Like many others of our time, I was prescribed the pill birth control at 16, mostly for acne. Of course, the added benefits of a regular period and extra protection during sex were draws for me, too. I was told that there wouldn’t be many side effects except for the adjustment to the new medication.
It was also around this time that I started experiencing more depression and anxiety, but since about half of serious mental illness begins around 14, many of my friends were experiencing the same thing, and family history was not on my side, I assumed this was just expected.
I was on birth control consistently from age 16 until age 21. During this time, I was formally diagnosed with clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder. I also informally diagnosed myself with seasonal depression. I experienced some anxiety attacks, tried short bursts of therapy, tried both Lexapro and Wellbutrin with little long-term success, dabbled in microdosing of psilocybin, and searched for and relief for the constant symptoms of these mental illnesses.
This worsened over time in severity and length, compounded by the isolation and extended time to sulk in quarantine. I thought this would be how my whole life goes, and maybe I would find a combination of medication and therapy to help me.
It was around November 2021 when one of my friends, who also had severe anxiety and depression, mentioned that she stopped her birth control and saw a significant reduction in symptoms that I got to thinking.
I thought about going off birth control, but was really afraid. I didn’t know what my period, skin, sex life, or emotions would be like. I was worried that everything would feel new and different, and this scared me. As much as I disliked my anxiety and depression, it was comfortable in a way. It was routine. Most of all, I was afraid I would find out that my mental illness wasn’t caused by my birth control, and that it really would be a lifelong battle.
I did a bit of research and then in December of 2021, another one of my friends said the same thing.
This was my final push. In January of 2022, I stopped my birth control cold turkey and began a week long intensely emotional hormonal switch. I felt like every stereotype of a woman on her period – crying over nothing, eating ice cream out of the tub in bed, getting mad at my boyfriend at the time for rubbing my head wrong. You name it, I felt it in that week.
After this roller coaster of a week, I was so afraid I had made a mistake. I decided, with a bit of a push from my partner at the time, to give it a few more weeks.
By about mid-February, I realized that I felt good on the day-to-day. This was astonishing on its own, but especially since it was mid-winter and around the time I tended to feel seasonal depression the most. This is when I really started to see the effects that birth control had on my life.
I reflected on how desperate I felt to fix my acne, and the unknown lengths to which I went for this journey. I know it wasn’t silly of me to seek this out, as birth control is so commonly prescribed for acne, but when looking at the whole picture, I did spend over five years of my life with worsening mental illness to fix a mostly surface-level and likely temporary condition.
As I am still coming off of birth control, at almost month 11 now, my acne has returned and I am now trying to deal with it non-hormonally (if only I did this at 16… sigh). Besides that, I have noticed positive changes in my libido, hunger, and general wellbeing. I have gained a bit of weight, though at age 22 and eating a college diet, it can be hard to say whether that was really the birth control’s fault.
This article is not to say that birth control is causing mental illness for everyone, or that if you are experiencing mental illness on birth control that it is definitely because of it. My bottom line is that I would have struggled with mental illness if no one had ever mentioned the link between the two.
If you are thinking of going off of birth control, talk to your doctor and do a bit of research to see if this is right for you. This article should not be used as a replacement for medical advice.