Why can’t I stop watching Grey’s Anatomy?

It’s a Sunday evening, my girlfriend’s away and I have a few free hours with nothing to do, so how will I fill this time? I could read a book, bake a cake or do some creative writing, but do I choose to do any of these? No. I choose to sit down and start watching Grey’s Anatomy from the beginning again.

For those who don’t know, Grey’s Anatomy is a medical drama that started in 2005, following the staff at a fictional Seattle hospital. It has been incredibly successful, wracking up an impressive 380 episodes and season 18 set to air this week . Earlier this summer I decided the watch it for the first time, starting from the very beginning, and I quicky became obsessed. I watched it at a frankly unacceptable pace and would constantly bring it up in conversation, unable to think about much else.

Now I should clarify that it’s not unusual for me to marathon a TV show like this, it’s something that I will often do, however the extent to which Grey’s Anatomy was occupying my brain, was reaching an entirely different level. When I was watching the later seasons of the show, I was becoming nostalgic for the early seasons and already wanted to restart watching it from the beginning…..while I was still watching it.

So for those who haven’t figured it out yet, I am autistic. And Grey’s Anatomy had become a new special interest for me.

This is a pretty new revelation for me; self-diagnosing as autistic and waiting on a referral, but it has completely changed the way I understand myself and the things I do.

I’ve always felt slightly on the outside of things or as though there are a set of unwritten rules that I don’t quite understand, but it was ony after further reasearch that I realised I might be autistic. Women often present autistic traits very differently to men, which leaves a much lower rate of diagnosis and increased misunderstanding of what autism is.

This left me feeling very isolated when I was younger, developing a lot of anxiety and masking a lot of my natural behaviours in an attempt to fit in. This means that I am now gradually unpicking traits that I have long since learnt to mask.

One such trait is my incredible ability to marathon a TV show and learn everything there is to know about it. This is something I have always done with TV shows and movie franchises and seem unable to avoid. So why should I?

I’m sure there are lots of people who think it is a waste of time or useless information but if I enjoy it then I don’t see how it can be. I’ll be the first to hold my hands up and admit that my knowledge of Grey-Sloan Memorial is not exactly helping me out in life, but I also don’t care.

I am autistic and my special interest in Grey’s Anatomy makes me happy.

I know this has deviated from my usual book-related content, so let me know if this type of post is something you would like to see more of.

Thanks for reading!