A year ago I made a thoughtless decision and I started taking Yasmin birth control. I had not thought that my experience with this tiny little pill would be so negative. I also had a car accident, in August 2014 and I was also diagnosed with anaemia in December 2014. I had accelerated my car into a wall after my brain and feet momentarily stopped talking. And a wheat intolerance, that had often manifested as bulimia, now anaemia, had finally overwhelmed me. I was tired beyond reason; anaemia had moved in. My wellbeing in the past year has been poor.
Running outdoors and exercise were my release. Running and exercise had replaced my destructive and dangerous self-harm habit. And both of these pursuits grew harder the longer my year-long Yasmin sentence went on I struggled to get back into road and trail running after I accidentally smashed my car into a wall last year. I ran 12k on Good Friday and this floored me for a good two weeks.
Since the car crash my knees are clapped out, kaput almost. Wheat has been gone for about six months now. Now just thinking about something wheaty makes my mind barf. I also quit coffee and dark chocolate. The latter, will always have a special place in my heart and I do sometimes indulge with varying degrees of stomach hurt.
“My body, the hand grenade.” (Courtney Love)
I had followed the advice of my nutritionist to a ‘t’. Everything I had been doing for the past four months was good, beneficial and healthy. And yet, I still felt like gutter gunge. All of the moves I had made this year did not yield the prescribed desired effect. What a waste. What a shame. What a woe.
I am now two weeks clean from Yasmin.Ovulating for the first time in twelve months felt like a sunshine thunderbolt that pierced right through my dark, grey clouds. And I felt la petit-mort, depressed, the day after. I have felt this way ever since. I hope that my first period is less harrowing. I want my body back. The most alarming ill effect of Yasmin, that has magically and mysteriously instantly ended, was post-evening-meal heavy sleepy fog. I could literally be drooling all over my chins (I gained half a stone in weight) because I was unbearably, uncomfortably tired after an evening meal. I, was terrible.
I have been seeing an Osteopath, every six weeks or so, since the car accident and I hope that one day soon my knees will start acting their age. I have increased the variety of weights in my home gym, keeping an array of simple circuit exercise routines to hand. I hope that I can strengthen my legs so that I can run wild, run outdoors and run free before this Summer ends. I love exercise. I love to sweat. I love letting go and feeling the sweet release of expended energy. I love trying to master new moves, new techniques, like Turkish get-ups with a kettle bell bigger than one of my butt cheeks. I am fit but I feel like my body got chewed up and ravaged by the pill.
I want my body back.
I hope that I return to me, soon. I can feel the familiar edge of self-harm creeping in. I also feel like giving up; the pill negated every positive change I had made.
When I first met the nutritionist she had figured that my liver was distressed. The pill hammered my liver every day and the knock on effects were terrible. I can’t explain this fully but I’ve read similar instances on the world wide web. I know that everybody had their own experience, that we all react differently. This afternoon I had conversation with a friend, she said that the women she knew that were on the pill had poor relationships as they had made poor relationship choices under the influence of prescribed contraceptive hormones. She believed that the pill had been a common factor when their relationships had fallen apart. Without the pill the type of man that she goes for is good, wholesome, healthy. She had experienced the opposite effect whenever she came off the pill. It’s interesting to think about. Time will tell how much of my problems, in the past twelve months, have been a direct result of my Yasmin habit. I am a sensitive soul. The years before I started the pill I was 100% healthy, happy, whole. I would ‘come on’ at the same time as the spring equinox.
My womb, the universe in microcosm.
My iron levels improved with diet changes but it has not yet fully recovered. I expect to see myself running at 5.30am again, without any mindful/physical tension, and for my body to return to me, to serve me and to fully reflect my abounding energy and hunger for sweet physical sweaty outdoor release.
“She was just a wish.” (Gypsy, Fleetwood Mac).
The Bardo Retreat 