This week’s episode features a story about PMDD, as told by someone whose life was completely owned by it.

Shalene Gupta is the author of The Cycle: Confronting the Pain of Periods and PMDD, and she tells a truly harrowing tale of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, a hormonally-driven mood disorder. It shredded her physical and mental health, and upended her relationships, her work, and even her sense of self.

In our conversation, Shalene laid out these visceral, raw experiences with honesty and eloquence. We touched on the provocative questions she had to face while writing this book - questions that created immense self-doubt on a personal level, and raised hard issues about feminism and how the medical establishment has historically treated women's health.

One of my favorite moments from our conversation was how PMDD turned Shalene into a part-time monster. Context is everything - listen to the full episode here:

This episode was first aired in April 2025, and you’re hearing it now because the conversation around PMDD is gaining momentum. Here’s a deeper dive in three reads:

​People with premenstrual dysphoric disorder have higher rates of suicidal thinking​

​We Need To Talk About Black Women’s Struggle With PMDD​

​And a primer here: What is PMDD

A Teal Week: Ovarian Cancer Day is a big deal in my family

Last week was World Ovarian Cancer Day (May 8th) - and when you have ovarian cancer in the family, it's always on your mind.

(If you’re hearing this for the first time - my mom has been living with ovarian cancer for eight years now, and her story is what led to the creation of Overlooked in the first place: episode 1 is here if you'd like to listen.)

Two things happened last week that were special:

My mom and I attended Ladyball, a fundraising event in Halifax, Nova Scotia, organized by Ovarian Cancer Canada. This was my second year attending it, and once again it was incredibly emotional for me: I feel very lucky indeed to get another chance to accompany my mom to this high-energy, deep-connection event. A lot of fun, too. Kudos to OCC organizer Sharlene Wallace and her team for making it so.

Mom, who is a patient partner in research (PPIR) and I also had the opportunity to tour a lab in Halifax that’s run by an extraordinary scientist, Dr Jeanette Boudreau. In a previous episode, Dr Boudreau explained her work in Natural Killer (NK) cells and how her lab is working to develop a treatment for ovarian cancer in the not-too-distant future. Now, she's got a major infusion of funding to push ahead with this work. And - a bit of excitement - the local news station covered it too. ​

The five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is still around 50 per cent. But there is finally a sense of urgency around this disease - part of the reason the tagline of Overlooked is Women's Health Can't Wait.

What else is going on:

I won the Schmidt Sciences Excellence in Science Communication award back in the fall, and this week, they released a video about me and my work with Overlooked. Watching this video, it hit me all over again how much of an impact ovarian cancer has had – changing not just my personal and family life, but my professional life too. Not in a million years did I think I'd move away from news journalism and pivot to health. But telling stories about what it's like to live with cancer, and about what a historical lack of research, funding, and frankly interest in women's health has cost us - will hold my attention for a long time to come. I hope it holds yours too.

Wishing you the best of health,

Golda

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