I have a confession that would probably make my boss (Shonda Rhimes — you know her?) pull her hair out. While I was raised on Crossroads and The Princess Diaries 2, and remain a certified Gladiator and pledge allegiance to Annalise Keating, and while I was fully invested in Inventing Anna, and even though I dream about Bridgerton at this point, there is one show I could never bring myself to start or pop in on: Grey’s Anatomy.
I’ve spent my life thus far actively avoiding shows in the vein of ER, House, and The Good Doctor — basically anything hospital related — like the actual plague. Years (years!) of friends who watch Grey’s, telling me they admire Meredith Grey’s fiery passion or aspire to be half as confident as Cristina Yang, were met with a small glimmer of pleading in my eye, begging for that person to please not ask me who my favorite character was or if I saw last night’s episode.
Here comes the context to the confession that absolutely no one asked for: I had never seen an episode of the groundbreaking, game-changing, 20-seasons-and-counting ABC television show because I’m a full-blown hypochondriac. Definition: a person who is abnormally anxious about their health; is preoccupied with developing a terminal illness or having an undiagnosed medical condition; and is constantly worried that minor symptoms or bodily sensations signal a serious condition.
It sounds funny — and yes, I’m a laugh-as-I-cry type gal — but when these what-is-wrong-with-me thoughts enter my head, it feels very real, scary, and not so fun. If I get a cough, I think I am going to die of pneumonia. If I get a cut, it’s definitely infected, and it’s already spreading. God forbid I come down with a headache, which 100 percent means I have a tumor and have exactly nine days to live.
I don’t go around saying all of this out loud regularly, of course, but you can call my sweet mother — who has been on the receiving end of these calls for 29 years — to confirm my phobia. Some 4 to 5 percent of people, according to UCLA Health, suffer from health anxiety. Living as a Black woman in a country where medical racism persists and people who look like me have the highest maternal mortality rates doesn’t help. That sweet brain of mine (I call her Lisa) can’t help but leap to conclusions.
So, when it comes to medical dramas, it’s a “no” from me. I know how this works. I didn’t just fall from a coconut tree. I exist in the context of that in which I live and what came before me. I have been cursed with fear of my health status for as long as I can remember, which means that I knew if I eventually caved in and watched Grey’s, it would be at the cost of my sanity. Why on Earth would I willingly participate in an activity that is a surefire way to unearth my ungodly anxiety about falling seriously ill or, more specifically, dying?
Yes, Grey’s Anatomy contains inspiring female characters and moving romances. That’s all well and good. But as endearing as that can be, for me, real life was enough. My idea of fun was not watching imaginary people suffer in a hospital and enduring hot, beloved characters getting killed off. But then one day, I started working at Shondaland.
A few months back, I decided to (bravely!) turn on season 19 and finally give Grey’s a tentative go. I learned just how present and sincere my fears were when my coworker and friend Rebecca turned to me in the middle of episode one and asked if I was okay. I didn’t even realize that my eyes were wide, my entire body was stiff, and I was breathing heavily. Not at the juicy relationships (I loved that). But at the weighty tales of unexpected injuries, devastating medical complications, and loss.
“You don’t have to keep watching,” Rebecca, who once talked me out of including “empath to a fault” in my Instagram bio, told me. In therapy the following day, my trusty therapist agreed. I didn’t need to put myself through curling into the fetal position after Simone and Blue were tasked with calling a football player’s mom to report his death following surgical complications, or crying for 30 minutes like I was the cancer patient who passed away in her husband’s arms after planning all the places they’d see together, if I didn’t have to. (Still not over that.)
But I couldn’t stop watching. I’m not sure if it was the yearslong friendships between the Grey Sloan Memorial doctors or the backstories of the new interns, but either way, I found myself wanting to get to know them all. I was taken by how emotionally strong they were. I was invested in the honesty of the surgeons when they admitted that everything might not go right. I found myself embraced and softened by the tender moments between doctor and patient when they stood up for the task at hand.
Episode by episode, I was more and more able to hold these stories. It was strangely like exposure therapy. I could make it through an episode without spiraling about what disease I might have or could develop, and could even begin to look at the OR scenes without squirming (I am accepting trophies). Looking back, I believe it is because, to my surprise, something more than disaster and grief was taking place in these rooms too.
There was the patient who survived brain surgery, surrounded by her zany sisters. The young girl who woke up from a coma with her mom by her side. After getting hit by a car, Addison Montgomery survived and saved a pregnant intern and her baby from cardiac arrest with her expertise. On Grey’s Anatomy, miracles were happening.
“…Watching this show has trained me to look toward — and believe in — the stories of hope, survival, and redemption. Because they are there.
And no one was forcing me to watch, but something about the show kept bringing me back and was also healing in the process. It clicked into place during episode seven of the current season when, after Meredith’s last surgery went awry, the patient — who was Simone’s favorite children’s book author — died due to post-op complications.
Simone apologized for feeling emotional, and Meredith told her, “Be sorry when you stop feeling the losses.” This sentiment allowed me to, first, accept the sad and scary feelings and then carry them rather than allow them to weigh me down. The doctors’ ability to save people when it seemed the most unlikely — but also move forward in the face of the worst situations — also gave me hope. It doesn’t always have to end in tragedy.
Mistakes happen. So does recovery. People die. People are saved. Seeing all of this play out on Grey’s Anatomy forced me to look at these truths and accept them. The good comes with the bad, and the bad comes with the good. Finally watching this show has trained me to look toward — and believe in — the stories of hope, survival, and redemption. Because they are there.
I’m still terrified of getting sick and dying. I know it’s unlikely that I would get struck by lightning in a helicopter, or develop pancreatitis, or go into septic shock, or get blown off a cliff on a bus and experience a brain injury. (Or will I?) I will likely still Google symptoms and schedule too many appointments for the same thing. But I feel stronger for surviving through these stories with these characters and seeing them return to the hospital day in and day out.
In a strange way, seeing these fictional doctors doing their jobs — based on real-life medicine — gives me a sense of peace and understanding when it comes to the unknown. I know it’s make-believe, but it gives me hope for what could be real. My medical and existential anxieties aren’t cured. But the lesson of bravery and acceptance has soothed me. These stories about saving are saving me.
In episode one of season 19, Winston told everyone it was a terrible day when a number of patients were checked in after a tragic accident. But Nick corrected him. “Eight deaths save up to 40 lives,” he said about the people who passed away in the accident and were organ donors. “Yes, it is a horrible day. But it is a beautiful day. And it all coexists.”
