Some weeks test you.
And then there are the weeks that try to break your spirit clean in half.
This past week? It came for everything — my business, my confidence, my sense of stability, and even the small scraps of hope I’d been clinging to through the chaos of entrepreneurship and perimenopause. If you’re a woman building something from nothing, you know exactly what I mean.
It started fast and brutal: my WordPress site went down. No warning. No reason. Just… gone. And while I was still scrambling to resurrect that, my Shopify store sat half-finished, like a house with no roof in the middle of a storm. My tech VA? Vanished. Poof. Off the planet. No explanations, no replies, nothing.
So I did what every woman who refuses to quit does — I pulled up my sleeves and worked full-time hours for days, trying to rebuild something that should’ve already been standing. I finally got the site up. Fragile, shaky, but alive. For the first time in a week, I breathed.
And then Friday came.
Black Friday.
The day everything was supposed to come together.
The day small business owners like me rely on to refill our tanks, our budgets, and our hope.
That’s when Amazon hit me with the email.
“Your listing has been delisted.”
Not reviewed.
Not flagged.
Not paused.
Delisted.
And the worst part?
“An appeal may not be possible.”
It felt like a punch. Sharp. Cold. Straight to the ribs. But I told myself, “Sue, you don’t go down like that.” So I appealed. Of course I did. Because I’m stubborn and headstrong and allergic to giving up.
Then the next morning, Amazon sent another email. This one even worse.
“Remove all your inventory immediately, or we will dispose of it.”
Thrown away.
Like trash.
Product I poured my soul, money, time, and belief into.
Gone with a click.
I wish I were exaggerating. I wish this were just dramatic storytelling. It’s not. This is the quiet violence every small business owner faces behind the scenes. This is the part nobody posts on Instagram. This is what it’s like competing with giants who forget that behind every listing is a human being — a mother, a woman in midlife, someone fighting through perimenopause brain fog and chaos just trying to build something meaningful.
But here’s the plot twist Amazon didn’t expect.
The moment I shared my story, my phone exploded.
Messages pouring in from women, friends, strangers, clients, and people who’ve bought HeadStrong and believe in what I’m building.
Women offering to warehouse my product in their homes.
People saying, “My cousin works at Amazon… let me ask them to help.”
Women offering business advice I hadn’t even considered.
People encouraging me to keep going.
People telling me they believe in me.
People telling me they won’t let me fight this alone.
And I cried.
Not out of fear.
Out of gratitude.
Out of being seen.
Out of realizing, maybe for the first time… I’m not alone in this fight.
Some women roar quietly.
Some roar loudly.
Some forget they can roar at all.
But when one woman gets knocked down, our roar gets louder when we rise together.
And that’s when it hit me:
Amazon may be big.
But community is bigger.
Women supporting women is stronger.
And no corporation, no algorithm, no automated email is loud enough to silence a woman who refuses to quit.
This is the entrepreneurial fight nobody teaches you about.
The one where you’re gripping your dreams with one hand and your sanity with the other.
The one where everything can fall apart in a single email.
The one where you have to choose — crumble or rise.
And I am rising.
Because I am HeadStrong.
Because my business is HeadStrong.
Because I built a product designed for moments exactly like this — the moments that test your clarity, your energy, your resilience, your belief in yourself.
If I didn’t feel strong this week, I know I would’ve broken.
If I didn’t feel centered, clear, and mentally steady, I might have melted into a puddle of anxiety and tears on the floor.
But I stayed upright.
And if you’re reading this thinking, “I could never survive a week like that…”
Let me tell you something honestly:
You could.
Because you’re a woman.
And we are built to bend without breaking.
And if you don’t feel strong enough right now, then maybe…
maybe it’s time you put HeadStrong in your own corner.
Not because supplements fix everything.
But because clarity, energy, mood support, and emotional resilience make the fight easier.
And perimenopause is already enough of a fight without the world throwing boulders at you.
This isn’t about Amazon.
This isn’t about a delisted product.
This isn’t about inventory or emails or tech chaos.
This is about standing up when something tries to push you down.
This is about women remembering they have a voice.
This is about community being the thing that saves us.
This is about refusing to let a corporation silence us.
I want every woman reading this to remember:
You deserve to be heard.
You deserve to roar.
You deserve to take up space.
You deserve to be HeadStrong.
And Amazon?
They may have tried to bury me.
But they forgot I’m a seed.
And seeds grow.
So if you want to support this movement — if you want to support women rising, women roaring, women building businesses that matter — here’s what you can do:
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Share this blog with a friend.
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Go to www.myunmess.com and support a small business that refuses to give up.
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Tell another woman she is stronger than she thinks.
This isn’t the end of my story.
It’s the moment the story gets good.
And if you know anything about me…
You know I’m not done yet.
I’m HeadStrong.
And I’m just getting started.