When I entered college, I had a very limited understanding of birth control. I knew that women used it to avoid pregnancy, I knew that there were a variety of types, and that condoms were a must for multiple reasons, but my knowledge ended there. My first college boyfriend and I used condoms, but I wanted that extra precaution. The doctors at my university gave me the default brand of the pill they started any student on when they came in asking for birth control. This seemed like the simplest, easiest method to have safer sex. I thought, “This is amazing! I can take it and use a condom and have great sex with limited worries! Yay!”
However, I didn’t fully understand what could happen when I started taking the pill. Then my life got complicated.
My friends froze me out of our friend group, my boyfriend didn’t really like me, and when I returned from winter break, I had mononucleosis, and my boyfriend broke up with me. Due to the physical exhaustion mono causes, I felt weak physically, mentally, and emotionally. But the mono eventually went away, and even as the semester continued, I still felt the same emotional weakness. My melancholy increased every day, and the couple of friends I had started to believe I had depression. I couldn’t let go of grudges, and every day challenges felt overwhelming. Even worse, I could not get over the boy.
April came around, and I still cried almost every single day, without any explanation of why. Objectively, life had vastly improved by that point. I had caring friends, amazing professors, and a beautiful college campus that I dearly loved. None of this changed the emotional strife I felt. One day, though, my friend walked me home, and out of the blue, she asked, “What kind of birth control are you using?” When I told her the brand, her immediate response was, “Stop taking it. Now.” According to her, almost every friend of hers who had taken that brand of birth control had experienced horrible changes in their hormones, causing a similar turmoil and scary inability to handle life. I switched as soon as I could, and almost immediately, I could feel the change in my mentality. I could think more clearly, focus on my daily tasks, and tackle life without as many depressive thoughts weighing me down.
The second brand of the pill I took served me well, but I kept asking my friends for their thoughts and experiences with other types of birth control. One friend used the NuvaRing, one had a copper IUD, one had a hormonal IUD, and quite a few took their favorite brand of the pill. Each had found a method that worked best for their mental and physical health, and when they needed a change, they changed accordingly. Eventually, I decided that with my depressive symptoms, I didn’t want anything changing the way my brain worked. A doctor suggested the Skyla IUD, which wouldn’t circulate hormones throughout my entire body. For now, it’s the best decision I could make regarding birth control.
