nuvaring

Hormonal Birth Control Made Me Crazy

Kate Sloan

I went off birth control when my relationship ended two months ago, after being on it for over three years. In the weeks that followed, school started up again, I did some freelance work, socialized with friends and family, and basically just went about my life as usual – with one key difference: for the first time in three years, I felt 100% happy, well-adjusted, and sane.

When I started flooding my system with artificial hormones in April 2011, I was about to go through some major life changes: starting school, getting into my first sexual relationship with a cis dude, enduring the deaths and mourning of a few people I loved, and falling out of touch with some of my high school friends. So when I started to feel sad, antsy, isolated and irrational, I thought it was just the circumstances of my life transforming me into a different person. I thought, I guess this is my personality now. I wasn’t thrilled about it but I didn’t think it was fixable.

I’d have bad anxiety days, when I’d show up at school and have the unsinkable sensation that everyone around me was staring at me and whispering about me. I’d have bouts of depression so bad that I had to call my city’s distress centre and sob at them over the phone, or lie in bed all day staring at the wall. I’d get irrationally upset at things my boyfriend said or did. I’d look at my body in the mirror and absolutely hate what I saw. My creative output all but stopped and I knew I needed to write and make music but it just didn’t happen, no matter how much I tried.

In short, I had turned into a nutcase. I could see that it had happened, but, again, I thought it was just the new state of my life and that I couldn’t do anything to change it.

Since going off birth control, I’ve felt sunny, excitable, flirty, creative, juiced up, carefree, and ambitious. I’m taking six very challenging courses with heavy workloads at school but I’m breezing through them with excellent grades and not giving a fuck what my classmates think of me. I wake up every day excited to put on a cute outfit, skip to the streetcar stop and go on a new day’s adventure. And my creative output is up up up.

As happy as I feel… I also feel kind of angry. Angry that I had no idea how much birth control was messing me up. Angry that the side effects of birth control are so often misrepresented or downplayed when they can actually literally transform your life. Angry that my doctor told me I should continue with hormones when I asked her to give me a copper IUD instead. Angry that I lost three years of my life to lunacy and turmoil.

Sure, there are some downsides of going off BC – my skin is a tad spottier, my periods will be unpredictable when they start back up, my sex drive is once again high to the point of almost being unmanageable, and my weight loss has slowed right down – but I think mental health is way more important than any of those things. I’ll happily be a zitty, chubby, horndog version of myself if it means I get to be outgoing, cheerful, productive and creative. That trade-off is a no-brainer.

I’ve spoken to a few friends who have corroborated my experiences, and now I’m wondering: did this happen to you? Do you know people who’ve gone through this too? Do you consider your mental health when you make contraceptive decisions? Are you as pissed off as I am that you didn’t know about this sooner?

Birth Control: An Inconvenient Truth

Kate Sloan

As a bisexual, one of the things people often ask me is whether I prefer dating men or women. While that is obviously a stupid question, given that I choose partners based on their awesome qualities and not on their genitals, there is one thing that kind of sucks about dating people who have penises: it requires me to be on birth control.

When I first got into my current relationship, which is my first serious relationship with a dude, I got prescribed Alesse – a lower-dose hormonal contraceptive pill. (I was recommended the lower dosage because I have a family history of breast cancer.)

The first 12-18 months or so were hellish. Bad cramps, heavier and more frequent periods than I was used to, and – worst of all – one or two days every month of total batshit moodiness. During those days I’d feel depressed, sometimes suicidal, and always listless and dysfunctional. Many a time, I called up my city’s distress centre to weep at them, or sobbed uncontrollably all over my boyfriend’s formerly dry shirt.

I had always heard that the worst side effects of hormonal birth control will tend to go away after only a few months of being on the drug, but that wasn’t the case for me. It took at least a year before things started to clear up.

After that, I didn’t have depressed days anymore (at least, not hormonally-induced ones), my cramps weren’t as bad, and I got used to the amount of blood, so everything was cool. Except that I had started to hate the process of taking a pill every day. It was annoying to have to remember to do it at the same time, every single day, forever. So I went to see my doctor to discuss other options.

She put me on the NuvaRing, a squishy, hormone-emanating circle that you shove up inside your vag and leave for 3 weeks at a time. I LOVE IT. It’s genius.

Initially I was worried that I’d get an infection from using it, namely BV, because that’s what tends to happen to me when I leave something in my vagina too long. So I would take it out during every shower and give it a rinse before sticking it back in. But eventually I discovered that this wasn’t really necessary. I’ve been wearing my current ring continuously since I put it in 2+ weeks ago and haven’t gotten an infection or even any discomfort.

The one thing that doesn’t thrill me about the NuvaRing is that it makes me a little bit hesitant to use penetrative toys, because I’m worried that the ring will fall out. But really, I shouldn’t worry about that. If it does fall out, I can just rinse it off and put it back in.

My partner and I also use condoms on top of my hormonal BC. Maybe that makes us paranoid, but whatever – we just really, really cannot get pregnant at this juncture in our lives, so we’re being careful. With proper use of high-effectiveness BC methods, condoms aren’t necessary.

Do you use birth control? What’s your current method? Would you recommend it?