Grey's Anatomy (there will be spoilers for those who have not watched up to season 11)

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I have been avoiding talking about this, mostly because I think I'm still in denial. I still haven't watched any of season 12. I can't seem to make myself. I get really into my TV shows at time. When a character dies I'm really invested. It almost feels like someone real died. That being said I'm going to talk about ::gulp:: Derek's death. I wasn't overly surprised with the rumors that were flying around about Grey's, I mean I saw it coming, but I was still in tears watching it, I still haven't watched the last episode of season 11. Watching Derek's death was just too hard. That being said if it had been the other way around and Meredith died and not Derek, I don't think Derek could have handled it the way Meredith is handling it (I've seen a few clips here and there, and she seems to be handling it). Derek felt so deeply, and he loved Meredith in a way I don't think Meredith ever could have loved Derek. I mean Meredith loved Derek in a pretty big way, it just wasn't the way Derek loved her. His world practically revolved around her. Meredith has/had her friends that she relied on sometimes more than Derek. Derek pretty much just had Meredith. At one point he had Mark, but of course Mark died. He also had his family, but he really didn't talk to them. He moved across the country and left them behind. He loved them, but he just didn't have that kind of relationship with them, not like Meredith has with her friends. Derek had friends, and he was well liked, but he just didn't rely on anyone the way he relied on Meredith. He let Meredith down several times along the way, he wasn't perfect, but he still loved her in a way I just don't think Meredith could love him. Derek would have been completely lost had Meredith died. We saw how he handled it when she almost drowned. He was barely keeping it together. Every time he left her he was instinctively drawn back to her. He just couldn't be without her, and Meredith has proven she could be without him, sure she didn't want to have to be, and now she is, but she is strong enough to deal, because she has gone her entire life having to rely on herself. Derek always had a support system growing up, and then when he moved to Seattle he mostly just had Meredith. He had friends, and he still had his family, but it was different. He didn't rely on them. Meredith grew up without a support system, then she moved to Seattle and she met her friends, and for the first time in her life she had a "family" to rely on, but even still she could do it on her own, she just knows she doesn't have to, and she doesn't want to. Everyone around her has died or walked away, and she just kept moving through it, because she really is a fighter. Derek, it's not that he was weak, he just hadn't been through the kinds of things Meredith had been through. Derek was able to give Meredith a kind of love she had never had until she met him. He loved her in a way she could never love. It's really sad to think about, but I guess if they wanted to keep the show going and they had to kill off one of them it probably is best they killed of Derek, because to make Derek suddenly able to handle the loss of Meredith and keep him going on for the show...I just don't think it would have been an easy write. I think eventually he would have moved on some, or at least he would have functioned, but it would have been harder to sell. Meredith was able to bounce back and live quicker than I think Derek would have been able to, of course she's never going to be over it, but she knows how to continue living without moping around and wanting to die. I think all humans are capable of being able to keep going, it just takes some of us a lot more time than others. I don't think I'll ever be over his death, because apparently I take TV character deaths hard, but I get Patrick wanted to leave the show...or he screwed up and Shonda canned him, either way I know the character had to be taken off, I just wished they could have found a way without killing him...maybe put him in a coma or something, and let him be one of those rare cases that woke up if/when Patrick decided he wanted to come back. They can't say that's unrealistic with the kinds of things that happen at Seattle Grace...seriously what are the chances that the amount of bad things that happen at that hospital are all going to happen to the same people? Sure all of those things can happen, but it's unlikely they would all happen to the exact same people. I haven't watched any of the new episodes of Grey's, I haven't watched since I watched Derek die. I haven't been able to. I know it seems crazy to be so sad about a character's death, but I am. I have watched way too many people die and leave on that show, and I think Derek was just a final straw for me, at least for now. Maybe eventually I'll be sucked back in, but for now I just can't do it. I am not the kind of person that typically cries, I have a difficult time actually crying, but whenever I watch Grey's I feel like I should have a box of tissues next to me. Just a list of characters who have either left or died on the show: Burke, George, Izzie, Cristina, Teddy, Henry, Hawn, Lexie, Mark, Addison (albeit she got her own show, but that's since ended), Denny, Reid, Charles Percy...argh I can't even think of them all, but the list is pretty long. I didn't care when some of them left, but others had me left in tears. I realize some of those listed weren't main characters, but they were there long enough for viewers to get attached (Well Reid and Percy I could have cared less about, but their deaths, especially Percy had me crying, but that's because of Bailey). Mark and Lexie especially had me in tears. They really should warn you to buy tissues before diving into this show. Ultimately Grey's is an amazing show. They can kill off whoever they want and basically get away with it, but I just can't keep getting emotionally invested in characters only to watch them die or leave. I miss all of the characters we started with, and while I like some of the new characters they've brought on, it's just not like it was. I get that characters need to grow up and evolve, but it just doesn't feel like it's anywhere close to where it was. I feel like it needs to get back to its roots. I feel like I barely recognize the show anymore. I know Shonda wants to make this show continue for many years to come, but the further the show goes the more characters will come and go, and it's going to be so far from where it started that it's almost unrecognizable, and I don't think that's a good thing. I get making the characters evolve and grow up and I know that is going to change things, but I don't think you should get so far out that you don't know where you started.