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Join us for a conversation with Jillian Rigert, an oral medicine specialist and radiation oncology research fellow. Jillian shares her journey of overcoming mental illness during medical school, redefining self-worth, and challenging harmful societal values. She discusses the importance of living authentically, the role of meaningful relationships, and the power of hope and resilience. This episode offers valuable insights on aligning your life with your true values and minimizing regrets.

Jillian Rigert is an oral medicine specialist and radiation oncology research fellow.

She discusses the KevinMD article, “Navigating life’s transitions: How I turned my struggles into support.”

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Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast, get CME for this episode by clicking on the CME link in the show notes. Today we welcome back Jillian Rigert. She’s an oral medicine specialist and radiation oncology research fellow. Today’s KevinMD article is “A ‘rich’ life looks different for everyone: lessons from my own near deathbed regrets.” Jillian, welcome back to the show.

Jillian Rigert: Thank you so much for having me, Kevin. I appreciate being here.

Kevin Pho: So Jillian’s been on multiple times. Go to KevinMD.com/podcast to search for her name, hear her story and prior episodes. But today let’s get right into this recent KevinMD article. What’s this one about?

Jillian Rigert: Yeah, thank you so much, Kevin. And this journey I shared, it’s a big part of my mission to help people to live a life true to themselves. And for people that didn’t know me, which is many people, during this time that I share in the article, they may wonder like, well, why is this person so invigorated by and on this mission to help people to live a life true to themselves?

And not many people get the opportunity to sit on what could have been their deathbed and survive. And your platform was pivotal in me making meaning from that experience, because I’ve sat on what could have been my deathbed from a medical compromise of a severe eating disorder, and I was very much isolated and alone.

If people have had people in their lives that have had eating disorders, like, I don’t go on social media. And eating disorders aren’t about how they look, but I was mindful not to be present online, which could be causing problems for people. I wanted to be responsible, but that was really hard, to consider that the way I appeared might affect people who share my condition in a negative way. And it also made me feel quite isolated.

And we’ve talked multiple times on your podcast that our medical world doesn’t really have a lot of solutions for people that have more chronic anorexia and have severe medical compromise. So I was just feeling, OK, well, I could die here, I don’t know where to turn, I was isolated.

And because I survived, initially I had a lot of survivor’s guilt, and so I hid under a rock for about five years. And then I wrote an article, the one that you titled “I risk my career to save my life.” And you know, before we started recording we talked about, we don’t know the impact of sharing our story. And so I shared that story, and it was the first time that I started to release all that guilt and shame of what I was carrying, and the survivor’s guilt, in choosing, OK, this is my life, and how can I create meaning from it.

And so this article is really about that. You know, when people face serious illness, if they don’t process it, it can turn to PTSD, which is what happened to me. And sometimes it can turn to post-traumatic growth. My hope in sharing is that people can find meaning, apply it to their own life. And of course for my own journey it’s just a part of that healing process and starting to move forward, and hope that people will stop and pause and audit their life before they reach their deathbed. Maybe not have second or third chances like I’ve had the honor, I don’t know what you call it, the honor, the privilege, the stubbornness to have in my own life.

Kevin Pho: So you mentioned that you felt survivor’s guilt for about five years, and you quote unquote hid under a rock during that time. So for those who aren’t familiar with that concept, talk a little bit more about what that is and how you felt during that time.

Jillian Rigert: Yeah, so I left oral surgery in 2017. I was in the military, I was facing suicidality, I didn’t think my life was worth living. In the time I was in oral surgery, from 2014 to 2017, my ex-boyfriend died, my co-resident died, my commander died. Three different people. I had friends that died prematurely, all of which I thought had vigor for life, you know, that their lives were cut really short.

And how dare I, survive somebody who wants to die, and to have faced those deathbeds and not care if I was going to die, and then lose people that I wasn’t expecting to lose. I had the guilt, you know, I had the guilt of leaving surgery, but more, I had the guilt that I survived. And I felt, I wish that they would have survived and I would have died. So that was the survivor’s guilt.

Kevin Pho: And was there an event that made you decide one day to share that story on a platform?

Jillian Rigert: I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to die, and I had a sense of urgency. I started writing on your blog about anorexia, because I was like, I have all this information about anorexia I need to share, to get out, because there’s so much that’s going wrong about this concept and so much people having pain. So I started with those incrementally.

And then I just felt, at the time that I shared my article with you, because I was in such a critical state of like, doesn’t even matter. People called me brave, and I was like, no, I was apathetic, right? I didn’t care who knew. But I did know that sharing, somebody shared their story with me when I was in surgery about suicidality, so I knew the impact that hearing that you’re not alone could save other people’s lives. So I hoped that if someone heard my story they would know they weren’t alone and got help.

Kevin Pho: And when you started to share your story on KevinMD and appear on podcasts to share your story in person, you alluded to this earlier, but tell us some of the responses that you received from people that you didn’t even know.

Jillian Rigert: Yeah. Well, my anticipatory reaction, what I thought people were going to do, is validate a lot of my own beliefs that I was unworthy. I left surgery, how dare I, right? Because at the time that was so much tied to my sense of worthiness, and I had guilt, and how dare you take a spot and then leave it, who do you think you are?

Which was not at all what I got. I got so many people, I mean, the article was widely shared, people came into my life, the community I have now was prompted by that article, and say thank you for writing it.

Because I lost my career in the military, I don’t have to be filtered, because I thought I was going to die. I’m not filtered where other people might be afraid of their job loss or their reputation. I didn’t fear that, because I sat on a deathbed I didn’t want to survive. And that’s the benefit that I gained from that, if there can be a benefit. But you know, being able to be vulnerable, and then for other people to come into my life and for them to then release their stories and to unburden themselves with that guilt and shame, that really started to bond us.

Kevin Pho: How are you doing today?

Jillian Rigert: You know, there was a hurricane here the other day. But I think at this point, you know, I have decided to pursue a master’s in therapy, which is something that I had been wanting to do since I was young. I’m living it to give it, is what I would say.

And what I mean by that is, I really am on a mission to help people to tune in to what their values are, to audit their lives now, to focus on what matters. And when I did that I was feeling a gut nausea, because I was like, am I doing that, where am I not doing that? And I kept thinking, you know, I’ve always wanted to pursue a role in the mental health space. I still have a specialty of oral medicine, and that just didn’t feel like the right place for me. And if I were going to die, I would have regretted not pursuing some sort of mental health specialty.

So I was going to pursue psychiatry, but I really wanted to get good at psychotherapy. And I had the honor of meeting with many different physicians who offered me that question of, hey, it sounds like you would do better pursuing a training in psychotherapy. And to give myself permission, and learn how to do that, after not having given myself permission to let go of the surgeon identity for so many years, it was all this incremental growth opportunity to say, you know what, I am going to give myself permission to lean in and to feel this out. And so I just started my master’s in therapy, marriage and family therapy, last month. So I’m feeling like I’m finally creating the life that is true to me.

Kevin Pho: We were talking offline about sometimes when we share stories on these platforms, we don’t know who’s reading it and we don’t know how it’s going to make a difference. You’ve received so much positive feedback. Is there one example or story that you could share about a difference your story made on someone else?

Jillian Rigert: You know, I hear a lot of things in private, because people may not be willing to share. And for them to reach out and just say, I really needed to hear that today, and they may not even share what they mean by that, but I can feel that.

And so there’s multiple instances. And I would say that there are days when I ask myself, does my life even matter, does what I’m doing even matter. And the impact, that message keeps me going. So for them to say, I needed to hear that today. Then I go, and whenever I post something that I’ve learned, I just trust that there might be at least one person that needs to hear.

And the meaning of releasing it into the atmosphere, right, at least gets it out for me too. So there’s always a benefit of some way. Yeah, I just say it’s mainly those behind-the-scenes messages that I get in my DMs.

Kevin Pho: Sharing such a difficult story obviously isn’t easy, and I know that you faced a lot of obstacles and challenges, and it took a long time for you to of course share your story. And I get a lot of messages from other physicians, clinicians, people across health care asking how can they share their story, because sometimes it’s not intuitive, or else they would have shared it earlier. So what kind of tips do you have for our listeners who have a difficult story, who may be facing some of the similar experiences that you have faced, in order to get them to share their story? What kind of advice do you have?

Jillian Rigert: Yeah, it’s a lot about pacing. You know, we’ve all dealt with a lot of trauma, and you don’t want to be retraumatizing yourself by throwing yourself into a deep end. People hear me vulnerably now, I just told you I lived under a rock for five years as I processed things.

So the first thing is pacing, if you haven’t heard that, it’s the term of really allowing yourself to kind of do a step by step, allow yourself to process at a level that feels like you can manage it, that’s not overwhelming. So if you have high emotional overwhelm from a topic, maybe consider processing something that’s a five out of 10 emotional kind of activation, and not jump into, I’m going to go share the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me. It may not be in your best interest.

And we don’t know if it’s going to go into an environment where it’s well received, or if people are going to give you feedback that, you know. When I started talking about anorexia, one of the hardest things for me is that people didn’t see how I looked before. So there’s a lot of people that when they share their anorexia story they’ll share before and after, which does a disservice for the whole concept that you can’t tell how a person is doing by the way they look. But I understand why people do it, because people didn’t see me in a state where I was so physically unwell.

So now that I still struggle with an eating disorder, and if I go to talk about it, it can be quite invalidating for someone to say, well, you don’t look anorexic, right? Or they’ll say something that maybe was meant to be supportive, but it can really cause more trauma. If you have gone through trauma, you’re trying to share it, and somebody minimizes it, or they gaslight you, or like, you know.

So I would say be mindful. And I never push somebody to share something that they’re not ready to share. I always think it’s important to be vulnerable with people that you trust with that information. And everyone’s journey will look different about where and how they share, and at what stages of life that might look different.

Kevin Pho: Now, your story of course had a good outcome, and people listening to you and reading what you write and listening to your podcast almost have a proverbial model to follow if they’re in a similar situation to where you were. But when you were doing it, there wasn’t necessarily anyone to follow, right? It wasn’t anyone to model after. How did you know what you were doing was the right thing for you?

Jillian Rigert: Trial and error. Sometimes I got it wrong and felt the consequence of that, which is, you know, I put my vulnerability in the hands of people who took advantage of it in a negative way, who used it against me. And I never want that pain for anyone else, so I’ve noticed I have a mama bear-like approach to helping people as they explore what’s in their best interest.

But yeah, it was trial and error. And when I found a community, it was really finding that community that would just be vulnerable together and be on this journey together and walk alongside each other. So there are a few core people that are, you know, both online and in my real life, where we are kind of walking this path together at this point. So that pain of loneliness is no longer present.

Kevin Pho: And what gave you the strength to keep coming back, even after sometimes you made a mistake or didn’t quite do the right thing during that trial and error period?

Jillian Rigert: Self-compassion. You know, I learned a lot about the importance of self-compassion from having so much self-hatred and self-criticism, and learning how detrimental that can be. And Brené Brown, I’m a big fan, and she said that in her research what she found with the people with high levels of mental toughness, at their core were high levels of self-compassion. And not many of us will give ourselves the opportunity to cultivate that without judgment.

But I am my own best friend, you know, and I’ve got my own back now. I have a lot of self trust, and I can sit with myself and give myself the care that I needed in those moments. And I can also step back and see if I’m getting negative energy from someone else, like, OK, whatever they’ve got coming at me is a reflection of what’s going on for them, whatever it’s bringing up in me is a reflection of what’s going on for me, and to really create space to be able to process that. And if it’s a deep core wound, well heck, I’m going to be a therapist, I’m a big fan of therapy, right? And coach, and I’m a big fan of coaching. So whatever feels most appropriate, in having, you know, genuine connections with others.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Jillian Rigert. She’s an oral medicine specialist and radiation oncology research fellow. We’re talking about the KevinMD article “A ‘rich’ life looks different for everyone: lessons from my own near deathbed regrets.” Jillian, as always, we’ll end with some of your take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Jillian Rigert: Yeah. Well, you know, that whole deathbed exercise is very important. And I would say, even when I said I’m on my real potential deathbed, I didn’t take that information and apply it. So a lot of us are self-development book junkies, but we might read it and not apply it.

So I would challenge people now to really step back and say, if today was their last day here, what would they regret? And then get intentional. What would it look like to be intentional, to take one step closer? Don’t have to throw everything away, but take one step closer to the life that you truly want, so that you can reduce the likelihood of regrets on your deathbed.

And also, the rich life looks different for everyone. When I thought I was going to die, I sold most everything I owned. And I realized that a lot of our societal pressure to own a lot of materialistic goods and to have this prestige and this ego-driven, you know, titles, it doesn’t matter on our deathbed.

And just consider, you know, what does it take to really sustain the lifestyle you have, and what’s the cost for you? Are there things you want to do differently? And how would you personally define a rich life for yourself? And consider, what are the societal influences to that answer, and if you were to let those go, what are your true answers?

Kevin Pho: Jillian, as always, thank you so much for sharing your story, time, and insight, and thanks again for coming back on the show.

Jillian Rigert: Thanks, Kev. Appreciate you having me.