Season 5, Episode 18: Elevator Love Letter

“Surgeons are all messed up. We’re butchers. Messed up, knife-happy butchers. We cut people up, we move on. Patients die on our watch, we move on. We cause trauma, we suffer trauma. We don’t have time to worry about how all the blood and death and crap really makes us feel.”

”Doesn’t matter how tough we are. Trauma always leaves a scar. It follows us home, it changes our lives, Trauma messes everybody up, but maybe that’s the point: All the pain and the fear and the crap. Maybe going through all of that is what keeps us moving forward, it’s what pushes us. Maybe we have to get a little messed up, before we can step up.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 17: Stand by Me

“Surgeons aren't known for being warm and cuddly. They’re arrogant, impatient, mean, as often as not. You’d think they wouldn't have friends, ’cause who could stand them? But surgeons are like a bad cold – nasty, but persistent. Surgeons: Nasty, aggressive, unstoppable. Just the kind of people you want on your side when you’re really screwed.”

“Practicing medicine doesn’t lend itself well to the making of friends. Maybe because life and mortality are in our faces all the time. Maybe because in staring down death every day, we’re forced to know that life, every minute, is borrowed time. And each person we let ourselves care about… is just one more loss, somewhere down the line. For this reason, I know some doctors who just don’t bother making friends at all. But the rest of us, we make it our job to move that line, to push each loss, as far away as we can.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 16: I Will Follow You Into the Dark

“Every surgeon I know has a shadow. A dark cloud of fear and doubt that follows even the best of us into the O.R. We pretend the shadow isn't there, hoping that if we save more lives, master harder techniques, run faster and farther, it’ll get tired and give up the chase. But, like they say… you can’t outrun your shadow.”

“Every surgeon has a shadow, and the only way to get rid of a shadow… is to turn off the lights, to stop running from the darkness, and face what you fear – head on.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 15: An Honest Mistake

“There’s this thing that happens when people find out you’re a doctor. They stop seeing you as a person, and begin to see you as something bigger than you are. They have to see us that way, as gods. Otherwise, we’re just like everyone else – unsure, flawed, normal. So we act strong, we remain stoic. We hide the fact that we’re all too human.”

“Patients see us as gods. Or, they see us as monsters. But the fact is, we’re just people. We screw up. We lose our way. Even the best of us have our off days. Still, we move forward. We don’t rest on our laurels or celebrate the lives we saved in the past. Because there’s always some other patient that needs our help. So, we force ourselves to keep trying, to keep learning… in the hope that maybe, someday, we’ll come just a little bit closer to the gods our patients need us to be.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 14: Before and After

“Every patient’s story starts the same way. It starts with them being fine. It starts in the “before”. They cling to this moment, this memory of being fine, this “before”, as though talking about it may somehow bring it back. But what they don’t realize is that the fact that they’re talking about it to us, their doctors, means there’s no going back. By the time they see us, they’re already in the “after”. And while every patient’s story starts the same way, how the story ends, depends on us, on how well we diagnose and treat. We know the story hinges on us, and we all want to be the hero.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 13: Beat Your Heart Out

“Any first year med student knows that an increased heart rate is a sign of trouble. A racing heart could indicate anything, from a panic disorder, to something much… much more serious. A heart that flutters, or one that skips a beat, could be a sign of a secret affliction… or, it could indicate romance. Which is the biggest trouble of all.”

“It seems we have no control whatsoever – over our own hearts. Conditions can change without warning. Romance can make the heart pound, just like panic can. And panic can make it stop cold in your chest. It’s no wonder doctors spend so much time trying to keep the heart stable. To keep it slow, steady, regular. To stop the heart from pounding out of your chest from the dread of something terrible… or the anticipation of something else entirely.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 12: Stairway to Heaven

“I believe in heaven. I also believe in hell. I've never seen either, but I believe they exist. They have to exist. Because without a heaven, without a hell, we’re all just headed for limbo.”

“Heaven. Hell. Limbo. No one really knows where we’re going… or what’s waiting for us when we get there. But the one thing we can say for sure, with absolute certainty… is that there are moments that take us to another place. Moments of heaven on Earth. And maybe for now, that’s all we need to know.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 11: Sympathy for the Devil

“My mother used to say this about residency: It takes a year to learn how to cut. It takes a lifetime to learn not to. Of all of the tools on a surgical tray, sound judgment is the trickiest one to master, and without it, we’re all just toddlers running around with ten blades.”

“We’re human. We make mistakes. We mis-estimate. We call it wrong. But when a surgeon makes a bad judgment call, it’s not as simple. People get hurt. They bleed. So we struggle over every stitch, we agonize over every suture. Because the snap judgments, the ones that come to us quickly and easily, without hesitation… they’re the ones that haunt us forever.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 10: Wish You Were Here

“We all get at least one good wish a year, over the candles on our birthday. Some of us throw in more, on eyelashes, fountains, lucky stars. And every now and then, one of those wishes comes true. So what then? Is it as good as we’d hoped? Do we bask in the warm glow of our happiness… or do we just notice we’ve got a long list of other wishes waiting to be wished.”

“We don’t wish for the easy stuff. We wish for big things. Things that are ambitious, out of reach. We wish because we need help, and we’re scared, and we know we may be asking too much. We still wish though, because sometimes… they come true.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 9: All by Myself

“My mother called it the greatest and most terrifying moment in her life: Standing at the head of the surgical table, knowing that the patient’s life depends on you and you alone. It’s what we all dream about, because the first person that gets to fly solo in the O.R. – kind of a bad-ass.”

“We enter the world alone, and we leave it alone. And everything that happens in between, we owe it to ourselves to find a little company. We need help. We need support. Otherwise, we’re in it by ourselves. Strangers, cut off from each other, and we forget… just how connected we all are. So instead, we choose love, we choose life, and for a moment, we feel just a little bit less alone.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 8: In the Midnight Hour

“When you’re little, night time is scary, because there are monsters hiding right under the bed. When you get older, the monsters are different. Self doubt… loneliness… regret. And though you may be older and wiser, you still find yourself scared of the dark.”

“Sleep. It’s the easiest thing to do. You just… close your eyes. But for so many of us, sleep seems out of our grasp. We want it, but we don’t know how to get it. But once we face our demons, face our fears, and turn to each other for help, night time isn’t so scary, because we realize we aren’t all alone in the dark.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 7: These Ties That Bind

“It’s intense, what happens in the O.R. When lives are on the line and you’re poking at brains like they’re Silly Putty. You form a bond with the surgeons right next to you. An unbreakable, indescribable bond. It’s intimate, being tied together like that. Whether you like it or not, whether you like them or not, you become family.”

“The ties that bind us are sometimes impossible to explain. They connect us, even after it seems like the ties should be broken. Some bonds defy distance, and time, and logic. Because some ties are simply… meant to be.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 6: Rise Up

“If you’re a normal person, one of the few things you can count on in life is death. But, if you’re a surgeon, even that comfort is taken away from you. Surgeons cheat death, we prolong it, we deny it. We stand and defiantly give death the finger.”

“We’re born, we live, we die. Sometimes not necessarily in that order. We put things to rest, only to have them rise up again. So if death is not the end, what can you count on anymore? Because you sure can’t count on anything in life. Life is the most fragile, unstable, unpredictable thing there is. In fact, there’s only one thing about life we can be sure of… it ain’t over, till it’s over.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 5: Life During Wartime

“For a surgeon, every patient is a battlefield. They’re our terrain, where we advance, retreat, try to remove all the land mines. Just when you think you won the battle, made the world safe again… along comes another land mine.”

“Some wars are never over. Some end in an uneasy truce. Some wars result in complete and total victory. Some wars end with a peace offering. And some wars… end in hope. But all these wars are nothing compared to the most frightening war of all. The one you have yet to fight.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 4: There’s No ‘I’ in Team

“I am a rock, I am an island.” That’s the mantra of pretty much every surgeon I've ever met. We like to think we’re independent. Loners. Mavericks. That all we need to do our job is an OR, a scalpel and a willing body. But the truth is, not even the best of us can do it alone. Surgery, like life, is a team sport. And eventually, you've got to get off the bench and decide… what team are you batting for?”

“The thing about choosing teams in real life, it’s nothing like it used to be in gym class. Being first pick can be terrifying. And being chosen last… isn’t the worst thing in the world. So, we watch from the sidelines, clinging to our isolation. Because we know as soon as we let go of the bench, someone comes along and change the game completely.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 3: Brave New World

“In 6500 B.C., some guy looked at his sick friend and said, “I have an idea. Why don’t I drill a hole in your skull? It’ll make you feel better.” Thus, surgery was born. It takes a certain brand of crazy to come up with an idea like drilling into somebody’s skull, but surgeons have always been a confident bunch. We usually know what we’re doing. And when we don’t, we still act like we do. We walk boldly into undiscovered country, plant a flag, and start ordering people around. It’s invigorating, and terrifying.”

“We like to think we’re fearless, eager to explore unknown lands and soak up new experiences. But the fact is, we’re always terrified. Maybe the terror is part of the attraction. Some people go to horror movies, we cut things open, dive into dark water. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what you’d rather hear about? If you’ve got one drink, and one friend, and forty-five minutes… smooth rides make for boring stories. A little calamity, that’s worth talking about.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 2: Here Comes the Flood

“As surgeons, we are trained to fix what’s broken. The breaking point is our starting line at work. But in our lives, the breaking point is a sign of weakness. And we’ll do everything we can to avoid it.”

“Bones break. Organs burst. Flesh tears. We can sew the flesh. Repair the damage, ease the pain. But when life breaks down, when we break down, there’s no science, no hard and fast rules. We just have to feel our way through. And to a surgeon, there’s nothing worse, and there’s nothing better.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 5, Episode 1: Dream a Little Dream of Me

“We all remember the bedtime stories of our childhoods. The shoe fits Cinderella. The frog turns into a prince. Sleeping Beauty is awakened with a kiss. Once upon a time. And then they lived happily every after. Fairy tales. The stuff of dreams. The problem is, fairy tales don’t come true. It’s the other stories. The ones that begin with dark and stormy nights and end in the unspeakable. It’s the nightmares that always seem to become reality. The person that invented the phrase “Happily ever after,” should have his ass kicked – so hard.”

“Once upon a time. Happily ever after. The stories we tell are the stuff of dreams. Fairy tales don’t come true. Reality is much stormier. Much murkier. Much scarier. Reality. It’s so much more interesting than living happily ever after.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 4, Episode 16: Freedom

“My mother used to say that for a surgeon, a day without death is a rare gift. Every day we face death. Every day we lose life. And every day, we’re hoping for a stay of execution. We’re attached to death. Chained, like prisoners. Captives.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues

Season 4, Episode 15: Losing My Mind

“The problem with being a resident is you feel crazy all the time. You haven’t slept in years. You spend every day around people in massive crisis. You lose your ability to judge what’s normal… in yourself, or anyone else. And yet people are constantly asking you to tell them how they’re doing. How the hell are you supposed to know? You don’t even know how you’re doing.”

“Don’t wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don’t. In the face of all we can lose in a day… in an instant… wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together.”

Source: http://nothyself.com/blog/meredith-greys-monologues