I had been sort of a rising star - an athlete, a scholar, a leader. My dream was to become a high-level national security adviser.

Sometime ago, I teamed up with a former Marine attack helicopter pilot. We were both frustrated by biased coverage of women in the military and said, let's form some kind of nonprofit entity where we can start highlighting the prevalence of bias in the media.

I just genuinely believe in the concept of redemption and renewal, so I was happy. When I get beyond my feelings, I had my own family and friends and so many women across America come to me and say their blood was boiling, asking me how this could happen.

My husband and I each had careers and two babies at home. They just demand everything from you. All the domestic duties fell to me and this resentment builds, as I think happens to a lot of young parents who have competing careers.

I was in such a state of mental shock and quickly spiraled into a depression at the multitude of loss. My husband, I thought, was going to leave me. I was cut off from this mentor and someone I cared for very much, David Petraeus, who also did nothing to stand up for me and in fact, empowered his surrogates to throw me under the bus, and that was devastating.

As an intelligence officer, if you don't have a security clearance, you really don't have a job. My military position was, and has been, frozen, for four years.

[Fighting for equality for women] that's what my mission has been for the last years.