The UN’s Quiet Exit Isn’t Quiet at All

For fifteen years, my client lived inside the structure of the UN, working in field operations and emergency response. Her days were never her own. Time was dictated by the system, meetings that stretched endlessly, crisis calls that arrived at night, reports demanded by donors, decisions shaped by headquarters. Even in her RnR and leaves, she was never fully free; the phone could ring, a crisis could erupt, and suddenly she would be back on duty. The work was relentless. Everyone was stretched thin. Everyone was overwhelmed. And still, the system kept moving, and so did she.

In that environment, there was clarity. The system provided boundaries. It told her what mattered most, what to prioritize, and what to set aside. It was heavy and exhausting, but it also carried focus and purpose. She never had to wonder what was important, because the UN’s structures defined it for her. The rhythm was demanding, but it was also familiar. It became routine.

Then, in an instant, it ended.

After fifteen years, she was let go. The UN system that had consumed her days, her energy, and her identity simply disappeared. No more accountability to headquarters. No more urgent calls from the field. No more meetings stacked on top of one another. The routines that had been brutal, exhausting, and sometimes suffocating were suddenly gone.

What was left looked like freedom. But it didn’t feel like freedom. It felt like disorientation.

The shock of complete autonomy was profound. For the first time in her professional life, she had no system to answer to, no deadlines or priorities set from above. She woke up to silence. Her time was fully her own, and yet that very fact was overwhelming. After years of living inside a structure where every hour was spoken for, the absence of demands felt brutal in its own way.

This is the hidden cost of leaving systems like the UN. What appears from the outside as liberation often arrives as a shock to the system. The framework that once held everything together is gone, and the individual is left to rebuild their own structure, to find their own boundaries, to decide for themselves what matters most.

There is no neat resolution to this story. No quick solution. Only the truth that such a transition is hard, often brutal, and deeply disorienting. It is something to acknowledge, to reflect on, to journal about.

Because when the UN exits your life, it may look quiet. But it isn’t quiet at all.