'She wasn't herself': The devastating health issue facing Aussie women

Craig Gaunt thinks if more people were educated about perimenopause, his wife would still be alive today.

He believes the hormone fluctuations caused by perimenopause triggered severe mental health issues that led Debbie Gaunt to take her own life in 2019.

"She was a perfectly normal mother. She loved the kids. She worked in the school office, she worked for a local vet, and she did the books for our company. She'd take hours at the shops because everyone loved chatting to her," he tells 9Honey.

Debbie was 52. She and Craig had been together for 30 years and have two adult kids, Jack and Hayley.

"I thought she must be, sort of, getting menopause and stuff because she wasn't herself. I didn't know anything about it, but I heard her talking to our daughter about her periods because they used to be in sync and now they weren't," he says.

RELATED: 'I'm in the midst of perimenopause, but I never hear it discussed'

With no history of mental illness, Debbie's behaviour changed suddenly.

"She started to get paranoid about stuff and delusional. She kept apologising about stuffing up our tax. I said, 'That's okay, we'll just go to the accountant and work it out'," he says.

"At the accountant's, she was almost catatonic and crying. She was convinced we were going to be audited and she would go to jail. The accountant later found the was absolutely nothing wrong with their accounts and her bookkeeping was meticulous. It was all in her mind.

"She kept crying and saying she'd ruined our lives. She wasn't herself at all. The only way I could describe it was it was like she'd been to one of those shows where people get hypnotised and eat an onion because they believe it's an apple. It was like her brain had been tricked.

"I thought 'I better get her to a doctor', but I was worried about upsetting her more and I honestly don't know if she would have gone."

Debbie killed herself the next day.

The Gaunt family was devastated. In her suicide note, she said she didn't recognise herself, writing: "Who is the person so filled with anger and hate?"

Looking for answers, Craig googled menopause and suicide and then contacted Professor Jayashri Kulkarni, who is the Head of the Psychiatry Department for the Faculty of Medicine at Monash University and the Monash Alfred Research Centre based at the Alfred hospital in Melbourne.?

"If you look at the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, midlife and middle-aged women are the second highest group in our country that commit suicide. But these facts are not very well-known and they're not very well-discussed," Professor Kulkarni says.

RELATED: 'Navigating the double blow of midlife crisis and menopause'

"We really need to be able to find new solutions and new treatments, which is what we've been doing here. We have a holistic approach, which includes menopause treatments, such as hormone therapies, combined with psychological therapies that are empowering for women and looking at social or environmental shifts.

"We certainly believe that we need a better conversation out there regarding the depression that occurs 16 times more in middle-aged women compared to younger women and compared to men."

Endocrinologist Dr Katherine Benson says women in their 40s or 50s with menopausal symptoms or unexplained changes in mood should consult their doctors. She has launched online consultations to help in this area.

"The perimenopause can be a hugely distressing time for women with hot flushes, sweats, sleep disturbance and changes in mood.?These symptoms often go unaddressed, despite there being very effective and safe treatments available," Dr Benson says.

"The perimenopause can be an emotional rollercoaster due to?hormonal swings at a time of life many women are juggling the demands of teenage children, ageing parents and sometimes relationship or work changes. Greater awareness of this is much needed."?

The Gaunts are determined no other family lose their mum, wife, sister, or daughter through lack of education.

They set up the Debbie Gaunt Foundation to fund research into the mental health side of perimenopause and menopause. Plus, they are planning to fund a women's mental health clinic where they live near Shelly Beach in New South Wales.

"There's a big gap in the education. We donated $20,000 straight up to start a course educating GPs through Monash Uni," Craig says.

"Then we figured we should do fundraising as it's also getting the message out there.? We had a big golf day. We had 150 people there and we had shirts and we raised another $11,000, which was pretty good."

The added bonus was the event got both men and women talking about menopause.

All up, through donations and fundraising, The Debbie Gaunt Foundation has gifted the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre $44,500 and counting.

"I have absolute admiration for Craig. I wish, as everyone wishes, that Debbie could have been helped," Professor Kulkarni says.

"My heart bleeds for Craig and his family, but my hat is off to them because instead of just being completely dissolved in grief, which Craig has every right to be, he took up this mission and he's using an altruistic, incredibly important mechanism by turning her death into something that he can help many, many other women."

RELATED: 'My reaction to my mental health struggles has left me conflicted'

The Women's Mental Health Short Course midlife module for the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University is finalised and available to study online now.

Gaunt warns, "I'm just a bloke and other blokes need to know how serious [menopause] is. How many marriages broke up at that age? And it's different levels of severity, but the wives, they just go crazy and the guys get cranky. But you know, it's not anyone's fault because they don't know."

Professor Kulkarni says women need to support each other through this stage.

"We have very well-meaning feminists, and I'm a feminist, who say, 'Don't medicalise menopause as it's a natural event'. They say, 'You're making women out to be pathetic creatures at the whim of their hormones, and therefore they'll never be the president' and so on. Then, because of that, we have a lot of women who struggle and suffer unnecessarily," she says.

"On top of that, medicine itself is practised in little silos and menopause doesn't fit into a silo.?It's not completely gynaecology, it's not completely endocrinology. Many psychiatrists don't even think about it. So, it kind of doesn't really sit anywhere. It's got no champion."

The Debbie Gaunt Foundation, run by Craig and his kids, hopes to be that champion.

If you would like to help the Debbie Gaunt Foundation improve mental health outcomes for perimenopausal women,?click here. The Australasian Menopause Society website is another helpful resource.?

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.