It took a traumatic spinal cord injury in 2008 to transform my life.
The experience was a radical awakening. I was told that I would never walk again.
On one fine spring day in 2008, my life changed forever. I was walking to work when I was hit by a car at high speed. My body was flung into the sky, and as I hovered, like a slow-motion movie, a few thoughts ran through my head.
You may be wondering how someone who seemingly had it all lacked self-worth.
How did that happen?
Being a perfectionist, I used to beat myself up for making the tiniest of mistakes. I didn’t listen to my own needs when work got busy. I did my job on autopilot, running from ward to ward, doing my charts. As a doctor, I was programmed as a lone ranger. I did not seek help because that meant I was weak, not capable, and not competent. My lone ranger programming made me feel isolated, disconnected, and helpless.
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Isolated, disconnected, and helpless.
Which was exactly how I felt flying through the air after being struck by a 3,000-pound vehicle traveling at 40 miles per hour. I landed with an earth-shattering thud. The impact left me a paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair, and told I’d never walk again.
But I was resilient and never gave up hope.
I spent three years at Project Walk in San Diego, and I did learn to walk again with grit, determination, and the support of my husband, family, and close friends.
At first, I thought that state-of-the-art technology was what was going to help me, but after spending two years there, I realized that my experience at Project Walk taught me a far more powerful life lesson: self-compassion.
See, my experience learning to walk again was the exact opposite of my life as a resident:
Instead of being on autopilot, wishing that I had a catheter to not think about going to the bathroom, I had to be mindful of each step I took. Instead of being a lone ranger struggling to seek help, I connected with fellow spinal cord injury survivors, bound together by our common humanity and our common suffering from spinal cord injury. Most importantly, instead of being a perfectionist beating myself up for every mistake I made, I learned to accept myself for who I was.
Mindfulness, common humanity, and self-acceptance—these are the three pillars of self-compassion.
And these were the things that gave me self-worth—not walking again, and definitely not the initial success I had earlier. I learned what it was like to be a patient on the other side of the health care system, and when I returned home to Melbourne, I threw myself into my new private practice in rehabilitation and pain medicine.
I became a mom and continued my studies. I managed to advance my career as a dual-trained rehabilitation medicine and specialist pain medicine physician.
I overcame my imposter syndrome by learning how to master my mindset, and I stepped up as a clinical leader at work using my compassionate leadership skills. These are all the skills that can be learned and are at the center of my practice.
This article is discussed on The Podcast by KevinMD in the episode From paralysis to possibility: an unexpected awakening.
Olivia Ong is a pain and rehabilitation medicine physician in Australia.
