my level 43 got reset to level 1

Heya,

When playing Apex on any other platform than the EA App, such as Steam, you would need to have your Steam account linked to your EA Account. It would not be possible to play the game without doing so, as all the progress you make whilst playing on Steam, is stored on the EA Account.

Now sometimes when playing on these platforms, you can get logged out from the EA Account. This is what you encountered at that moment. Though, you mentioned that you made a new EA Account, and since all progress is stored on the EA Account, that would explain why you aren't seeing any of your previous progress; as you are playing on a brand new EA Account.

Now your progress should still exist, this would be accessible on the EA Account that you played with before. If you want to get access back to it, you can either play on that EA Account via the EA App, or by linking your Steam account back to that EA Account via this page:  https://myaccount.ea.com/am/ui/connected-accounts