So the Dementors are an evil creature from the Harry Potter universe. They're used as guards for the wizard prison Azkaban, where they feed off of the positive, happy, and energetic thoughts and feelings of the prisoners, eventually turning them insane.
Their most powerful weapon, however, is called the Dementor's Kiss, where they literally suck the soul out of a person.
Harry describes the effect of even being around a Dementor as feeling like one would never be cheerful again. JK Rowling attributes the powers of her fictional Dementors with the very real effects of depression on a person, sucking the cheer and life right out of a person. What is left, then, is a terrible, muted existence - you breathe and exist, but are you alive?
Some people have this effect on others, trampling out their souls and stamping on the very spark of life that makes them who they are. Instead of providing love and nurturing, they tell you to "suck it up" and change who you are, abandoning your very soul in an effort to survive. They do not apologize for offenses, but make you feel like it's all your fault that things are the way they are. That you're being too sensitive, too weak and easily hurt, and that you're the one with the problem.
Until you just stop caring out of complete need to protect that little bit of yourself that does actually remain. You learn not to kiss, because you never know when it will be a Dementor, trying to suck the soul out of you. And you become a rock. An island. Surrounded by that which feeds off of your positive emotion and energy, you close yourself in.
And in this, perhaps, the evil one gains victory.
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