I Forgot That You Existed: Overcoming a Toxic Workplace and Rebuilding Career Confidence

An Aurea Nova Member’s Origin Story

It took a long time. Years of peeling back the layers of what you left behind.

But today, as I sit listening to Taylor Swift, I can say it softly, confidently, almost amused; I finally forgot that you existed.

You were supposed to be the beginning, the amazing start. The shiny launchpad for a bright, eager professional who believed in hard work, good intentions, and the promise that talent would be rewarded. Instead, you became the story I couldn’t stop telling, not because it was inspiring, but because you broke something inside me.

In that small, detached world, orbiting just far enough from the centre that the usual rules didn’t apply. Mediocrity ran the show. You made people shrink to fit and kept them small to hold on to the power born of nepotism and cronyism.

For years, I carried the weight of that place. The imposter syndrome you planted, the fear of getting it wrong, the instinct to overperform just to feel safe. You haunted my dreams, like an exam I’d forgotten to study for.

I built my career on lessons you never meant to teach: how not to lead, how not to treat people, how not to build a culture. I studied more, worked harder, pushed further, all to prove that I was more than the ruin you left. All the while, I knew I was giving you far more power than you ever deserved.

And while time heals, it’s not been easy, glamorous, or a solo effort. Thankfully, somewhere along the way, the story stopped being about you. The lessons became mine, repurposed, reframed, rewritten in my own language. I no longer feel the sting when I think of those corridors, those names, those rooms.

You were once the villain in my origin story. Now I can’t help noticing that the world you built no longer exists. Your castle has long crumbled, your importance long faded. Now you’re just a footnote; this blog the very last trace of your relevance.

My first professional heartbreak. Like all heartbreaks, it taught me who I didn’t want to be and what I should never again accept.

Now, as a member of the Aurea Nova community, I help other women overcome the same doubt, fear, and smallness I once carried, and I remind them they were never the problem to begin with. Together we work to change toxic workplace cultures; raising the bar and promoting ethical leadership across sectors and industries.