In 2016, I was sitting in a hospital bed in Utah, having flown from North Carolina for specialized medical treatment as my life slowly moved away from starvation.
During this time, I was in the Air Force and a resident in oral and maxillofacial surgery to complete the medical school portion of my training, which I loved. On paper, I had done it. I was finally living the dream I had built for myself – so why did I feel so unworthy?
Unworthiness is a common experience: many of us are filled with self-criticism, feelings of not being good enough, and the feeling that we don't deserve to be where we are. We may think that soon we will be “found out” and humiliated, and that we will retreat, seeking safety away from the sight of those who might judge us and discover our “truth.” To prevent a catastrophic event from happening (like being exposed as a “fraud,” as our brains tell us), we may self-sabotage and withdraw to reduce our visibility. We can please people and transform ourselves into who we think others need us to be in order to receive approval and acceptance. When we give up parts of ourselves, it reinforces in our minds that who we truly are is not enough and exacerbates our feelings of unworthiness and not belonging.
At least that’s my experience – what about you?
For me, my feelings of unworthiness and my fear of judgment from others translated into making myself smaller and smaller, with the goal of reducing myself to oblivion. I threw myself into work and gained some self-esteem from my accomplishments, but those moments of satisfaction were fleeting compared to the deeply held belief that I wasn't enough.
Eventually, the pain of lack of food turned into unworthy food, and if I was going to eat, I needed to gain food — a belief that fueled my compulsive relationship with exercise. In our society obsessed with diet culture, my behaviors were reinforced by the praise I received for being “disciplined” in my obsessively restrictive diet and exercise routine. I craved praise, but I knew the perceived “discipline” that helped numb the pain of indignity was slowly killing me.
As I dealt with the repercussions of believing I was unworthy and actions that numbed the pain, my mind, body, and spirit suffered. Exhausted, I considered throwing in the towel and struggled to silence the voice that wanted instant relief from psychological pain.
After months of deliberation under the guidance of a team of medical professionals, I finally accepted that I needed help. I flew across the country and was admitted for specialized medical treatment that I thought would save my life.
However, my hope for relief would soon be dashed. The specialized treatment center was not equipped to handle the medical complications of prolonged malnutrition, despite being a dedicated eating disorder treatment center – that issue will be discussed another day.
I was transferred to another hospital and left alone, away from everyone I knew. As I sat in the hospital bed, not knowing if I would make it and if I even cared, it became clear to me that all the years I spent striving for achievement and Being who I thought others needed me to be was not the key to contentment. If I died, it was clear to me that most of the material possessions I had acquired would be a burden for my family to sort through, not an asset. And all the time spent hating myself because I'm not perfect? Such a waste.
What I could see so clearly then were all the things I had given up in pursuit of a false sense of dignity derived from achievements and societal approval, including time spent with loved ones , adventures in nature, a true community, serving humanity in accordance with my values and developing my spiritual beliefs. Oof, it was a gut punch when I recognized that the things I had given up to meet the demands of society's expectations and pressures were what mattered most to me.
This revelation could have been a catalytic event that sparked instant change, but it was not. The hospital referred me to the Eating Disorders Treatment Center with the recommendation that my heart needed adequate nutrition, and the center confirmed that it would not be able to sustain me with my frequency cardiac as it was. So, I went home, pushed my feelings aside, and returned to what I knew: work.
“Surprise”: it did not contribute to improving well-being.
It would take a few more brushes with death in 2017 and 2021 for me to surrender to a new way of life, rejecting the belief that our worth is tied to our accomplishments and rejecting the perception that our worth is based on our willingness to sacrifice. ourselves for our careers.
Walking the fine line with death also taught me who showed up for me and who cared about me holistically when needed, which helped me see where my attention to get l The approval of those who were not was misguided.
Walking the fine line with death taught me that working harder would not bring me more peace, happiness, or fulfillment. It wasn't going to get me any closer to feeling worthy enough, and it wasn't going to make me mentally stronger.
Do you know what happened? Self-compassion.
Throwing away what I thought was true about dignity opened up space to learn new ways of thinking. I dove into the work of Dr. Kristin Neff and discovered that cultivating tender self-compassion allowed me to heal all the years of letting myself down. Developing fierce compassion for myself has given me the tools to stand up for myself now and in the future. Self-compassion helped me see that I was worthy of a fulfilling life and true to myself all along.
I was worthy of it from the start.
These lessons came with high risk and high cost. We shouldn't have to cross the lines of death to learn them – that may leave us little time to make changes if we survive. So, I offer my journey to you in the hopes that you can apply the lessons to your own life without feeling the need to learn them the hard way: you've worked hard enough.
And in case you're wondering, no one asked me for my CV, my board scores, the number of followers on social media, how long I could hold my bladder or my marathon times on my (almost) deathbed. None of that mattered. None of that.
Remember that.
Jillian Rigert is a specialist in oral medicine and a researcher in radiation oncology.