I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here star Carol Vorderman reveals she was plunged into six months of depression when she started the menopause
GLAMOROUS Carol Vorderman has told how she was plunged into depression by the menopause.
The former Countdown favourite spoke out to The Sun to break the taboo she believes still surrounds the subject.
But she revealed she battled back from the lowest point of her life and used it as the inspiration to sign up to I’m A Celebrity, which launches Sunday night.
And she said using hormone gel has helped her make the most of the freedom she is now feeling as a 55-year-old.
She said: “I love my life, I genuinely love my life. I skip everywhere because I’m happy, I don’t care what other people think anymore.”
In her honest interview, twice-divorced Carol said: “I had six months last year when I was really low. I was genuinely depressed.
“It got to Christmas and I thought ‘God, I can’t bear this, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it.’”
What this year’s I’m A Celeb stars are being paid… and Carol Vorderman’s got the best numbers
Carol, who described herself as a menopausal mama earlier this week, said she had a couple of not very pleasant physical symptoms but they were dwarfed by the mental effects.
She said: “I think it’s one of those taboos. Not many people talk about it and, if they do, they talk about it medically rather than the mental health side of it.
“It always used to be called ‘the change’ — it never used to be called the menopause. So when I was growing up and my mum was going through the change it was never spoken about.
“I think you need to talk about it. I think you need to investigate what kind of treatment, if any, is right for you.
“It is a massive hormonal change that is going through your body and affects your head occasionally too.”
“I was surprised, because I’m quite a feisty woman and I’m very, very independent and it absolutely floored me.”
It got to Christmas and I thought ‘God, I can’t bear this'
Though Carol had never felt lower, she did not contemplate suicide because of her two children Katie, 24, and son Cameron, 19.
She said: “I would never do anything like that because I’ve got children. But I couldn’t see the point of anything.”
Mensa member and Cambridge University graduate Carol said it took her six months to realise how bad she was.
RELATED STORIES
She explained: “I sort of analysed exactly the times that it happened and it was linked directly to the times that are important to a woman every month.
“I went to see a specialist in bioidentical hormone therapy. I have little gels I have to put on every day. From the moment he started me on those I’ve never felt low again.
“Your skin changes back to what it used to be a little bit too, though it will never go back to what it would be in your twenties or thirties.
“But on the mental health side, not a single second of what I felt last year.” Carol is the only single female going into the show’s Australian jungle camp after last year’s break-up with partner Graham Duff, who is 14 years her junior.
But she joked that the gels boosting her sex drive is not something she needed.
I couldn’t see the point of anything
She said, laughing: “They give you one for oestrogen and one for testosterone. A lot of friends would say, ‘She doesn’t need any more than she’s got already’!” Her recovery has allowed her to make the most of reaching her fifties.
She said: “I don’t have to do the school run anymore, I don’t have worry about, ‘have they done their homework’, I don’t have to earn the money look after the kids and buy the house.
“You get a great amount of time given back to you. You think about what you always wanted to do.”
As a child Carol always wanted to fly and so she later trained to be a pilot. She said: “The flying has liberated me because I love it as much as I always knew I would. Probably more.
“It’s given me more than I ever could have dreamt of and that’s why I stopped doing the swimming. I wasn’t getting enough time flying and that has been my life. All the time when you go flying it’s quite an adventurous thing to do. So, like this, I thought about coming on Celebrity because it’s one of my favourite programmes.”
Carol has packed five swimsuits, not bikinis, for the ITV show fronted by Ant and Dec.
And, though she has twice been voted Rear of the Year winner, she said she is dreading going into the jungle shower.
Asked why she wasn’t looking forward to stripping off alongside former Strictly dancer Ola Jordan, 34, ex radio host Lisa Snowdon, 44, and Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt, 26, she smiled and said: “Why do you think?”