My nightmare experience with hormonal birth control
One of my favorite things about doing this liberating & empowering menstrual cycle education work is hearing other women's stories. Our first periods, our birth control experiences, our sex stories - we all have them, we've all gone through it, and yet... we so rarely open up to one another about our experiences.
It feels taboo. Off limits. TMI. Too intimate. Or like no one else will understand. But here's the deal, at least one of us, if not all of us, have been there too.
So today, I want us to create community around storytelling. I will share my story and then invite you to do the same. Today's topic? Our birth control experiences.
It was the fall of 2008, I had just began my freshman year of college and living on my own away from home for the first time in my life. I had also very recently just had sex for the first time. It was awkward and did not feel good. We didn't use a condom (though we only did it for like 3 pumps and he never finished), and I felt plagued by feelings of fear and guilt. I knew better, but I was embarrassed to ask. So, when I got to college and there were cute, horny boys everywhere I did what every other sexually active girl I knew did - I decided to go on the pill. (Ps. This was before anyone was getting IUDs. Yes, I am pre-IUDs years old.)
While home on Thanksgiving break I went to the gynecologists office alone and asked to go on the pill. I didn't tell my mom, my sister, or any friends. I was too embarrassed. With very little information about how the pill worked, its impact on my body, or potential side effects, I walked out with my prescription in hand.
Within about a month of going on the pill I started having raging, recurrent yeast infections. They would come back every single month and take weeks to go away. They made sex so painful. When I asked doctors what was going on they told me it was from wearing tight leggings, my diet, and other random shit and could not at all be caused by the birth control pills. I was told to stop wearing leggings (um wearing jeans every day, I don't think so), pee after sex (yeah, that's not for yeast infections), blow dry my vagina after showers (in the communal bathroom or the dorm room I shared with two other girls LOL), and to stop having sex with so many guys (by then I was in a committed relationship with one partner). Victim-blaming much?!?
To make matters worse I also began experiencing debilitating daily anxiety attacks and gut health issues. I went to every doctor, therapist, and specialist under the sun. Nothing I did helped. I felt so discouraged.
In the nearly 4 years that I was on the birth control pill I had 40+ yeast infections, at least one anxiety attack every day, and had spent thousands in doctor bills trying to solve my gut health struggles. That's when, completely fed up and exhausted, I decided to quit the pill cold turkey just to see if it made a difference.
It didn't happen overnight and took a few years of nourishing my hormones after birth control wrecked them, but within a year or so my symptoms completely cleared up. The yeast infections, gone. The anxiety, subsided. The gut issues, vanished.
I used condoms exclusively for the first full year off of hormonal birth control. Then, a hippie yoga friend in her 40s shared with me that she used a cycle tracking method called natural family planning (also known as fertility awareness methods). I immediately went home and Googled my ass off. Over 10 years ago when I was looking to learn how to use FAMs some of the only instructors I could find were in Australia where the Billings Ovulation Method is popular. I hired myself an educator and learned how to track with the Billings Method. I used that cervical fluid only method for about 5 years until I read Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Then, I added in temperature tracking. After 6 years of successfully using fertility awareness methods as birth control, I enrolled in the teacher training course with the Natural Family Planning Teachers' Association in the UK and became a trained educator myself... and, well, the rest is history as they say. I've gone on to teach women in 6+ countries across 3 continents how to use fertility awareness methods as birth control - and I have a 100% success rate! That means no one has been pregnant unless they wanted to be!
Knowing what I know now as a menstrual cycle educator, I know that hormonal birth control is linked to recurrent yeast infections, an increase or onset of anxiety and mood symptoms, and gut disturbances (especially the pill as it is swallowed, digested, and processed through the gut). Imagine all the heartache and headaches from which I could've been saved had one doctor had the courage to take responsibility, stop blaming a 19 year old girl, and say, "You know, the pill has been known to cause some of the issues you're having. Would you ever consider a nonhormonal birth control option?"
Learning how to use fertility awareness methods as birth control has been the most empowering, most liberating decision that I have ever made for myself and my body. I have never felt more in control of my body and my fertility. No one can ever take my birth control away from me. My birth control has ZERO side effects. It works WITH my body instead of against it. It is a tool, not a surgical device or synthetic drug. It has allowed me to reconnect to my natural rhythms and finally live in alignment with my body.
But, most importantly, it gave me my body back. My life back. It made me me again. And for that I will be forever grateful.
Okay, now it's your turn! I would love to hear from you, the good, the bad, the ugly... What is your birth control story?
Head to my Contact Page here to share your story with me!