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From Dismissed to Determined: Your Healthcare Journey Starts Here

  • Writer: Dijah
    Dijah
  • Jun 21, 2025
  • 7 min read

Surviving a System That Wasn’t Built for Women — and Asking: How Many of Us Have to Suffer Before We’re Taken Seriously?

 

 

When the System Fails You, Build Something Better

 

Hey there! Ever had that moment in a doctor's office where you want to flip the exam table? You know, when you absolutely know something's wrong with your body, but the doctor hands you a generic prescription and that "it's probably just stress" look?

 

You're not alone. Research shows that women, compared to men, are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed after a heart attack despite having the same risk factors (Al Hamid et al., 2024). These misdiagnosis can be explained through gender bias in medical training and little knowledge about how symptoms appear for women (Kolisnyk, 2025). For women of color, these disparities are even more pronounced, with the CDC (2024) stating that black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. The skewed healthcare disparities for younger women and women of color can be best explained by systemic inequities with interseting biases (Kolisnyk, 2025).

 

These aren't just cold numbers on a page—they're real stories. Real pain. Real frustration. And honestly? They were my daily reality for way too long.

 

The Healthy Woman Who Suddenly Wasn't

 

Two years ago, I was thriving. Active, curious, social—the kind of person who always had energy for one more adventure, one more project, one more night out with friends. Then, seemingly overnight, everything changed.

 

My energy? Gone. My body started freaking out in places it used to be totally fine. Meeting friends for coffee suddenly felt like climbing Mount Everest. And learning new things—which used to be my jam—started giving me serious anxiety. Don't even get me started on my memory... I was basically the "notes app" queen because I couldn't remember if I'd showered that morning, let alone what I ate for breakfast!

 


Your Voice Matters: Navigating Healthcare When No One Listens

 

Like many women dealing with sudden health changes, I did the "responsible adult" thing—I went to the doctor. Then another. And another. (Cue the frustrating montage of me sitting in different waiting rooms, flipping through outdated magazines while my symptoms got worse...)

 

My first visit resulted in an allergy diagnosis. Fair enough—I was sneezing, sniffling, and struggling to breathe well. The doctor prescribed antihistamines and sent me on my way.

 

When I returned, still exhausted despite the allergy treatment, blood tests revealed anemia. Again, a reasonable finding that explained some symptoms. Iron supplements were added to my daily routine.

 

But the fog didn't lift. Despite following all the medical advice like a good patient, I still felt like I was swimming through peanut butter, completely disconnected from my former energetic self. When I tried explaining this, I got the classic "Well, your tests look normal" speech, complete with that subtle hint that maybe it was all in my head.

 

This is where so many women's stories hit a dead end—settling for a half-life, wondering if maybe they ARE just "being dramatic" or if feeling terrible IS just "part of being a woman." But I'm stubborn (my mom would say "determined"), and I wasn't about to accept feeling like a shadow of myself.

 

Finding My Voice—and a New Doctor

 

I switched doctors and—this was the game-changer—I completely changed how I talked about my symptoms. No more vague "I'm just so tired" comments. I got SPECIFIC:

 

"I'm experiencing overwhelming fatigue that forces me to take naps throughout the workday just to stay upright and functioning.""I've ghosted my own hobbies because I just can't summon the energy.""Work projects I used to tackle with excitement now make me want to crawl under my desk and cry."

 

This specificity led to a depression diagnosis—and honestly? It felt like winning the lottery. Finally, someone was actually HEARING me!

 

But even with treatment for depression, something still felt off. My anxiety remained sky-high. My sleep patterns swung between insomnia and hypersomnia. My ability to meet deadlines crumbled. And my short-term memory issues became so pronounced that they affected my daily functioning.

 

 

Be Your Own Health Detective: The Ultimate Self-Advocacy Guide

 

After years of healthcare pinball (you know, bouncing from specialist to specialist with no real answers), I had my lightbulb moment: this broken system with its rushed 15-minute appointments and doctors who don't talk to each other was NEVER going to see the full picture of my health. If I wanted real answers, I needed to channel my inner Sherlock Holmes and crack this case myself.

 

I turned to what I know best—data analytics. I went full-on health detective and started tracking EVERYTHING:

 

  • Sleep patterns (the good, the bad, the "why am I awake at 3 AM again?") 

  • Energy levels (from "can conquer the world" to "can't conquer getting off my bed") 

  • Task completion rates (spoiler: they weren't great) 

  • Anxiety triggers (turns out there were patterns I'd never noticed!) 

  • Memory lapses (the "why did I walk into this room?" moments) 

  • How my body responded to medications (the good, the bad, the "why is my skin doing THAT?") 

  • Environmental factors (certain places made symptoms worse) 

  • Diet changes (hello food journal, my new best friend)

 

This wasn't your basic "I walked 10,000 steps today, yay me!" tracking. This was serious, comprehensive health storytelling through numbers—creating a detailed picture that no 15-minute doctor's appointment could ever capture.

 

After weeks of obsessive tracking (let's call it what it was!), patterns started jumping out that I never would have connected otherwise. I took these insights and fed them into AI systems, basically asking "Hey, what conditions match these weird symptom clusters I've got going on?"

 

One answer kept popping up consistently: ADHD. (Plot twist, right?)

 

I'd never even considered ADHD because I didn't fit the stereotype—I wasn't the kid bouncing off walls or disrupting class. But as I fell down the research rabbit hole about ADHD in adult women, I discovered something mind-blowing: it often looks COMPLETELY different in us than in men or children, with symptoms like:

 

  • What looks like anxiety is actually inattention (hello, racing thoughts!) 

  • What seems like procrastination is actually executive dysfunction (the "I know I need to do the thing but I CANNOT make myself do the thing" problem) 

  • Those mood swings? Actually emotional dysregulation 

  • The weird sleep patterns that no sleep hygiene tips could fix 

  • The "where are my keys that I was literally just holding?" memory issues 

  • The ability to hyperfocus on interesting things for hours while being completely unable to focus on important-but-boring tasks

 

These weren't a bunch of separate issues—they were all connected pieces of the same puzzle that had gone unsolved for decades. Mind. Blown.

 

Armed with my color-coded spreadsheets and data-backed hypothesis (yes, I'm that person now), I sought professional testing. The result? A confirmed ADHD diagnosis that explained not just my recent health nosedive, but honestly? So many challenges I'd faced my entire life that I thought were just "me being me."

 

From Patient to Powerhouse: How Self-Advocacy Changed Everything

 

The proper diagnosis and treatment? COMPLETELY LIFE-CHANGING. Energy came flooding back. The anxiety cloud lifted. My memory stopped resembling a sieve. I reconnected with things I love and actually started finishing projects again! All because I refused to accept being dismissed.

 

But I couldn't stop thinking about all those wasted years, about the millions of women out there right now being told "everything looks normal" while they're struggling just to function. I kept wondering how different my story would have been if doctors had seen the whole movie of my health instead of just a single frame from a 15-minute appointment.

 

 

Turning Pain Into Purpose: The Birth of FemmEquity Health

 

This is exactly why I created FemmEquity Health—because women deserve WAY better than a healthcare system that forces them to become amateur medical detectives just to get appropriate care. (Seriously, investigating your own health issues shouldn't be a prerequisite for treatment!)

 

FemmEquity Health exists to help clinics, public health teams, and startups make smarter decisions and create better women's health policies using real-world data. We're harnessing the power of comprehensive health tracking and AI analysis to make sure women's symptoms aren't brushed off with a "take some Advil and call me if it gets worse" (we've all heard that one, right?).

 

The stats are honestly infuriating:

 

  • Women wait an average of 3.5 YEARS longer than men for diagnosis of common conditions (that's not a typo—YEARS) (Mathias, 2019)

  • Almost HALF of women with autoimmune diseases report being told "it's all in your head" before getting properly diagnosed 

  • Medical textbooks and clinical trials have historically used male bodies as the default (surprise!), creating huge blind spots in understanding how conditions show up in female bodies

  • It doesn't stop here...there are more mind-blowing stats...

 

But stats only matter if they drive real change. At FemmEquity Health, we're turning these rage-inducing numbers into action by:

 

  1. Building super-smart tracking tools that capture the full, messy reality of women's health experiences (not just the "check yes/no" symptoms lists) 

  2. Developing AI analysis systems that spot patterns even the best doctors might miss (because humans can't process thousands of data points at once) 

  3. Creating communication tools that help bridge the gap between what patients experience and what providers understand 

  4. Fighting for policy changes that address the deep inequities baked into our healthcare system


Join Us: Transforming Women's Healthcare Together

 

My journey from health crisis to empowered advocate isn't unique—similar stories are playing out in millions of homes right now. The difference? I'm turning my rage into action by building solutions so other women don't have to waste YEARS of their lives fighting just to be taken seriously about their own bodies.

 

If my story has you nodding along thinking "OMG, this is ME," I invite you to:

 

 

Together, we can transform women's healthcare from a system of eye-rolls and dismissals to one that actually takes us seriously. Because your symptoms ARE real. Your experiences DO matter. And your health deserves nothing less than complete attention and proper care. (And that's not just a nice sentiment—I'm building a whole company to make it happen!)

 

So what's your story? Where has the healthcare system come through for you—or where has it totally dropped the ball? Drop your experiences in the comments below. I read every single one, and your story might help another woman feel less alone in her health struggles.

 ____


References

Al Hamid, A., Beckett, R., Wilson, M., Jalal, Z., Cheema, E., Al-Jumeily Obe, D., Coombs, T., Ralebitso-Senior, K., & Assi, S. (2024). Gender Bias in Diagnosis, Prevention, and Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases: A Systematic Review. Cureus, 16(2), e54264. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.54264


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC]. (2024, April 8). Working together to reduce Black maternal mortality. Women’s Health. https://www.cdc.gov/womens-health/features/maternal-mortality.html


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