“You can be competent and still feel unsafe.”
― Esther Perel
The Psychology of Returnships and Why Returning to Work Carries More Than Most People See
There is a moment no one talks about. Not the moment you update your CV. Not the moment you finally press “apply.” Not even the moment you receive an offer.
It is the moment you walk back in.
Into a workplace that kept moving. Into a version of yourself that no longer exists. Into expectations that feel familiar and yet strangely heavier.
This is the emotional reality behind what the corporate world is now calling a returnship: a structured “return to work” phase for professionals who step away for months or years. It sounds like a career term, a practical concept, a neat HR label.
But psychologically, a returnship is rarely just a return to work. It is a return to exposure.
To being seen again. Measured again. Expected again.
And for many women especially, it can feel like the unspoken trial period no one admits exists. Because returning does not feel like continuing. It often feels like starting over in the same place, but with a different nervous system.
The Myth of “Readiness”
There is a question that tends to hover over women who return: “Are you ready?”
It is framed as care, but underneath it lives a quiet assumption that the person who left is the same person coming back.
She is not.
Life does not pause when work pauses. People do not take career breaks for fun. They step away to carry something.
A baby. A parent. A marriage in crisis. A health scare. A grief that rearranged their sense of time. Or simply a burnout that was no longer negotiable.
So yes, she can be “ready,” and still feel like she is returning with a different internal architecture. And that matters.
Your Body Keeps a Different Timeline
Corporate timelines move in quarters, fiscal years, and performance cycles. The body does not.
A woman returning after maternity leave may look “fine,” but her nervous system may still be in high alert. Sleep deprived. Hypervigilant. Wired to respond to someone else’s needs before she has even registered her own.
A woman returning after caregiving may not describe herself as traumatized, but her body remembers decision fatigue, endless emotional labour, and responsibility without a finish line.
A woman returning after illness or loss may have regained functionality, but inside her there is still something tender, a part that remembers survival.
And that is the part most workplaces miss.
The workplace asks, “Are you back?”
Her body is still answering another question: “Am I safe here?”
When Competence Feels Conditional
Many women know this feeling intimately. You can be excellent, qualified, highly competent, and still feel that competence can be revoked the moment you step away.
Because absence, regardless of the reason, gets translated into stories. She is distracted. She is not as committed. She has too much going on. She might not handle pressure anymore.
No one says it out loud. But you feel it in what is not offered, in how conversations shift, in how much you over explain just to be taken seriously again.
This is not low confidence. This is what happens when a system reads interruption as weakness instead of what it actually is: a human life unfolding.
The Invisible Recalibration
Returning to work is not just a schedule change. It is an identity recalibration.
The person who left had a rhythm, a sense of belonging, an internal map. The person returning carries new questions. Do I still belong here? Do I still want this? Do I recognize myself in this role anymore?
These questions do not resolve on day one. They sit quietly behind meetings and deadlines, behind smiles, behind “I’m good.”
Sometimes the return is disorienting not because the workplace changed, but because you did. And now you are trying to merge two identities: the woman you became while you were away, and the woman you are expected to be at work.
That integration takes time. It takes emotional processing. It takes support.
Why “Back to Normal” Is Not the Goal
We use the word back too casually. Back to work. Back to normal. Back to yourself.
But what if back is not where you are meant to go?
What if time away clarified what you can no longer tolerate? What if you do not want your old pace anymore? What if you want boundaries now, flexibility now, meaning now?
That is not laziness. That is not resistance. That is growth.
A Final Note
At PEN Consultancy, we work with high functioning women who look “fine” on paper but feel internally stretched, exposed, and exhausted trying to return to a workplace that expects continuity.
If you are returning to work and feel like you have lost your ground, you have not. You are simply meeting a version of yourself you have not fully integrated yet.
Therapy can support that integration.
If you are navigating a return to work after maternity leave, caregiving, burnout, loss, or a major life transition, support can help you regulate anxiety and overwhelm, rebuild self trust and confidence, set boundaries without guilt, and return with clarity rather than pressure.