Grey’s Anatomy And How Love Finds Us
If there is one consistent thing I come away from Grey’s Anatomy episodes thinking, its goddamn, I hope these people all get some therapy. From Karev periodically beating people up and spending the first three seasons as a sexual harasser, to Meridith’s personality being overrun by her never-ending list of traumas, to the epidemic of PTSD and pathological lying at Grey Sloan Memorial, these doctors need some doctoring.
In the midst of all of their various displays of emotional stuntedness, they all find love, again and again (even if it is just a new stage for their issues to play out on). Meredith has Derek head over heels from jump, even through her suicide attempt and her many attempts to leave him. She is in a constant state of healing from the time that we meet her. While she “gets all whole and healed” in season three or so, she is still deeply dysfunctional when Derek dies. She only really comes into her own and heals in the years after her husband’s death, a period in which she doesn’t have substantial relationships beyond her friend and family.
Karev is the peak of toxic masculinity and emotional unavailability in the initial seasons. While the women of Grey Sloan/Seattle Grace “train” him and push him to overcome his more blatant misogyny and chauvinist attitudes, he still has some serious rage issues til the bitter(sweet) end. He beats DeLuca to hell, and throws a baseball bat in a tantrum when confronting his mother for the first time in years doesn’t go well. And yet, we end the whole series with his wedding to Jo Wilson, who is not without her own (somewhat overly-written) baggage. As she puts it in her proposal “you’re so messed up you make me make sense.”
All these cold and fucked up love stories, triangles, and hexagons always remind me of something my mom says about love: that you find someone at the same disfunction level as you. You can either get healthy and then find someone else who is healthy, or you can do the much harder thing and find someone who is also unwell, and get healthy together. All the instagram and tumblr posts try to say “you can’t receive love from others until you love yourself.” And while I get the push to self-love and independence, this is a pretty damaging narrative.
Narratives like this can push people to “take what they can get” in relationships, because if they haven’t conquered any and all mental illness in themselves, they can’t expect a good and fulfilling love. And maybe this is what I love most about Grey’s Anatomy; its promise of love for the struggling. And its promise of healing for those whose love has left them. Grey’s rejects the linear narrative of how life and love are supposed to work and say, sure, you’re a hot mess but you still can land the love of your life. Sure, you no longer have a husband or wife to heal for, but their love was real, and your path to healing yourself doesn’t stop with that.
In this way, I think Grey’s gets at the intent of that common saying; your growth and journey towards self-love can’t and shouldn’t end when you meet your own McDreamy.
As Cristina Yang would say “remember, he’s not the sun. You are.”