acciothenoseofvoldemort replied to your post:So, a bit late, but I’ve just watched the Doctor...
I remember liveblogging about how I was offended and people told me to shut up cause it made them feel empowered like if I don’t take my anti depressants I want to die.
Ugh, god people are so shitty sometimes. I'm sorry.
It really pissed me off, because I hear voices, and I take pills to quiet those voices. And do you know what? Given that they said her medication was specifically for getting rid of her voices, as opposed to something just to generally help her mood, she would have been on anti-psychotics.
Now, I can only speak from my experience, but they are generally very hesitant to prescribe anti-psychotics to people under 18. Also, it's not like you walk into a doctor's office, say "I'm hearing voices!" and then they just drug you up. Those voices have to be causing you distress.
So we can assume that the kid was in a seriously bad way. I mean, they stated in the episode that she was barely functioning.
It was just so badly handled, because the episode stated that her meds were helping her. That she was better and more able to cope when she took her meds.
So apparently, even if your pills are making you feel better, well fuck you, you're wrong! They're hiding your specialness! Those voices in your head, that's what makes you special! What if the Doctor comes one day and needs your help to save the world, but you can't because your mummy made you take your pills?
Because that's the lesson that kids are going to take from this.
I hate these types of "don't take your pills, they just dull your creativity" stories, I really hate "mentally ill people have special senses that 'normal' people don't" stories but at least they're normally stories for adults. This was a story for and about children.
It's a shame, really, because they could have made it so her illness was a part of her character. She could have just been a kid who was able to help the Doctor and had a mental illness, as opposed to a kid who was able to help the Doctor because of her illness. It reduced mental illness to a plot device, a deus ex machina.
