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I've been on a Doctor Who kick for like a month. I know enough about it, but have never been a big fan. I am always on the edge of most popular things. I would watch the occasional episode, mostly the Christmas specials when I lived in the UK and always enjoyed it. So since my depression hit a spike in February, I started to read all the Doctor Who Memes and would read clips. Today, I started watching the series.Spoilers Follow:
I watched season 1 episode 6 entitled "Dalek." You can watch it here: Dalek episode. A Dalek is a being that is encased in a machine whose entire purpose is to kill things. In the episode, the companion to the Doctor, Rose touches the broken Dalek and then the Dalek regenerates and does what it does best, starts killing people. The Dalek starts to feel other things instead of the unending need to destroy. This corrupts it and it ends up becoming confused where it ultimately ends itself. It believed itself to be the last Dalek and had no purpose in life being all alone.
After watching the episode, I felt a profound sense of sadness because I related to the Dalek. Depression is an extremely isolating illness. There is a disbelief that anyone will ever understand or that change is possible. I actually felt the confusion of the Dalek and the desperate desire for freedom. I empathized with the Dalek because it no longer had a purpose. Feeling the sun on it was like a dying wish to know freedom.
I wrote a few days ago about the importance of stories and storytellers in our lives (Stories). Even though the Dalek is out to destroy everyone, I felt bad for it in the end because it started to feel every symptom of depression. That is a clever storyteller. Maybe it revived my empathy, but I understood that the desire for freedom from whatever hell we live in is a driving force. For the Dalek, without purpose, its only true freedom was death.
For us humans, we need to find a different freedom. If you feel tied down by your family or your job or the place you live, then you have to find what it is that needs to change. It might be communication is the key to finding this. Happiness can be our freedom. Thank You, Doctor Who, for making me realize this through your amazing story telling.
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