HBC rant...

[pididdle.livejournal.com]

So, I think HBC may have been a factor in ruining my relationship. I'm not trying to place all the blame on a silly litte pill, but it's something that I've been thinking about lately.

I read a lot of posts here in which people mentioning that they find themselves more depressed than usually while on some type of hormonal birth control. I'm wondering if that could have been a large factor in how I've been feeling for pretty much the past year while on Loestrin 24.

Granted, I did have some more stressful times this year than I have had in the past, but now I'm sitting here wondering if the birth control blew that stress out of proportion and made it feel insurmountable. I had never felt more depressed in all my life, but at the same time I had never really experienced any sort of depression before so for me as compared to others who have suffered depression it could totally pale in comparison.

I'm afraid that being on that medication was what made me irritable and moody towards my significant other, constantly finding problems with things that weren't really issues to begin with. I feel like once I finally stopped taking HBC (late August/early September) I could see clearly again but I guess the damage to my relationship was done. I wish I had put two and two together a little sooner and realized that being on the pill could have potentially been the source of some of my problems in dealing with stressful situations.

I'm terrified now that I may have lost the best thing in my life due to a stupid medication. I do know that I went through a lot this past year with graduating, getting a job, leaving said job, going back to school, etc. I realize that those could have been factors all by themselves in causing the end of things, but now I'm sitting here wondering what was actually caused by the hormones.

I don't really know what I hoped to accomplish by putting this out there, maybe I just want to feel like I'm not alone, and I do realize that by reading a lot of the posts here regarding peoples' feelings towards birth control and what it does to their mental state. I wish I had seen before that there was a correlation between when I started the new type of pill and when everything started spiraling downward...maybe I could have done something to stop it...done something to save my relationship.

Sorry if this is inappropriate for the community, I just felt it was the best place to put it.

Comments

[archangelbeth]

*scritchies sympathetically* If it would help you with closure, you might tell your (ex?) SO that you've been looking at life differently since you came off the pill. It may indeed be too late for the relationship, but you could apologize for whatever you feel was exacerbated by the hormonal stuff -- maybe suggest some form of counseling if that'd be within y'all's worldviews, or at least... try to have an ending that's less sour. (If things have gone too sourly, then, well, don't peel open wounds till there's some distance for both of you, I'd suggest.)

What-ifs are nasty things. Much sympathies for being afflicted with them now. O:( Good luck.

[pididdle.livejournal.com]

We're going to talk about everything we've been thinking about since the break-up in a few weeks and I'm certainly going to mention it. I've still been holding out hope for us, I know I wasn't the best partner for like the past year but I feel like now that I've come to terms with a lot of stuff, and knowing that this could be a potential culprit I feel more and more justified in being given another chance...now I just hope he feels that way :p

I'm going to counseling on my own and I'm hoping that, given time, he'll decide to come with me. Things didn't end too sourly, I guess that given the circumstances it was the best ending we could have met...but still and ending I didn't want regardless. :p

Thanks :)

[atalanta0jess.livejournal.com]

Being depressed and moody can take a huge toll on your relationship. I know it takes a toll on mine, although thankfully we've been able to hold it together. It's not easy though, is it? I think that HBC was making it more difficult. I know that I felt a huge cloud lift when I came off of it, and although I'm still pretty moody, I'm much more able to control it than I used to be. Anyway, no, you're not alone.

Don't beat yourself up about it too much though. Its not your fault that you didn't realize there might be a correlation. Mood stuff is really hard to get a clear perspective on. I was on birth control for three years, and didn't suspect that it might be affecting my moods until the very end. Its especially hard when there is a lot of other stressful stuff going on. Plus, we live in a culture that is very pro-HBC. You may have seen me say this before, but in three years of struggling with depression, I had countless doctors recommend antidepressants, but NOT ONE suggest that perhaps my HBC was causing some of my problems. That's shocking to me. But that's the way things are. We are not taught to be super mindful of possible mood-related side effects of HBC. We are also taught that we should be able to control our emotions, etc (there is a fairly large stigma against getting help for depression) so we tend to blame ourselves first, and external factors second. This is not your fault. You're working through it, and doing the best you can. Focus your energy on being proud of that, rather than being disappointed about the way things went.

((()))

[pididdle.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I do know that I'll get through this, but I'm still really broken up about it because I didn't want things to end with him. He was totally someone I could see spending the rest of my life with despite all the problems that I had, I figured we'd work through it...and who knows, maybe we still will. It just sucks to realize that there might have been something I could have done before it was too late I guess.

Thank you for your comment, I hope things are better for you now :)

[vinaceous.livejournal.com]

I had a similar problem, but with my friends--I was on medication (not HBC) that made me very erratic and very moody. I pushed a lot of people away with my behavior. Once I got off of it I realized what it had done to me, and tried to make amends. Thankfully my friends are a forgiving bunch, but it was definitely hard to approach them and rebuild relationships. It's very humbling, and some people are not as sensitive about the fact that medication can, in fact, change your entire being.

I know it's very different with a boyfriend/girlfriend, but I hope that you two are able to take some time to talk and hopefully reconnect in some way. It seems like you really cared about him, and since things didn't end horribly there could be a chance for fixing what's broken.

Good luck!!!

[ba1126.livejournal.com]

I've been pregnant and other times on birth control pills and both can really affect your emotions. My first pregnancy started REALLY soon after we married, and that first year I was a B____, and we both were pretty miserable. Like you, neither of us realized (and the doctor never mentioned) that it could be related to all the extra hormones. My husband says now, it was a good thing we'd dated so long and were both committed to a life long vow.
In later pregnancies, and when on the Pill, we found that just knowing it was hormone induced helped a lot. We also found it helpful to talk openly about our feelings. I hope you will be able to talk about this with your SO and that things work out. Best of luck!

[pinkpartyhatgi.livejournal.com]

I'm going off hbc because of this same problem. I've moved in with my SO and we bicker about stupid little things so much more. I'm incredibly stressed having to pay rent, groceries and other living items, working 40+ hours at a minimum wage job a week, and going to school full time and somehow manage to make decent grades. I went to my gyno saying "I think my hbc is causing issues" and she said "do you want anti-depressants?" rather than finding me a non hormonal treatment. I recently posted that I'm getting an IUD, but my gyno was adamant about me not getting one, which really bothered me. I don't know why doctors feel the way to treat depression in women is to automatically put them on anti-depressants. Some women need the extra hormones or a higher dose to help them out, and some women need a lower dose or no extra hormones. Doctors, I believe, should really start looking more into the hormonal effect of birthcontrol on women.

I hope you have good luck with your SO. I know how hard breaks up are, especially when you didn't want it in the first place. :(

[atalanta0jess.livejournal.com]

Yeah dude. What's with the "oh, your pill is bothering you? Here, take this one too, that'll help" attitude? My doctors were totally like that, and I resent them so much for it now!

[loonylupinlover.livejournal.com]

When I was on the Patch my boyfriend and I both noticed that I got tearier more easily. I didn't really have mood swings, though; things that upset me were just more likely to make me cry than they used to. My first two months on the Ring, though, were horrible -- AND I was graduating college, AND my grandpa died, AND I was going to be moving back home and 45 miles away from my boyfriend. Between all of that I was a terrible mess, crying all the time, couldn't sleep. When I got back home things evened out a little but my second month on the Ring I started getting bitchy over the tiniest things, which had never ever been like me, and I'd get teary watching the old people across the street hold hands. o_O If it had continued for a third month I would've left the Ring behind -- but, I tried taking multivitamins and a B6 supplement daily and my moods went almost back to normal immediately.

In our case, though it wasn't fun for me to be weepy all the time and it wasn't fun for my boyfriend to put up with it, I'm extremely anal about knowing side effects of any medication I'm on, so I knew that mood swings from HBC were a definite possibility. I also shared everything I knew about HBC with my boyfriend so he knew it too. Thus, neither of us was surprised when I started crying more, and though it's not like it was whee yay happy times, it never really put a strain on our relationship because we knew it wasn't us, just a side effect of the thing that let us have condomless sex.

Don't blame yourself for not making the connection; your boyfriend could've seen the correlation too and he didn't either, but you aren't blaming him for not putting two and two together, are you? But in the future I would definitely be aware of what kinds of effects things like hormones can cause.

[pididdle.livejournal.com]

I knew that birth control could create issues and things like that with moods, I guess I just didn't really think about it. I was on one brand and had no issues so I may have assumed I'd be fine with any HBC. With everything else that was going on, I wasn't even thinking about it.

I guess I wish I had thought about it and then there would have been a chance to work it out and know that there was somewhat of a cause behind it and not just me going nutso. Makes me feel bad, this could have been totally preventable. I feel dumb :p

[loonylupinlover.livejournal.com]

Yeah, doing well on one brand doesn't guarantee doing well on another, unfortunately. My worst side effects on the Patch were nausea and trouble with my contact lenses, and I was expecting more of the same on NuvaRing -- instead I got crazy mood swings and headaches 4-5 times a week for the first month or two, PLUS the stuff I had as side effects on the Patch, PLUS worse cramps at first. So the Patch gave me a heads up as to side effects, and then on the NuvaRing it was obvious that it was the root of a lot of issues with me.

Like others have said, talk to your ex about it... it's possible that he might be willing to attempt a reconciliation, or at least work with you to put a more amiable ending to things.

[studyphysics.livejournal.com]

I just ended my first cycle with the Nuvaring. Before I decided to try it my boyfriend and I researched it and knew all the possible side effects. This past month we have fought so much and I have cried more than ever. The night I took out the ring I felt awful. I was crying and I had never felt so bad in my life. My boyfriend knows that it's mostly because of the ring and he puts up with it, but I know it hurts him. I'm also losing my sex drive which bothers me a lot. It's only been one month though, so I'm going to stick with it for a little longer.
Anyway, I just wanted to relate to your story. You're definitely not the only one. I hope everything turns out well with you and your SO. :)

[skeas.livejournal.com]

This is EXACTLY what happened to me. Last June my family suffered a huge, life-changing blow. I went on birth control about the same time. For all of last year, I blew off my emotions as backlash from The Incident, as it came to be called. I also started college in the fall, and it was a very hard transition for me.

But as time wore on and nothing ever seemed to look up, even after the 1 year anniversary of The Incident, I started looking for other sources. Birth control didn't even occur to me until I was forced to stop taking it during a bout of strep throat (I couldn't swallow anything). Even after a week and a half without it, I felt like a totally different person. I felt the stirrings of hope.

If you asked me what I thought birth control robs most women of emotionally, I would say hope. It just seems to totally block your ability to think "okay, things are shitty now... but not forever."

[mzhartz.livejournal.com]

If it helps, my husband and I are just getting out of a time on the other side of the coin. He has problems with seizures, and the medication he was taking was making him depressed and obliterated his sex drive. But when it was happening, I didn't even realized he was depressed. I kept thinking things like, "What have I done?" "Is he not attracted to me anymore" etc. It is an emotional rollercoaster. But he got switched to a new medicine, and things are a lot better now. And knowing the cause of the depression wasn't me and was just the medication he was on was a huge help.

So I'd definitely tell him. If he really cares about you, he'll remember the times you had before, and he'll take you back. If he doesn't take you back, as hard as it is to admit, maybe it's not meant to be. There will be other hard times in the future, he'll need to be there for you again (and vice versa). I think marriage is based on love, trust, and forgiveness.

[nicolesvoice.livejournal.com]

I am convinced that the pill and its side effects were a factor in my divorce. We would have divorced anyway, because he wants kids and I don't, but things just would have been different if I wasn't on the pill. I didn't realize how much of a bitch it made me. I hurt him a lot more than necessary and I regret it. I have struggled with depression for years and it is debilitating and takes its toll on one's life.

[my-neighborhood.livejournal.com]

I think this is just a testament to how differently individuals can react to medication. For me it was the opposite, I suffered from horrible mood swings and depression before going on HBC, but now that I'm on it I actually feel much more leveled out... I still have mood issues but it's like a zillion times more stable than before.

[nessy82.livejournal.com]

This is practically written for me - I feel exactly the same way. I distinctly remember telling my bf just before I got on BC that if I ever got moody/crazy/whatever he HAD to tell me (I was cautious after reading all the stories on vaginapagina). I started to take it and I got depressed, our relationship suffered and I just changed into a completely different person. At the same time I had also graduated into an area I hated, had a job I hated and was dealing with some abuse issues from the past so I never could say it was the BC precisely as its hard to seperate it from the other things that were going on in my life, but those other things had been going on for the previous half of the relationship with no problems!

I got off the BC and it was too late for my relationship by that stage but I feel 110% better, I've had the strength to go to counselling and to go back to uni and look for ways to improve my situation instead of just crying, feeling helpless and trapped, and taking it all out on my bf. Its like off the BC I am more logical, capable and more equipped to deal with my problems and make my life better but as much as my bf said or tried to help me when I was on BC I was so ..trapped in a mindset I couldn't/wouldn't/didn't believe there was anything that could help me. Does that make sense?

In retrospect I CAN'T believe I didn't put 2 + 2 together, it seems blindingly obvious but there is no sense in getting weighed down with 'what ifs'.

I feel the same way about my ex so I don't know how to deal with those feelings, I love him dearly and will often wonder if he was 'the one'. I regret that it came to us breaking up, I wish he would have said something earlier (I ASKED him to prior to anything ever happening!) but I guess there is no sense living in the past. I've made my mistakes, (paid ultimate prices for them!) and its time to learn from them and not make them again. Yeah, it sucks!

[nessy82.livejournal.com]

That wasn't very helpful - sorry!
I'm here to chat if you need to vent:
nosurprises82@yahoo.com.au