When I was twelve years old I was welcomed into womanhood with a bloodbath. This was considered “normal” in my family. My great-grandmother, grandmother, aunt, and mother, all had hysterectomies before they hit menopause. A second aunt died before menopause so we’ll never know what would have happened there. So when my time came my mother gave me a sack full of the thickest pads on the planet and wished me luck. It was almost immediately a problem. I’d bleed at random, with no predictability what-so-ever, and in gushing torrents of blood. I would bleed through my underwear and pants and onto the chair I was sitting on before I even knew what was going on! I wore layers to school every day so that if this happened I could take off my outer shirt and tie it around my waist to hide my crimson tide. This I did frequently.
My mother brought me to the doctor, a male doctor, who looked at me in the same way he might look upon a three year old and said, “Oh well, you’re young! You’ll grow out of having bad periods.” I SHIT YOU NOT. He told me I’d GROW OUT OF MY PERIODS. But who wants to sit around waiting for menopause when they can’t even legally drive a car yet?!
From here I was trundled off to a gynecologist at the age of 14. Her answer was not to poke and prod and figure out what my actual problem was but instead give me that golden pill, you know the one that solves every female problem, the one they simply call The Pill, like it’s some sort of goddess in its own right. Being fourteen, and also a partnerless virgin, I can’t say I was really great at taking The Pill. In consequence my angry ovaries became even angrier and wheeeew! Wasn’t it fun having a period for four months straight?! See, that’s what happens when you kinda sorta take the pill but not really. In time I’d learn my body was insanely sensitive to it. I had to take it at exactly the same time every day. If I were more than an hour off I’d have to face the wrath of an unwanted womanhood.
It wasn’t just this. I lived through every side effect there was! Well, except for blood clots and death, but you know, can’t have it all… I went from having a period once in a while to having a blood flow once a month and cramps all the fucking time whether I was bleeding or not! And there were mood swings, weight gain, bloating, insomnia, and whatever else the Fairy of Irregular Menstruation felt like giving me on a day to day basis. My gynecologist claimed this was because we hadn’t found the right pill yet… and this started years and years worth of pill swapping from one month to the next, which only resulted in the swapping of one side effect for another. This went on for most of my adult life because eventually I entered that phase of life most of us enter… where we find ourselves fucking… and well, I didn’t want a baby and sure as hell didn’t trust anyone else to insure this didn’t happen, not in our patriarchal world!
So two years ago, when I found myself single again, I decided I’d had it and flushed the rest of my pills. A strange thing happened. I became healthier. My periods weren’t 100% predictable but they were a hell of a lot closer than they had been in the past and although I still bled like I was being tortured this only lasted for two days before I’d be allowed to bleed lightly for the remainder. I lost weight. I stopped having mood swings. I slept better. Even things I never thought about got better – like constipation. It disappeared! And worse still, at the age of thirty-one I discovered I had a libido. My entire life I thought I was asexual because I never really felt like fucking anyone… This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy a good romp, but it was like going to Paris. I can really love visiting but I feel no burning desire to go back. Now I had a sex drive I felt like a teenager for the first time in my life! And since I was without a partner I just about went out of my fucking mind. It was cruel, really cruel, to suddenly learn in my thirties I’d been chemically shackled all this time.
I will not be going back on birth control. Sadly in addition to losing all faith in The Pill I’ve also lost all faith in gynecologists, which despite going to four different ones, never once decided to test me for any underlying possible problems or give me any other alternatives. This needs to change. The Pill isn’t fucking magic. It has so many side effects that when men were tested with their own version, despite having only a third of the side effects women reported, they said they’d never take it because it had too many side effects! If it’s not good enough for a whiny-ass man I’m sure as shit not going to put up with it. Why should I?! Just because I have tits and a twat doesn’t make it OK to force me to endure pointless pain and misery! SERIOUSLY. What. The. Fuck.
There are a lot of options out there to prevent pregnancy. There seems to be almost nothing to deal with ovaries that seemingly want to kill the body they reside in. When is this going to change?! Because right now I am living with no help for my female problems and that’s still a better option for me than going back on The Pill!
I guess that’s the point of this whole tirade. Ladies, if The Pill works for you good for you! But if it doesn’t, please don’t feel obligated by your gynecologist, doctor, partner, or society, to stay on something that’s making you suffer. Stand up for yourself and do what’s right for you. And join me in demanding more options!!
**All photos taken by myself of random sights within my life**