our lives in the present moment
We can acknowledge that if our fears come true, we will deal with their consequences to the best of our abilities if and when they occur - but until then, there is not much point in worrying or ruminating
The most important thing in OCD recovery is action. Living our lives, doing things we value, spending time with loved ones - these are all things that we can always do. No matter what intrusive thought or obsession is plaguing you, it cannot stop you from taking valued action unless you let it. You are always the one in control.
In OCD recovery, worrying and rumination get you nowhere. As Newt Scamander wisely says, it only means that you suffer twice. So focus on living your life and doing things you enjoy, because you deserve to have a happy and fulfilling life, and if your worst OCD fears eventually come true, then so be it. As Hagrid said, “What’s coming will come. And we’ll meet it when it does.” The last part bolded for emphasis - because we will deal with those fears only if and only when they occur. Not a minute before. In the present moment, focus on enjoying your life and doing things you value, because wouldn’t you rather be doing that than worrying about some random irrational fear which may or may not ever happen?
Hope this week’s blog post was insightful and helpful. As always, if you are reading this and struggling with OCD, I am wishing you health and happiness in your OCD recovery journey, and I’m always available to answer questions or provide guidance.
Eric