{"id":584706,"date":"2026-08-30T07:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T07:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/584706\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T07:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T07:14:18","slug":"robyn-malcolm-on-menopause-i-remember-being-in-a-state-of-really-profound-despair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/584706\/","title":{"rendered":"Robyn Malcolm on menopause: \u2018I remember being in a state\u00a0of\u00a0really profound despair\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RussellRussell Brown<\/a><\/p>\n

Columnist & features writer\u00b7New Zealand Listener\u00b7<\/p>\n

29 Aug, 2026 07:06 PM3 mins to read<\/p>\n

\u200c<\/p>\n

Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.Subscribe now<\/p>\n

\u200c<\/p>\n

Save<\/a>Share this article<\/p>\n

Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.<\/p>\n

Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n

Robyn Malcolm, who is presenting the documentary Menopause & Us, following her earlier show on anxiety. Photo \/ TVNZ<\/p>\n

\u2018I look back on the menopausal journey \u2026 I don\u2019t know what happened,\u201d says Robyn Malcolm in the opening minute of Menopause and Us.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI remember having a screaming match \u2013 well, I was the only one screaming \u2013 at my partner. I remember being a foul mother, for a
\n moment. I remember being in a state of really profound despair at not being able to stop weeping. I remember that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

As anyone who saw her in 2022\u2019s documentary You, Me and Anxiety will know Malcolm is an open and honest teller of her own story. If Menopause and Us had been simply that, it would still have been worthwhile television. But it expands beyond personal testimony into a series of fact bombs that make it compulsory viewing.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike Robyn, I thought I knew quite a bit,\u201d says producer-director Rachel Currie, who reprised her partnership with Malcolm on the anxiety documentary to make this new one. \u201cBut once you really get into it, I realised I actually knew very little.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Currie, the big shock was discovering that the apparent risks of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), identified in the global Women\u2019s Health Initiative study a quarter of a century ago \u2013 which led to a warning from our own Ministry of Health \u2013 are not now regarded as significant for most women.<\/p>\n

Malcolm, whose mother had suffered a deep vein thrombosis, was seen to be in a risk group and was not prescribed HRT. Ironically, it\u2019s her alternative treatment \u2013 loosely regulated \u201cbio-identical hormones\u201d \u2013 that now looks questionable. They didn\u2019t work, she tells the Listener\u2019s health columnist Niki Bezzant, who assures her she was not alone: \u201cMarketers are gonna market,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The symptoms of menopause and perimenopause, it becomes clear, are poorly understood, even by doctors. \u201cI had no idea what was happening to my body,\u201d Dr Linda Dear ruefully tells Malcolm. \u201cIt made me realise that if I\u2019d missed it in me, even with all my supposed knowledge, it means I\u2019d been missing it in so many other women, so many patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

The signs may not be what anyone expects. They might include, for example, the painful condition of frozen shoulder. There is also evidence that oestrogen has an antipsychotic effect, and when the body stops producing it, some women develop severe psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia. Their symptoms can be reversed with HRT, Australian psychiatric researcher Dr Jayashri Kulkarni tells Malcolm \u2013 who understandably reflects on whether her years of clinical depression would have happened if she had been able to try HRT.<\/p>\n

The documentary takes its lead from Malcolm\u2019s experience, says Currie. There were other issues it did not have time to explore, including the implications for neurodivergent women (\u201cthat really qualifies for its own documentary\u201d). Some of the solutions Malcolm explores \u2013 from weight training to mindfulness exercises \u2013 won\u2019t suit every woman. A number of her interviews involve getting in the sea: \u201cRobyn is quite keen on a bit of cold-water swimming.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Currie is pleased to have got to air a documentary she and her presenter have wanted to make for some time As well she might be: Menopause and Us has a lot to offer women entering those years, and the men in their lives.<\/p>\n

It is, in other words, a programme everyone should watch.<\/p>\n

Menopause and Us screens on TVNZ 1 on Monday, September 7, at 8.30pm, and TVNZ+. <\/p>\n

Save<\/a>Share this article<\/p>\n

Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.<\/p>\n

Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell Brown Columnist & features writer\u00b7New Zealand Listener\u00b7 29 Aug, 2026 07:06 PM3 mins to read \u200c Subscribe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1863,682,42474,307,156,22263,95458,78,2203,6036,13457,57638,96083,12932,22315,111,139,69,90,10521,97267,55401,3876,312,287774,6923],"class_list":["post-584706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-back","tag-being","tag-despair","tag-dont","tag-entertainment","tag-happened","tag-i","tag-in","tag-journey","tag-know","tag-look","tag-malcolm","tag-menopausal","tag-menopause","tag-minute","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-opening","tag-profound","tag-remember","tag-robyn","tag-says","tag-state-of-really","tag-what"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}