When Everything I Built Stopped Working

A story about ambition, collapse, and the threshold between the two

Part 1 of 2

This is a 2-part story of how I left a career at the United Nations, lost my identity, and spent months in a fog wondering if I’d lost my ambition — or if something else was trying to emerge. If you’re a high-achieving woman who’s ever felt flat in a life that looks flawless, this might mirror something you recognise.

I left my shiny international career at the United Nations 8 years ago, in 2017. A role that was impossible to acquire, that I likely could never go back to. Because I was utterly done.

I’d poured everything into it. I was full of passion, working with people who believed in the same cause, delivering life-saving interventions, riding high after high.

The first 6 months was an exciting, but steep learning curve into the politics, systems, processes, and culture of an organising and country I’d never set foot in before.

The next 3 years were ecstatic. I prided myself as a doer. As strong. My outback Australian upbringing meant that I got in, got dirty, and got it done. Well. Barely needed a breather, and once done would look around for more. And more I got.

I thrived on it.

But with every promotion came more pressure, more expectations, and more imposter syndrome. I was working around the clock to prove myself. Over-preparing for meetings. Living and breathing the hustle. And told by everyone “amazing, keep going!, the stars are calling”.

The Cracks Began to Appear

Year 4 there was weight gain. I wasn’t sleeping so well anymore. I was surrounded by people but felt lonely. Ignoring red flags to begin a relationship that was wrong from the start.

Years 5 into 6 a blur. A deep emptiness manifesting as an addiction to work. Calls in the car home, face lit by the laptop until late at night, emails answered over breakfast. Rest needed to be productive.

I didn’t have the energy or sense of self-preservation to call a halt on an engagement that was asking for trouble.

The Breaking Point

A terrorist attack. Armoured guards. Bulletproof cars. Any whisper of life between home and work snuffed out in one shocking night.

Thinking that maybe after all this I didn’t have what it took.

Marriage a farce. The fights. Crying on the bathroom floor at night. Sucking it up, dabbing concealer under my eyes in the morning. Pressure to deliver reports, direct teams, dine stakeholders, but walking in a fog so dense I couldn’t formulate coherent thoughts, or indeed, barely move, beyond aimlessly scrolling online stores, filling shopping carts with things that could never be shipped in any way.

Losing my passion, my drive, my joy. Myself. And realising, finally, that I given more than I had.

That I was done.

The Relief That Didn’t Come

I cried when I resigned. Went back to the apartment that evening, expecting to feel elated, and felt nothing. Began the process of selling glassware, couches, table lamps. Packing up a whole life in a country that had never felt like home.

I went to my farewell party. Took a sip of a drink, but felt off, and went home early pleading the need to pack.

Two days later I’m booked in with an Australian GP. I get all the tests done. One came back positive.

I was pregnant.

And just like that, the life I’d been building collapsed — and something else began.

The End

After 15 years abroad I naively thought all I needed was a sabbatical. That with a month or two off I’d sort myself out, my energy would be back. I thought I’d slide into another role, my husband would get his Visa, and we’d begin a new, more peaceful phase of life.

That didn’t happen.

There was no peace.

It was messy.

9 months later I was in the birthing pool, hair slicked to my face. And something snapped. After a lifetime of being contained, composed and controlled, something primal awoke in me. I felt power I’d never felt before.

I looked over at my husband and knew in that moment, we were done.

Days, weeks, months went by in a sleep-deprived blur. My decision meant no financial support. No physical support. I’d gone from generous salaries and business class flights to applying for government benefits and hanging out line upon line of cloth nappies.

A part of me — the one that had climbed and performed and proved — was furious for where I was. I grieved the life I’d had, the identity and accolades and purpose that defined me.

But I also knew that it was done, that I couldn’t go back.

I kept waiting to think clearly. To find direction again. To care about my future. To want something badly enough to take action on it.

But every time I tried to think my way forward, my body would shut down. I felt pulled towards nothing but the weight of milk and fatigue, and a tiny body that had me love in ways I’d never loved before.

There was beauty in it. But I wondered: was slowing this far down giving up? Had I lost my ambition, my drive? Or had I confused it in the first place?

I had no idea.

And that not-knowing would last, what felt like, a long, messy time.

You’re reading a personal essay with musings for high-performing women at thresholds of reinvention. This is the story of my threshold: the moment my body forced me to stop, and I had no idea if I was collapsing or becoming. Part 2 reveals what I learned — and what became the foundation of everything I do now.