Menopause life...and I
A FORMER model has told how her mother took her own life at 46 due to the menopause – and how she narrowly avoided the same fate at exactly the same age.
Lisa Stirling finally understood what her late mother had been through when she turned 46 and her own menopause left her crushed by suicidal thoughts.
Usually outgoing and positive, mum-of-four Lisa became a near recluse, refusing to leave the house and feeling utterly worthless.
She would text the safe word “peaches” to friends to warn them she was close to harming herself.
She says the change took away “control of [her] own thoughts” and that her husband and children were so concerned for her safety they did not let her “out of their sight”.
But after menopause expert Dr Louise Newson told her she needed HRT drugs, everything changed.
Lisa, now 50, from Barnt Green, near Birmingham, recalls how her 46th birthday brought back vivid memories of her mother’s death.
She said: “I started feeling really weird. My husband suggested it was because I was thinking of my mum.
“We have four children and my mum missed out seeing them grow up. But I started getting worse.
Stigma
“I couldn’t sleep at night and I actually thought that I was having a nervous breakdown.”
Recalling how suicidal thoughts began to creep in, she said: “It happened on a couple of occasions where I was driving on a motorway.
“I actually thought, ‘you know what, I could just put my foot down now and go into the back of a lorry. I don’t care.’
“That’s how bad I felt. I just couldn’t see a way out.
“I wouldn’t go out, I became agoraphobic. My husband would go out with the children for dinner and I would stay at home.
“I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to put on a brave face. I actually thought I was going crazy. That’s the only way I can describe it.
“It was frightening, really frightening. It was a very, very dark place.”
Lisa began to realise what was happening after talking to a female neighbour: “I just started bawling my eyes out and I told her I just didn’t want to be here. She instantly told
me she thought I was starting the menopause. I said: ‘But I’m only 46.’ “I did feel a stigma, I thought I couldn’t be menopausal because I thought ‘I’m not old.’
“My neighbour recommended I go and see Dr Louise Newson who is an expert on the menopause, which I did.
“I made an appointment and sat in her office for a good 45 minutes crying my eyes out.
“I believed I was going crazy and she told me: ‘No, you’re going through the menopause.’ It was really hard to take in.
“After I had a blood test, she started me on HRT straight away. “About three months later, I started to feel as if I actually had a purpose again. HRT basically saved my life.Without it, I just don’t think I would be here.”
In 1995, when Lisa was 24 and working as a young model, she had found her mother Sylvia Southall dead in her bedroom at her home in Olton, Birmingham, after fighting symptoms for 12 months. “They knew even less about the menopause then,” she explained. “Mum went to her doctor with typical symptoms, sleepless nights, hot sweats, feelings of despondency. “Her doctor said she was depressed and put her on lithium, a powerful anti-depressant. “She was misdiagnosed and went downhill from there.” Sylvia noted no positive effect from her tab
lets and kept telling doctors there had to be another problem.
Lisa added: “She told the doctors she could not sleep and was having hot sweats at night.
Misdiagnosed
“She had gained a little bit of weight. But the doctor kept saying it was depression.
“She was going through exactly what a lot of women go through but
she didn’t get the help she needed.” Recalling the morning in 1995 she found Sylvia dead, she said: “She had taken an overdose. It was the worst time of my life.
“Once that happened my career was basically over. I couldn’t function, it was so difficult.
“All the family at her funeral said, ‘Well maybe it was an accident? Maybe she didn’t mean to do it?’
“But later, when I went through it myself, the penny dropped. She felt helpless and was misdiagnosed.What I worry about now is that there are so many women who haven’t been diagnosed or women who are told they don’t need HRT, they’re fine.
“I don’t think the medical establishment are taking this issue anywhere near as seriously as they should be.”
Manufacturers have blamed the Government for current shortages in hormone replacement therapy gels, saying they issued warnings that
‘She was going through what a lot of women go through but she didn’t get the help she needed’
went unheeded in October. A lack of Oestrogel, the most popular HRT drug that is used by around 30,000 women, is driving the crisis.
Lisa added: “I stopped taking HRT for a couple of days because I had Covid and very quickly I started to feel really down again.
“I am sure if I ran out of HRT I would very quickly deteriorate.
“These shortages are a real concern and need to be sorted out as a matter of urgency.”