“I see a gap on your resume.”
Yes. That’s where the termination was. And the settlement. And the job search that went nowhere because the market decided that a gap means you’re damaged and damaged means risk.
The gap is several months. In those months, she did things that don’t fit on a resume. Showed up for people. Fixed things around the house. Read books she’d been meaning to read for years. Tried to figure out whether a decade of building things for people who didn’t value them meant anything.
It meant everything. But “personal growth following institutional betrayal” doesn’t fit in a resume bullet.
The career gap is the scar the market can see. Everything underneath it — the breakdown, the rebuilding, the part where you learn you’re worth more than a title — that’s invisible. Which is convenient for the people doing the hiring, because invisible things can’t be valued.