It honestly makes me so angry that I had no idea how badly hormonal birth control was fucking up my mental and emotional state.
In high school I was a very cheerful, positive, exuberant, creative, productive person. I had worked hard to morph my personality into something I could be happy with. I was always making art and swooning over cute people and dressing in silly outfits and talking proudly about my accomplishments.
Then when I was 19, I went on the pill (and later the NuvaRing), and my whole personality changed. But I thought it was circumstantial. It truly never occurred to me that the birth control could be responsible. My once-a-month suicidal-ideation days were the only emotional symptoms I blamed on my birth control; I didn’t recognize the general, everyday anxiety and depression as side effects, just as, well, “this is my life now.”
I went off birth control a few months ago and OH MY GOD I FEEL SO GOOD. I feel how I felt in high school!!! I feel like me again!!! I’m writing songs again, I’m having days where I feel ridiculously cheerful for no reason, I’m striking up conversations with acquaintances, I’m exercising, I’m getting out of bed at a reasonable hour and feeling fine about it.
Today something happened that really pointed this out to me. A group of cute boys collectively complimented my glasses. Normally this is the sort of thing that, in my old anxiety days, would make me fully 100% assume that they were joking and making fun of me. I would’ve tortured myself about it for hours. I would’ve wondered whether to ever wear those glasses in public again. I might have even cried about it.
Today I just fully accepted the compliment as a compliment. And it made me happy. Even happier than I’d previously been, which was pretty damn happy.
I am on cloud fucking nine. And this is how I’m naturally meant to be.
Fuck hormonal birth control, man.