March 5, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Written by: Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Content warning:<\/strong> this article discusses fictional violence, suicidal ideation and spoilers for \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPick me. Choose me. Love me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meredith Grey, nailed as the original \u201cpick-me girl,\u201d once begged her romantic interest \u2014 Derek Shepherd \u2014 to love her in season two of \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy,\u201d a well-known medical drama that\u2019s still ongoing. More than a decade later, the line has been connected to embarrassing tactics performed by women or girls who are \u201cnot like other girls\u201d in hopes of gaining attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, believe me \u2014 Meredith Grey was never a \u201cpick-me girl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The words of @dylanpcarlino on TikTok put it best: \u201cMeredith Grey has spent her entire life being neglected and running from any real feeling. That speech is the very first time she\u2019s ever said to another person exactly what she wants. She\u2019s embarrassed by love. I think it was important for the character to stand up and say, \u2018I love you. I want this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grey, raised solo by an ambitious surgeon who prioritized her career, whose father walked out of her life when she was young to start over with another family, was irrevocably abandoned. Due to this, she follows typical \u201cneglected only-child\u201d tropes: making her friends her family, afraid of love, self-sufficient, self-sacrificing and, in many instances, lacking self-preservation to the point of near-death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chances are, Grey\u2019s lack of self-worth in the early works of the show stems from the abandonment she suffered in childhood. Secondly, her ability to sacrifice herself for others comes from the same place, that family is rare to come by and she can help others the way nobody helped her. Additionally, Grey faced an insurmountable amount of expectations to be great due to her mother\u2019s historical work in the surgical field. She wasn\u2019t just a neglected kid \u2014 she was the daughter of a star surgeon, whose life was cut short too soon, leaving unfulfilled goals and large shoes for Grey to fill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, even after receiving the love from Shepherd that she begged for, Grey pushes him away throughout the show, often neglecting conflict resolution skills. Nobody in her life modeled healthy relationships, plainly visible in her background and through her poor coping skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online theorists have characterized Meredith Grey as self-preservation four \u2014 ironic due to Grey\u2019s lack of self-preservation. Multiple times over, Grey has endangered herself for \u201cthe greater good\u201d \u2014 or for no plain reason at all. Cue the following scenes: Grey, submerged in the ocean; Grey, hand in a body cavity containing a bomb; Grey, not begging for her life when faced with a deadly weapon, instead pleading to meet her end so the life of her lover can continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being a self-preservation four personality type means one is self-sacrificing to no end. They do not communicate sensitivity, suffering, shame or envy, despite their ability to feel them. In fact, they manage to submerge \u2014 haha, get it? \u2014 these emotions, masking stoicism, but secretly hoping to, one day, be rewarded with love and acceptance. This, we know, Grey wants desperately, but often enacts her perfect ability to drive others away \u2014 self-sabotage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Ashlie Woods, expert with the Enneagram types, \u201cThey have a strong need to endure, so they develop an ability to do without. They put themselves in situations that are tough. They test and challenge themselves \u2026 In some cases, they may not know how to live without the stress and pressure they put on themselves. They don\u2019t allow themselves the experience of living in or from their fragility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n These archetypes are, however, very sensitive. Grey, around season five, is slammed with accusations that she is uncaring and insensitive \u2014 conflict-avoidant, which is true to character \u2014 resulting in one of the show\u2019s most complex and interesting storylines. Grey and Shepherd work on a patient who currently serves a sentence on death row, with Grey showing the murderer extended compassion, much to Shepherd\u2019s dislike. This can be analyzed in multiple ways. One of these is the view that Grey is extending compassion to the ones who do not receive it. Perhaps she is looking to understand the misunderstood, as she so often feels, maybe love the unlovable. Or, maybe, she feels the desire to open up to another human \u2014 but can\u2019t afford yet for it to be someone who cares for her. No matter the reason, Grey exhibitsed traits much unlike those of a traditional protagonist or hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many other scenes reflect Grey\u2019s inner turmoil. In one of the most well-known episodes, \u201cInto You Like a Train,\u201d the trolley problem is brought to life: pick one patient to save and condemn the other to death. When the unlucky patient is pulled aside and left to die, Grey is the only one on her team \u2014 seeing this patient as a reflection of herself, abandoned with nobody to save her. This, of course, is pointless, leading to the concept of self-saving \u2014 maybe nobody can help Grey but herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not even love can save Meredith Grey. She loses her husband in season 11 rather abruptly, but decades of growth in her character have taught her that her healing is her own, and her life, even if lived alone, has value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The characterization of Grey \u2014 her depression, mommy and daddy issues, fear of commitment and love, lack of coping mechanisms \u2014 all culminate in an older, wiser character by the end of the show. She becomes a mother and an award-winning surgeon, both important to her \u2014 what her mother could not balance \u2014 but, throughout it all, Grey does not fundamentally change. She keeps her wit, her dry humor and, somehow, most importantly, her ability to find danger anywhere. Her character is a testament to neglected only children, self-preservation fours and otherwise misunderstood viewers, showcasing that healing is more complex and doesn\u2019t work like a cookie cutter \u2014 it won\u2019t spit out a happy, healed, sunshine-y person at the end. She is persistently stubborn, unrelenting and reckless, but, by the end of the show, content with her life, her family and her work, which may be the only things Meredith Grey ever wished for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contact the author at howleditorinchief@wou.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 5, 2025 Written by: Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief Content warning: this article discusses fictional violence, suicidal ideation and spoilers for \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy\u201d \u201cPick me. Choose me. Love me.\u201d Meredith Grey, nailed as the original \u201cpick-me girl,\u201d once begged her romantic interest \u2014 Derek Shepherd \u2014 to love her in season two of \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3995,6295,4489,6302,4476,6308,6300,4468,564,6293,6298,6306,6292,4487,4488,1754,6297,6299,4486,507,6303,6311,6304,6307,6301,5290,1584,6296,4654,6305,6294,6312,4464,761,6309,6313,1583,4478,562,6291,684,6290,6310],"class_list":["post-22428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-abc","tag-analysis","tag-anatomy","tag-ashlie","tag-character","tag-characterize","tag-choose","tag-derek","tag-drama","tag-enneagram","tag-four","tag-girl","tag-grace","tag-grey","tag-greys","tag-love","tag-me","tag-medical","tag-meredith","tag-oregon","tag-pick","tag-pick-me-2","tag-pick-me","tag-pick-me-girl","tag-preservation","tag-prime","tag-romance","tag-seattle","tag-self","tag-self-preservation","tag-self-preservation-four","tag-self-worth","tag-shepherd","tag-show","tag-surgeon","tag-surgery","tag-television","tag-tragedy","tag-tv","tag-type","tag-western","tag-woods","tag-worth"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22428"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22434,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22428\/revisions\/22434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}