pariahs // a linny story

-diagnosis-

not a chapter of the story, just an analysis of ginny's mental health since i was getting some questions and i think it's important to the story. also, mental health awareness!

so, what is ginny suffering from?

first i want to clarify that this is not selective mutism. selective mutism can't be developed due to trauma. selective mutism is where someone is only comfortable talking to certain people, usually family and close friends, and is mute to others  (source: selective mutism center).

ginny doesn't have one thing that is causing her to not talk. it's multiple problems.

ginny has a lot of anxiety, including post-traumatic stress disorder. ptsd often results in avoiding anything to do with the traumatic incident, including talking about it or feeling it. some people with ptsd, including ginny, try to emotionally numb themselves and not feel anything at all in order to deal with their feelings. this leads to them being withdrawn and isolated (source: UK national health service).

ginny also suffers from survivor's guilt, which is a big symptom of ptsd. she feels guilty that fred died when she survived, and she feels guilty due to george's suffering and mental health state because of fred's death. survivor's guilt can cause one to see the world as unsafe. in ginny's case, it leads to flashbacks of the event, obsessive thoughts about the event, feelings of disconnectedness, fear, and confusion, and social isolation (source: medical news today).

in addition to the ptsd related issues, ginny is also going through the stages of grief. i know there are multiple diagrams and explanations of grief that involve different numbers of stages, but i'm going to go by the basic five: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. keep in mind that the stages of grief are not a linear progression, you can bounce back and forth between them. in this story, or at least where you are in it right now, ginny is not in denial or shock of fred's death, but she hasn't accepted it either. she is bouncing between stages 2-4. anger due to grief is often directed at a specific person, and in this case ginny is directing it at herself. she is also going through stage 3: bargaining. bargaining is when you are asking yourself "what if", which is similar to ginny's survivor's guilt. what if i had died instead of fred? what if i had pushed him out of the way just in time? throughout the story, ginny will go through the stages of grief, depression being one of them. when you realize that someone will never come back, depression will naturally set in. it's not a mental health problem; it's perfectly normal for someone to feel depressed after a loved one has died. but it is important to recognize it (source: hospice of south georgia).

in ginny's case, she is trying to emotionally numb and socially isolate herself. in most cases, the not talking is limited to not talking about the event (fred's death). but because ginny obsessively thinks about fred's death, she has a hard time talking at all because it is almost always on her mind. in addition, her survivor's guilt leads her to connect many things to fred's death that may be completely unrelated. for example, the hogsmeade trip. she feels guilty having fun because fred cannot. this type of thinking puts ginny in a vicious cycle of constantly thinking about fred's death and connecting everything to it, making it harder to talk normally because nothing is normal inside her head. her anger and depression make it harder to communicate and open up to others, and her bargaining contributes to her survivor's guilt.

so in conclusion, due to several mental health problems, ginny has traumatic mutism. it's pretty rare, and is more common in young children, but yeah. traumatic mutism is different from selective mutism in that it's caused by trauma and the mutism is generally towards everybody, including family (source: selective mutism center).

i encourage you all to do more research on mental health! it's important to make yourself aware, because it's a serious issue and it's important to be able to recognize if you or someone around you is suffering from poor mental health.

here are the links to my sources, if you'd like to read more on these specific issues:

https://selectivemutismcenter.org/whatisselectivemutism/

www.nhs.uk/conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/symptoms/

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325578#tips-for-coping

www.hospicesoga.org/articles/the-5-stages-of-grief/