Menopause and severe depression, Disliking your child's friends, Giorgio Armani

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the last of our series on life after suicide, our reporter Jo Morris meets Stef whose mother took her own life when Stef was 19. On experiencing severe depression as she approached the menopause herself, Stef found herself considering ending her own life. This has led her to thinking her mother’s death was also menopause related. So is there a link between menopause and women who choose to end their own life? Research in this area is all relatively new, but our guest Professor Pooja Saini, professor of suicide and self harm prevention at Liverpool John Moores University, joins Anita Rani to talk about the work she's done in this field.

Italian fashion designer and billionaire brand owner, Giorgio Armani, has died at the age of 91. Known for helping to redefine both women’s and men’s suits for a modern audience and rewriting the rules of power dressing, how exactly did he empower and reshape the way in which women dress today? Fashion writer and biographer Justine Picardie tells Anita about the legacy he leaves behind.

This week sees many children heading back to school and settling into a new school year and they might be reuniting with old friends, or even introducing you to new ones. But what if you don’t like your child’s friends? From playdates to birthday parties and encounters at the school gates, is there anything you can really do if you find yourself in this situation? Anita is joined by comedian Ria Lina and parenting coach Sue Atkins to discuss.

Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Corinna Jones

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.
0:09.0	In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?
0:16.0	Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.
0:20.0	A true hero is someone who just kind of shines
0:22.9	by their own light and that light is to be recognised by others. The long history of heroism
0:27.8	with me, Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour
0:35.2	from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the program.
0:40.0	It's the last in our series looking at the aftermath of having a loved one take their own life.
0:45.9	We'll be hearing a very honest account from Steph, who talks about the impact her mother's death had on her life,
0:51.8	but also her thoughts and how she thinks her mum had hormonal
0:56.0	depression onset by the menopause. So this is something I'd like you to also get in touch
1:02.5	with me about this morning. There's so little research in this area, as we know, so I'd like to hear
1:06.4	about your personal experience around menopause and mental health. Are you suffering alone?
1:12.5	Have you spoken to your GP?
1:14.0	What were you told?
1:15.2	Have you spoken to friends or family?
1:17.2	What conversations are happening amongst women if they're happening at all?
1:21.1	Get in touch with me in the usual way.
1:22.7	The text number 84844.
1:25.1	You can email the program by going to our website
1:27.3	or you can WhatsApp me on 0300-100-444. And if you'd like to follow us on social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour. Also, Giorgio Armani, Italian designer, has died at 91. He launched his fashion house in Milan in 1975 and retained control of his 23 billion euro fashion
1:47.2	empire until he died. We'll hear about why he was such a force in fashion. And it's back to
	...

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