My story of why I will never go on birth control ever again.
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor and I'm not telling you that something will or will not happen to you from taking the pill. I'm simply sharing my experience and providing insight on how my life got turned upside down in case other women are curious or have experienced something similar.
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I almost don't even know where to being with this, but I guess I'll start from the beginning.
I started taking hormonal birth control when I was 17. My mom found out I was sexually active (yes I was having sex in high school, sorry dad), she was like yeah ok you're going on the pill. And many teenage girls were on the pill for various reasons, so that was nothing horribly unusual. Being on birth control was rather amazing as a young adult. I could skip a period whenever I wanted, the dreaded monthly visitor symptoms had eased up, and though I still used condoms, I had a literal added layer of comfort that no babies would accidentally happen. It was so great.
It was great until it unknowingly started to betray me, completely alter who I was becoming as a person.
Fast forward to age 19. I was totally consumed by the honeymoon phase with my new boyfriend that I'd crushed on since senior year of high school. I'd just started working with the company I'm still working for today. And I was going to school part time while working, trying to finish my associate degree. Things seemed great and I couldn't really complain about anything. After a couple years, my boyfriend and I had moved into our first apartment, officially on our own and spreading our wings. A year later we moved to a townhouse and continued moving forward in our careers and both had bought our first cars. A few years after that we got engaged and eventually moved to a single family home. Our careers were taking off and life was generally about as amazing as it could be, for what I'd known.
Now fast forward a few more years to age 26. I was a newlywed with a nice house in a fancy neighborhood. Our wedding was beautiful and flawless, perfectly matching my Pinterest boards with pictures that looked right out of a magazine. My new husband and I both had good friends, solid jobs, and what seemed like a stable and very happy life ahead of us. We'd had our problems like every couple but it was nothing that ever seemed like we couldn't work through it.
But not long after our wedding, everything would change.
I was now 27, and it was Memorial Day weekend, 2015. I'd just gotten married the October before that, and decided that since I'd finished my last pack of pills I wouldn't renew the prescription. It wasn't to try and get pregnant, it was just because I had been on the pill for almost a decade and wanted to give my body a break from it. And we were married so I figured if I got pregnant it would be no big deal, right? I talked to my husband and he was down so when that pack finished, I was officially done with the pill.
Well that June, literally a week later, I was out with coworkers and had too much to drink and wound up being kissed by another guy. He was a friend of mine, had met my husband more than once, was also married, and had also had too much to drink. And I didn't immediately stop the kiss. This is where the downward spiral really started. I called my best friend in hysterics the next day losing my mind asking her what the fuck is wrong with me because I am not a girl who cheats on her husband. It had me completely freaked out and I couldn't believe I'd done it. My husband was the jealous type (as was I) so I told myself over and over that it was just a kiss and meant nothing and would never happen again, and that instead go telling him I'd just take it to my grave. Well I lasted about three days before it was just word vomit one night because I hate lying. The guilt was eating me alive and it was getting hard to even look him in the face. So I told him right before we got in bed that night, and his reaction was about as bad as I thought it would be. He lost his mind, especially when he found out who it was, and I couldn't bare sleeping next to him because we were just in such a bad place, so I ended up sleeping in another room that night. But what struck me the most was not that I'd had the balls to come forward with it, and not that he was completely tore up and beyond pissed over it. It was that I no longer felt bad once I told him. Instead of the guilt of kissing someone who wasn't the guy I married, it was instead like a weight off my chest. I felt fucking awful, of course, for hurting him so badly, but that was it. It concerned me that I didn't want to instantly do everything I could to beg his forgiveness and work through it. I was actually content sleeping in a different room that night, and to really top it off, I slept fine as well.
Things got worse from there. I had this undying urge to travel and go out and see friends and be literally anywhere except at home. Our relationship had already become every form of complacent and I started to feel like there was so much I was missing out on. I was seeing our other married friends go out and do things together and have experiences and it started driving me crazy that we always did the same shit. We went to the movies or went to dinner. And that was about the extent of our social life with the exception of a few sports or work events here and there. We went to our friends' house a lot a few years ago but that seemed to stop as well. And I began losing my mind over our lack of a social life when I used to be fine with it. What bothered me further was that as badly as I wanted to do all the things I saw all our friends doing, a big part of me didn't want to do all those things with him. Rather than try and build our bond back up, I was almost relieved that deep down I felt like it was breaking. This obviously made things very rocky between us. Don't get me wrong, I did try every now and again to get him to go out and do things with me, and occasionally he did, but not always, and I didn't overly press him about it since what I really wanted was freedom. A very real wakeup call for me was when a friend of mine casually asked what I liked to do for fun. To my own shock, I couldn't answer the question. I'd lost myself to such a degree over the years that I didn't even know what I liked to do for fun. I could name what I used to like to do with my husband, what I liked to do with other people, what I liked to do if I had time to get stuff done around my house. But what did I like to do for fun, just for me? I had nothing.
I realized soon thereafter that I had to make a decision. I would either let my marriage crash and burn or I would get my shit together and try to figure out the problem so we could overcome it and keep our life together. I decided, for the sake of the fact that I'm Catholic and we were married, that I would first make an honest effort to try and salvage what we had, even though I wasn't really sure what it even was that we had anymore. I suggested marriage counseling after a couple months, but like many guys, he wasn't interested, and I didn't press. I wanted to relight the spark between us but deep down I knew I wanted my freedom more, though I tried hard to ignore that fact. I just craved being on my own, doing my own thing. We had this amazing life (on paper and from an outside, social media view), but I couldn't shake the urge of wanting to throw all of it away and just be single and free and away from everything in a little apartment or condo, doing what I wanted when I wanted. And for the life of me, I could not figure out exactly why I was feeling this way. It was both worrisome and exhilarating.
I did actually start to become a little concerned, though, at how easy it was to do things without him after being together for almost 10 years. I went mad on Google trying to find answers. I thought maybe I was having a quarter life crisis or thought maybe even the planets were fucking with me because Mercury was in retrograde at the time. I mean ANY reason that made the smallest amount of sense, I went with it until I found something that contradicted, assuming all this nonsense I was experiencing was just a phase.
Finally things got to an almost breaking point with us and we had even slept in different rooms for a few nights. And as I went to bed each of those nights in the spare bedroom, I fell asleep so easily, like I didn't have a care in the world. It was a relief to be on my own, and I was actually glad at that point that the relationship was most likely ending - a feeling which still confused me. So we got in a big fight one evening in the beginning of November that year, just five months after coming off the pill. I told him fuck this I'm emailing my OB/GYN tomorrow and getting back on the pill because this isn't a healthy time to have a baby. He agreed and we eventually went up to bed, having no real idea where our marriage was headed except south. But I was haunted by something he'd said to me during that fight. He asked if I'd taken a test since we last had sex. It occurred to me then that I should have started my period.
The very next day, I found out I was pregnant.
You want to talk about anxiety? I was ready to divorce this man, yet here I was on the toilet with a now empty bladder, tears streaming down my face staring in disbelief at two positive pregnancy tests. I was like this cannot be fucking happening right now. I had three of my best friends in a group chat on my phone and was literally like YOU GUYS WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. But once the shock wore off a little, I reminded myself that I also believe everything happens for a reason and thought maybe a baby would fix things and this was happening to fix our marriage. I don't believe having a baby is the answer to relationship problems, but clearly God was like yo this is my plan for you so get your shit together, and I wasn't about to argue with God. Sometimes you feel a stronger bond with your partner once you see them as a parent (or so I've read), so I tried to turn this into a positive and figured that's what would most likely happen. I eventually cleaned myself up and showed him the tests. He was like holyyyyy shittttt, but also like well it's obviously meant to happen so let's do this.
Our problems didn't go away but the focus shifted to coming baby, which made the problems appear to disappear. They were merely muted. I convinced myself that this was a good thing and tried to fall back in love with him, which I thought and hoped for a while was maybe actually working. Things seemed to be looking up, thankfully. My pregnancy was flawless. I was one of those who didn't have a single issue and never got morning sickness, etc. and rocked a string bikini while nine months pregnant at the beach. I did notice that I wasn't interested in taking professional pregnancy pictures with him, though, but I tried to not look too far into that. And when we were in the hospital for delivery, I realized I didn't really want him to touch me, but I was in labor so I tried to not read too much into that either. My labor was a small adventure but everything turned out fine, and just like that we were brand new parents to a healthy baby boy. But instead of relishing in the new parent glow with my husband, I realized very quickly that my feelings of wanting to leave him were still there. I remember vividly looking at my newborn son in the arms of my husband before we'd even left the hospital, and the first thought I had was "aww, he looks so happy holding his son." And that was it.
That is not how a new mom should be viewing her husband holding their first born child. I should have been filled to my core with love and adoration for both of them. But I wasn't. There was almost no feeling at all unless I was looking at or thinking of my new baby. And through my son's first year, I waited and waited for the feelings to come back for my husband, and they just never did. I took selfies of us and posted endless pictures of our seemingly happy family, trying to convince myself and everyone else of our perfect world and new baby bliss. I was absolutely obsessed with my son and completely overwhelmed by the love I had for him, but I felt nothing for his father. And the stresses of a new baby only amplified my desire to call it quits. After a year of this, I made the decision right after my son's first birthday to end the marriage. It was NOT an easy separation, and I was forced by a few people to get a note from my doctor stating that I didn't have a chemical imbalance since coming off the pill. It was exhausting that people didn't believe the chemical imbalance was while I was ON the pill, that made the most sense to me. Many people didn't want to accept that coming off of it made the real me finally come out of her shell.
While I was on the pill, I was the good girl. A girl who is pretty opposite of what you've been seeing on these blogs. A rule-follower, a girl who was afraid to disappoint her parents or family, a girl who felt the need to live up to a certain standard. A heel-wearing, Lexus-driving, country-club goer who would always dress the part of a well-to-do middle class woman. A girl who always appeared to have the perfect life and everything always in order. My grandpa even used to always refer to me as "Hollywood" whenever he saw me.
Since coming off the pill, I'm way more blunt and outspoken, I almost never wear heels, I've traded my fancy Lexus for a 4Runner (that I actually like way more), I have five tattoos now, and stick out like a sore thumb at a country club. Not to mention my anxiety has skyrocketed and I have a plethora of minor health issues. But my thinking is so clear now. I'm more outgoing, I'm not afraid to be myself (and I'm still learning who that person is even - nine years is a lot of years to be clouded on who you really are so I've got a lot of catching up to do), and I've learned how strong I am and that I'm not afraid to stand up for what I believe in.
I have done so much research on how birth control can effect women's bodies. It wrecks H A V O C on you. Honestly, how is taking a synthetic hormone long-term ever a good idea, especially when you're not made fully aware of the potential side effects because science doesn't even know them yet? It messes with your pheromones, making you attracted to people you may not be attracted to otherwise, and vice versa. TIME magazine actually wrote an article about that exact topic. I read another article suggesting women get off the pill six months prior to their wedding date to ensure she's still attracted to her partner. I've seen articles on how it effects the gray matter of women's brains, and how it's even linked to a higher risk of suicide and depression. I've seen so many other posts about women who seem to feel like their thinking and decision making was so much more clear after coming off the pill. And I learned very recently, and confirmed it with my doctor, that prolonged use can decrease your natural testosterone levels, making you more susceptible to anxiety - that explains A LOT 🙄 To be clear though, my ex and I had issues before I came off the pill. The pill was not the sole reason for our divorce. But coming off the pill made our issues really surface and made me view them in a completely different way. I had way less tolerance for what I used to be okay dealing with. And it made me very aware of how different we actually were and I knew things would only get worse if we had stayed married.
There is SO MUCH out there to read and research if you take the time to do it. Not all women have all of the side effects, but they are very real for those who experience them. I'm living proof. I've realized over the years that my body is very sensitive to medications, so birth control was a recipe of disaster for me. There was a definite chemical imbalance occurring, and it started before my brain was ever even fully developed. How fucked up, right?
But I can't be too mad, because at the end of the day, I am who I am because of it. Even though I'm still figuring myself out, I love who I am today, birth-control free. I love that I'm myself instead of what other people think I should be. And most importantly, coming off the pill gave me my son. He can be a little shit but he is the most amazing thing to ever happen to me. I don't know where or who I would be today without him. It would have definitely been a little less complicated to know who I really was years ago, rather than finding out after I was married with a child, but that's the path that was written for me and I wouldn't change it.
I'm sharing this part of my life for a couple reasons. First, because I want other women who may be going through this to know that you are definitely not alone and you definitely are not making it up. Second, if you are considering taking the pill, or are already on a form of birth control, I highly encourage you to do all of your due diligence and get the facts for yourself. Go outside of what your doctor tells you and look up factual articles and publications. The information will probably astound you - just as it did me and so many other girls I've spoken to about this. And if you are on the pill and in a steady relationship or engaged, and you met your significant other while already on the pill, STOP TAKING IT. At least for a few months. You can always go back on it. But it's better to know that your relationship is solid and your attraction is real regardless of the artificial hormones being pumped into your body. If everything is still good then that's wonderful, this doesn't happen to everyone. But many of us weren't so lucky, and you won't truly know until you test it out.
Be safe and know what you're putting into your body. If you have had a similar story, please share it in the comments below. I would love to hear what others have experienced and help other women know that they are not alone.
Cheers,
- The Whiskey Mom
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