The accident and Emma's death led to my diagnosis with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder and depression. I struggled for years to accept it, particularly PTSD and spent more than a decade pretending I was okay. I was in therapy, on and off medication but nothing seemed to "cure" me. I buried my feelings, desperately seeking what I thought was normalcy.

Work was where I felt my best most days.

In my professional life, especially as I moved into leadership roles, I found a place where I didn't feel like a failure. I was good at what I did—strategic thinking, decision-making, guiding teams. The more I achieved, the more validation I received. The success gave me a sense of control that I couldn't find elsewhere. At home, parenting felt precarious. Every mistake seemed to carry the weight of my children's future. The stakes felt impossibly high.

Leadership became my shield.

High-performing leaders often carry their trauma silently. They become masters at compartmentalizing, at pushing through. By 2021, this strategy had begun to crack. The demands of leadership were consuming more than just my working hours—they were draining my very essence. Each day, I would pour everything into my role, leaving an empty tank at the end of the day when I returned home. My family got my leftovers: depleted energy, shortened patience, diminished presence. The realization that my professional success was coming at the cost of my personal life hit me hard.

My unravelling revealed a universal truth about leadership.

What I had was more than just burnout—it was a misalignment between my inner world and outer performance. During my Coaching certification, I learned to redefine not just my values and priorities, but what authentic leadership truly means. I rediscovered who I was and how I needed to adapt to be able to better lead myself, my family and the people that I serve. This inner work and self-awareness allowed me to see how common it is for leaders to use professional success as a bandage for personal pain.