My Therapist Suggested I Restart Watching ‘General Hospital’
I loved soaps as a kid. My neighbors (and their moms) introduced me to Days of Our Lives and Guiding Light. I found General Hospital on my own thanks to teen magazines. And I was enthralled. There was something extra majestic about it, combining super spy storylines with Russo-Greek curses and everyday sort of people.
My soap viewing waxed and waned, but I always kept up by reading Soap Opera Digest and weekly recaps in the newspaper. When the Interwebs brought recapping online, I read the backstories.
I loved that while a storyline might wrap up, the story never ends. No one is really dead, there’s always the possibility of angel visitations and long-lost twins. And rising from the ashes, again. And again if that incarnation doesn’t work out.
Life was busy. I started a blog in 2005 that kept me even busier. Eventually, I found my television watching pretty full, so in the late 2000’s my soap viewing slid downward. I wept while watching the final episodes of Guiding Light and As The World Turns. I felt like I had lost lifelong companions.
In 2010, I was disabled and ended up leaving FT work. As time went by, I found myself turning on streaming television more often, mostly because I could pause and restart it while I was blogging, dealing with pet issues, and managing other interruptions. We do not have a DVR so it was a better fit. So my ‘real time’ TV viewing was mostly limited to the evening news and a handful of sitcoms and primetime dramas.
Another side effect of my disability was losing my interest in reading, mostly due to what is described as trauma fog -it became hard to concentrate on longer reading. This was a devastating blow to me, a lifelong reader.
My therapist had suggested I find long serialized shows to watch on our streaming services both to tap into my preference for neverending stories and serve as a distraction. I poured through Murder, She Wrote and MASH and Mad Men and Golden Girls while trying out BBC and PBS series as well.
I began to notice a peculiar quirk — I did not watch the final episodes or sometimes the final last seasons. It was not an intentional choice, more of a unconscious need to hoard those final binge moments for when I really needed them.
After all, I knew what happened either because I had watched the original or because of my strong love of spoilers. So I wasn’t post-poning the resolution, I was post-poning my farewell.
My therapist, knowing that it has been a struggle for me to read even bimonthly magazines due to my mental health, suggested I tune back into a soap, any soap. I opted for GH because I love the humor and it is available on Hulu.
So I’m back with a third chapter version of Laura Webber Spencer and her six grandchildren. I’m reacquainted with the latest “previously unknown" Quartermaines (Drew, Scout, Danny, Oscar). There are baby switches, ancient rivalries, and a lot more hospital scenes than I remember in the late 80s and 90s when the spy stories ramped up a lot. General Hospital fans are educated enough about HIV to worry about Robin Scorpio taking her meds while being held captive off-screen. There was a brief interracial gay love triangle and a bisexual female character tied to a mobster and an ancient Russian royal family. She works as a bartender. Mac Scorpio is back on the police force, reporting to a Black woman commissioner. She had a kidney transplant from evil Dr. Ryan Chamberlin without his consent.
It goes on and on and I love it. Sure Ryan is in prison and the babies will be switched back, but something else will happen next week or month. General Hospital does a nice job of balancing legacy characters, both good and bad, with new interesting people.
So I don’t have to worry about endings. Even if GH were to be cancelled, there are three other soaps on the air. And then there are the British soaps. At some point, Hulu or Netflix will add all 55+ years of GH and other shows to their listing.
A bonus is that I resumed reading the online soap opera discussion boards. THAT is another great distraction. Soap fans are the best and incredibly creative with their storyline thoughts. Also, I still love spoilers.
I can flip on Hulu each morning to enjoy the most recent episode, knowing I have much to savor all of the days of my live. And that’s good mental health medicine.
