if i were the Doctor, they would call me "the ongoing freakout"
Freaking out pretty epically about what I want to do with my life. Ph.D.? Neuroscience? Biochemistry? Being a PI is definitely out--work at a corporation? For the government? As the editor of a journal? Or, get a Master's in Science Writing? Am I good enough? Am I a good enough writer to be a journalist? Could I write books?
And I don't exactly know how to feel about "Vincent and the Doctor" (which I watched as a distraction... fat chance) siriaeve said she "felt as if the writers had tried to treat van Gogh's illness with respect," and I'll second that. I liked that it was pretty obvious that the villagers' behavior was appalling and wrong, given the way people with mental illnesses are sometimes treated and talked about today. I don't love how personally Amy took it; I think this is a case where it's not about you really applies. My depression is not your problem to fix, and it would have been nice if the Doctor's response had incorporated that.
I think the difference between people who have experience with mental illness, either personally or through in-depth knowledge of a close friend or relative's experience, and people who don't, is that I can fill in the gaps between when the Doctor and Amy left and Vincent's suicide painfully easily. Tracing the paths his thoughts might have taken is like tracing the veins on the back of my hand, or the scar I got on my knee playing soccer when I was nine. And I would expect that there are a fair number of viewers reacting not quite as Amy did, but similarly, saying "I just don't get it. How could he kill himself?" It doesn't matter how many people love you, or what they say you've achieved, if you can't believe it, if you can't love yourself. And depression makes loving yourself immeasurably difficult, an almost preposterous proposition.
And in an era long before antidepressants, the mainstreaming of therapy (at least among the privileged white, upper-middle-class American society to which I am fortunate enough to belong) I don't think I would have made it to seventeen, and almost definitely not to twenty-seven, even excluding the risk of death from childbirth. Thirty-seven was an accomplishment. I guess I'm a little bitter that Amy fucking Pond wasn't able to see that.
Edited to add, outside the cut because I don't think this is a particularly spoilery statement, that I want to emphasize that this was one of the better depictions of mental illness/suicidality I've seen on TV. (Unfortunately, that it is not of American origin is probably not entirely incidental.) I was very impressed that, unlike other shows I've seen recently, they very clearly did not blame Vincent for his mental illness. I didn't make that clear initially, but I don't think it's too much to say that Moffat and Auntie Beeb have my respect and deserve cookies for that. The things I bring up under the cut are essentially saying "I would have liked more nuance," and it's important to mention that I think, fundamentally, they got it right--which is what I was trying to say by quoting Siria, but definitely deserves to be said again.
I did like that little spot at the end with the phone number which I presume was a suicide hotline. I clicked through to that website they mentioned, too, just to see. It wasn't super overwhelmingly impressive, but it was definitely better than nothing.
And I don't exactly know how to feel about "Vincent and the Doctor" (which I watched as a distraction... fat chance) siriaeve said she "felt as if the writers had tried to treat van Gogh's illness with respect," and I'll second that. I liked that it was pretty obvious that the villagers' behavior was appalling and wrong, given the way people with mental illnesses are sometimes treated and talked about today. I don't love how personally Amy took it; I think this is a case where it's not about you really applies. My depression is not your problem to fix, and it would have been nice if the Doctor's response had incorporated that.
I think the difference between people who have experience with mental illness, either personally or through in-depth knowledge of a close friend or relative's experience, and people who don't, is that I can fill in the gaps between when the Doctor and Amy left and Vincent's suicide painfully easily. Tracing the paths his thoughts might have taken is like tracing the veins on the back of my hand, or the scar I got on my knee playing soccer when I was nine. And I would expect that there are a fair number of viewers reacting not quite as Amy did, but similarly, saying "I just don't get it. How could he kill himself?" It doesn't matter how many people love you, or what they say you've achieved, if you can't believe it, if you can't love yourself. And depression makes loving yourself immeasurably difficult, an almost preposterous proposition.
And in an era long before antidepressants, the mainstreaming of therapy (at least among the privileged white, upper-middle-class American society to which I am fortunate enough to belong) I don't think I would have made it to seventeen, and almost definitely not to twenty-seven, even excluding the risk of death from childbirth. Thirty-seven was an accomplishment. I guess I'm a little bitter that Amy fucking Pond wasn't able to see that.
Edited to add, outside the cut because I don't think this is a particularly spoilery statement, that I want to emphasize that this was one of the better depictions of mental illness/suicidality I've seen on TV. (Unfortunately, that it is not of American origin is probably not entirely incidental.) I was very impressed that, unlike other shows I've seen recently, they very clearly did not blame Vincent for his mental illness. I didn't make that clear initially, but I don't think it's too much to say that Moffat and Auntie Beeb have my respect and deserve cookies for that. The things I bring up under the cut are essentially saying "I would have liked more nuance," and it's important to mention that I think, fundamentally, they got it right--which is what I was trying to say by quoting Siria, but definitely deserves to be said again.
I did like that little spot at the end with the phone number which I presume was a suicide hotline. I clicked through to that website they mentioned, too, just to see. It wasn't super overwhelmingly impressive, but it was definitely better than nothing.