Shelly Horton on the dark truth about perimenopause
When Shelly Horton found herself in hospital with heavy bleeding in 2020, it never crossed her mind that her symptoms might have been due to perimenopause.
The TV journalist hadn't even heard the word before, so she didn't connect it with the raft of physical and mental changes she had been experiencing at the time, including heart palpitations, heightened body temperature, brain fog and debilitating depression.
Instead, the now 51-year-old had been told by doctors that she might have cancer, and was sent for an ultrasound – which revealed nothing.
'They said, 'Great news, you haven't got cancer. You must be stressed, and maybe you should take up a hobby,'' Horton recalls.
'I drove home in tears, blaming myself. I didn't go and see another doctor for nine months.'
Media personality Shelly Horton has opened up about her health journey through perimenopause. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar
It was only when she spoke to her friend, menopause expert Dr Ginni Mansberg – who she first met while appearing on the Seven Network's breakfast show Sunrise in 2008 – that Horton was able to make sense of her suffering.
Before that defining conversation, she hadn't considered herself in the target market.
'I thought menopause was for women in their late 50s, [when] their period stopped and they got hot flushes,' she recalls.
'I had that stereotype in my brain of grey-haired old ladies clutching their pearls and fanning themselves.
'I was like, 'I'm a fox. I'm way too young and fabulous.'
'I didn't understand that perimenopause can last for 10 years so, in fact, I was right in the average age group.'
'I didn't understand why anyone cared about my uterus and what I did with it.' Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar
Once she got the right help and started to feel better, Horton got mad.
Specifically about the menopause cone of silence, which perpetuates the poor treatment options and dearth of knowledge for women.
'We've been taught by our mothers and past generations that it's just women's problems so you keep it to yourself,' she tells Stellar.
'A heads-up would have been nice. I felt like the sisterhood had let me down. Secret women's business holds women back. This whole 'soldier on' of the Boomer generation, I'm like, 'No, I'm Gen X. We're going to get loud about this.''
In 2023, Horton shared her experience at the first parliamentary roundtable on menopause, alongside respected experts, in what was the first time 'menopause' had been mentioned inside the Parliament of Australia.
It sparked a Senate inquiry, and Horton inadvertently became a spokesperson on the subject.
Listen to a new episode of the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About below, featuring US author and podcaster Glennon Doyle:
The Today Extra panellist reveals how she got through 'dark times' and rebuilt herself. Picture: Supplied
It wasn't the first time that Horton had found herself leading the charge on destigmatising taboo topics for women.
In 2013, when she wrote about her decision to stay child free, she copped a pile-on from dissenters and was trolled on social media. But she takes heart in knowing her words started a national conversation.
'I had comments like, 'A woman who doesn't want kids is not a real woman. She's a waste of a uterus.' It was awful,' she recalls.
'I didn't understand why anyone cared about my uterus and what I did with it.'
As the TV presenter sees it, one of the many upsides of being child-free is having the freedom and funds to travel as she wishes. She and her husband Darren Robinson – who she met 'the old-fashioned way' in a bar in 2012 – renew their vows in every country they visit. In 10 years of marriage, that's 25 vow renewals.
'Sometimes it's been incredibly romantic, like in the Maldives with the sunset. Then we nearly forgot in Iceland and did it on the plane as we were taking off,' she says, laughing.
The couple also run a production company together, Robinson behind the camera ('the workhorse') and Horton in front ('the show pony'). They share their home with rescue dogs Mr Barkley and Maui, whom Horton describes as a salve during her three years of depression. 'My wonderful husband would put me to bed and hand me a puppy.'
Adhering to her own motto of 'adapt or die', Horton's career trajectory has been, as she puts it, eclectic.
She was a producer for Entertainment Tonight in the US, a crime then health reporter for the ABC, a Sydney gossip columnist, a panellist on Today Extra, and host of Married At First Sight's spin-off TV show Talking Married.
It's all a long way from home for the girl from Kingaroy in regional Queensland. Or, as she puts it, 'From the red soil to the red carpet.'
Now she can add author to the list since she has documented her harrowing menopause experience – along with evidence-based advice from experts – in a book to support other women going through it.
Despite enduring all the turmoils of menopause, Horton says the experience has also helped her.
'I wish I could just say, 'Slap on some HRT [hormone replacement therapy], you'll be fine,' but it's not as simple as that,' she explains.
'I had to do the work. I'd treated my body as a rental. I had to have the appointments with the psychiatrist. I had to change my lifestyle, improve my sleep, increase my exercise. I'm living proof that you can go through dark times and come out. Perimenopause broke me, but then I rebuilt me.'
I'm Your Peri Godmother by Shelly Horton (Murdoch Books, $34.99) is out Tuesday.
For more from Stellar and the podcast, Something To Talk About, click here.
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