Hi Reader,

I’m definitely dating myself here, but have you seen the movie, “Terms of Endearment”? It is a TEARJERKER. 10/10 do not recommend on a bad day (even though it is SO good).

But there’s one scene I think about a lot.

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Let me give you the context: Shirley MacLaine’s daughter is dying and in pain. The nurses assure her they’re coming, but they're just doing their jobs, moving at a regular pace, counting the hours until they're home. They don’t feel MacLaine’s urgency.

So MacLaine does what women everywhere are forced to do when their urgency is treated like it's an overreaction. Sure, this is a movie version, but you can feel how she tries to make her case without losing her cool. Then she starts begging, then shouting, pounding the counter in desperation: her daughter is suffering, and no one seems to care.

I’ve never been in that exact situation, but I’ve lived smaller versions of it a hundred times. In fact, every woman I know has felt some version of that moment—the disbelief of being dismissed, the rage of being unheard, the helplessness of watching calmness become cruelty.

Of being told to ‘relax’ as our situation—whatever it is—continues.

The contexts change, but the message doesn’t: You’re overreacting.​
​And every time, it hits the same nerve—that quiet suggestion that my instincts are wrong, that my emotions are inconvenient, that I should just calm down and trust someone else to handle it.

"Relax" sounds benign—even caring—but it’s often a silencing tactic dressed up as concern. It rarely means you’re safe. It usually means you’re being inconvenient.

Most women I know can relate. We’ve learned to modulate our tone, our volume, even our urgency, just to avoid being labeled “dramatic.” We apologize before describing pain. We say things like “I’m sure it’s nothing” when we know it’s not.

And nowhere does that dynamic play out more painfully than in the doctor’s office.

“We Can’t Fix the System Overnight, But We Can Fix How Prepared We Are to Survive It.”

This week on Roar, I sat down with Maria Haugen, founder and CEO of FOXX Health, who knows that feeling all too well.

In her twenties, Maria went from healthy to suddenly, inexplicably sick. Her symptoms were real—but time after time, she was told it was anxiety. Stress. Hormones. “Nothing serious.”

Months later, after finally uncovering the truth behind her condition, Maria decided she was done being dismissed. She took that frustration—the helplessness, the fear, the fury—and built something out of it.

FOXX Health is her answer to the system that failed her: a platform that helps women track symptoms, prepare for appointments, and walk into the exam room with data, confidence, and self-advocacy on their side.

Together we talk about:
💥 What happens when your body says something your doctor won’t hear
🧠 How medical gaslighting chips away at women’s self-trust
⚡ Why Maria built FOXX Health—and what it means to reinvent yourself after burnout

But this conversation isn’t just about healthcare.
It’s about all the places women are told to calm down—in offices, in relationships, in moments when our intuition makes someone else uneasy.

Maria’s story is what happens when we stop doing that.

👉 [Listen to Maria's episode here!]

Until next week,

Danielle

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