Ali Daddo: How I overcame the storm of menopause

When perimenopause hit I felt like a ghost of the person I used to be. Crying in the shower became common. This is what helped me.

For some women — myself included — menopause or perimenopause did not arrive gently.

It crashed in like a storm.

When mine hit, I had just returned to Australia from 25 years in Los Angeles with my husband and three kids.

I felt like a ghost of the person I used to be.

Actor Cameron Daddo with his wife Ali. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

I didn’t recognise the angry, tearful, disconnected woman staring back at me in the mirror. The patient, loving mother I’d known myself to be had vanished.

The affectionate partner? Gone.

I felt lost. Alone. Crying in the shower became common, difficulty and desire to get out of bed each morning had become normal.

Perimenopause was my biggest health crisis, one that I didn’t know was coming, yet as a woman of my age should have known so much more about it’s possible health consequences.

The silence around menopause made it worse.

I had no understanding, no resources, and — I now realise — no access to myself.

This wasn’t just a hormonal shift. It was a reckoning.

But in that darkness, something powerful happened.

Cameron and Alison Daddo have been married for decades. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

I stopped. I started listening — to my body, to my needs. I began saying “yes” to things that scared me and “no” to the things that drained me.

I stopped beating myself up over the changes in my body — the weight gain, the wrinkles, the cellulite.

I found health professionals who got it. I took baths, read books, asked for help. For the first time in years, I let myself take up space.

It sounds small, I know. But for many women — conditioned for decades to be the “good girl,” the caretaker — these shifts are revolutionary.

When I began speaking publicly about menopause — through my book Queen Menopause, and now through my wellness work with Aviiana — I found a sisterhood I didn’t know I needed.

Ali Daddo stopped saying yes to things that drained her. Picture: Rohan Kelly

I stood in rooms full of strangers, and together we cried, we laughed, we shared.

Suddenly, I was no longer alone. I was part of something bigger. A movement.

That’s the magic of what’s happening right now. We’re not just talking about menopause — we’re celebrating it. Supporting each other through it. Reclaiming it.

I attended a Menopause Summit held not in a backroom or boardroom, but in the grand, iconic Sydney Opera House earlier this year.

I doubt that was ever on our grandmothers’ bingo cards.

I was buzzing — not just from the hormones, but from the sheer thrill of walking into a space full of women, many my age, who were ready to engage with a subject that has long been swept under the rug.

Menopause, once shrouded in silence and shame, is having its long-overdue spotlight moment.

It’s about time.

I walked in alone, but I wasn’t alone.

I was surrounded by women ready to honour a season of life that has too often been dismissed, diminished or ignored.

We laughed. We learned. We stood up for each other — quite literally.

Menopause got a standing ovation that day.

Bravo.

Ali Daddo is the host of Foxtel’s new health and wellness series Gen Well in partnership with Amcal which explores Australians’ different health concerns through the lens of multigenerational families.

Gen Well is currently available to watch on Foxtel’s LifeStyle channel and BINGE.

Originally published as Ali Daddo: How I overcame the storm of menopause