My Birth Control Diaries
F*ck you PMDS
I’ve heard so many incredible stories of women going off of the pill in an attempt to improve their mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. However, I’ve also heard lots of stories of birth control saving people’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being. Everyone is different and when it comes to birth control, it’s not one size fits all.
Looking back, I was an early bird and full of energy, like most kids, right? So what changed? While this comes down to a lot of different changes while growing up, I didn’t really start to notice a decline in my energy levels until, well, after I started taking birth control. It was my Sophomore / Junior year of high school when I had my first true panic attack that sent me to the hospital, and later my first experience of depression that lasted too long. This was probably about a year after I started the pill.
I never related the decline in my mental health to birth control because nobody told me this was a side effect? I didn’t even know what was in birth control besides it would help regulate my skin and protect me from getting pregnant. Around the same time, I started an anti-depressant to help stop my panic attacks. It did. This entire time have I just been putting a bandaid over the real problem? Birth control? I’m honestly not sure and that’s what I’m on the mission to discover for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I entirely support antidepressants and know firsthand how effective they can be. However, if birth control makes me feel worse than my natural self then I’m out.
“The researchers found that women on hormonal contraceptives were 50 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression six months later, compared with women who were not prescribed hormonal contraceptives during this time. They also found the women on hormonal contraceptives were 40 percent more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than were women who weren’t prescribed hormonal contraceptives during this time” — HIll, S (2020)
I think the above findings can speak for themselves. These numbers are outrageously high. I’ve heard some women describe taking the pill as feeding themselves unnecessary hell and never realizing they were doing it to themselves the entire time. Simply terrifying. All I can say as of now is that I am so excited to go hormone-free for the time being and see how my body functions as a young adult. It’s strange, I don’t even know my body without added hormones!? I will post an update in about a month and let you guys know how my pill-free journey is going. I think it should be about 2 — 3 months until my hormone levels balance out to normal. A little nervous for my skin to freak out and horrible cramping but we shall see. In the meantime, I’ll be researching some hormonal-free birth control alternatives and seeing my OBGYN to hear her thoughts.
One month later…
I figured instead of creating an entirely new post I will keep everything here. So basically I started to experience pretty horrible cramps during my period without birth control and realized that birth control may be the best option for me at the moment. Sorry, plot twist!I’m glad I tried to go off birth control and I definitely did feel a bit more clear headed but don’t think I gave it a long enough chance to really tell you the truth. I’ll continue to update this as my hormonal life changes lol.
For now, I’m trying a new birth control that has progesterone and estrogen (the same amount every week) and skipping my period to hopefully avoid crazy hormonal drops. The idea is that these two things should help regulate and balance out my hormones better than what I was doing. I used to be in a birth control that changed hormonal levels every week and then would take the sugar pills aka get my period every month. This seemed to be not so good for my mental health. Switching to an entirely new birth control? Well, it’s been interesting so far. Im hopeful though. I’m going to give this new method a good 3 months before I come back and update.
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