Feeling depressed after stopping the birth control pills?

Hi ,



i just wanted to mail you and say im so happy i found your post. I can off Yasmin 2 months ago and i started having headaches not feeling myself getting really tired. The literally a week ago this panic attack came over me and it was awful.



The one thing that was upsetting me the most is my relationship with my boyfriend im with him 6 years and have alway said he is the one and i know im in love with him but the way im feeling at the moment my head in being all negative and saying "oh are you in love with him" . I feel alot better seeing this post. My doctor has given me Xanex to help with the anxiety. Reading your post made me cry so much because i really thought i was the only one who felt like this.



I would love to here back and tell me how you are because at the moment i do not feel there is light at the end of the tunnel.



Thanks

Jen

Hi Ladies,

I am so happy i have found this site. Literally i have been on yasmin 2 years now and 2 months ago i came off it. Coming off them has literally been a complete nightmare. I was having panic attacks, suicidal thoughts didnt want to talk to anyone felt like my hole world was crumbling around me.

The on thing that was upsetting me the most was my relationship with my boyfriend i have been with him for 6 years and have always been certain well actually so certain he was the one and now within the space of 2 weeks i have gone from thinking he was the one to questioning it. My therapist has said to me dat these are all normal feeling that i am ging through and advised me that i should go on this site and share.

 

I would love to here back any feedback from anyone out there who is feeling like this.

Ladies hang in there we really need a bloody medal forwhat we go through ...

 

JammyDodgers1411 wrote:

Konstantine wrote:

I am so happy to have found this forum just like everyone else! I was on birth control for 5 years (16-21). Getting off of them is literally a nightmare. It all started with an immense panic attack that happened OUT OF NOWHERE at work. I was rushed to the ER, and just like everyone else, all of my electrolytes, ekg, and thyroid testing came back NORMAL. This is just the tip of the iceberg though. I started getting panic attacks almost everyday which would last from 20-30 minutes! My mother is a nurse and while I was having an attack, my blood pressure would go from my normal of 115/70 to 185/92, which is unheard of for an active 21 year old. My eyes were super sensitive to light and it would be so painful to be in a bright room. Oh, and the worst parts would definitely be the depression and the depersonalization (feeling like everything around me is fake and unreal). Nothing and no one makes me happy anymore. I don't get excited like I used to. I am constantly thinking about my anxiety and feeling like I'm in this dream world. I got off of it February 2012, it is now almost May 2012 so around 3 months I've been off of it. I still have panic attacks but only severe ones about once a week. When I go to sleep, my chest feels tight but I'm able to overcome that now. I still have some depression, it really depends on the day. Some days I'm so happy and some days, like today, I'm miserable. I've also felt like I was going crazy. Like i was developing signs of schizophrenia or something! The thing that upsets me the most is how this is effecting my relationship. I've been with my boyfriend for 2 years and I've always been so certain that he is the one. But after stopping birth control, I find myself constantly questioning our relationship. I know I love him, but I don't have that "in love" feeling anymore. I've done lots of research about depression and have found this is common so I'm not going to end things with him until I can see what my true feelings are without this fog that stopping the pill has gotten me in. I am happy though to see that women actually can improve from this. My doctor wants to give me medication, and I have taken the occasional xanex when my symptoms were bad, but I am not going on anti-depressants or anti-anxiety. Natural is how I want to do things but my mother, boyfriend, and doctor keep trying to push more meds! Isn't this what got me here in the first place? I'm going to research agnus castus and primrose oil like many suggested.

I hope this helped anyone. I remember when I first found this forum and saw that more women felt like me, I instantly started crying in a sigh of relief that I wasn't alone!!! I will keep everyone updated on my progress.

God bless you all, we deserve a friggen medal for dealing with this!!!!

Hi ,

i just wanted to mail you and say im so happy i found your post. I can off Yasmin 2 months ago and i started having headaches not feeling myself getting really tired. The literally a week ago this panic attack came over me and it was awful.

The one thing that was upsetting me the most is my relationship with my boyfriend im with him 6 years and have alway said he is the one and i know im in love with him but the way im feeling at the moment my head in being all negative and saying "oh are you in love with him" . I feel alot better seeing this post. My doctor has given me Xanex to help with the anxiety. Reading your post made me cry so much because i really thought i was the only one who felt like this.

I would love to here back and tell me how you are because at the moment i do not feel there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks
Jen

I understand how you are feeling and it too was one of the worst things for me while coming off the pill. The mantra that helped me get through it was to repeat over and over in my head "Be patient and have faith". I had to have patience in myself and not expect to be completely healed in just a few days. Also, I had to have faith that I truly did love my fiancé (which I did and still do) and that those feelings would eventually return.

There really is light at the end of the tunnel, it just takes time to get there. I am almost there, but honestly the guilt of feeling that way about my fiancé still haunts me. I believe it will go away completely with more time, but I can honestly say that I now love him more because of all that we went through together.

Stay strong and know that you WILL get through this!

As my gyno told me, some women (like me) are sensitive to hormonal changes and are affected differently. I did have an issue with falling asleep after stopping the pills, but I attributed that problem to my anxiety since I tended to feel the most anxious right before bed time. My doctor told me to take some benadryl if I was having trouble sleeping, and that did help. Though a good book with lots of white noise (fan) might help too if you don't want to take any drugs. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Hi Jennifer,

I am so happy i have found your post....it has made me feel ten times better. I was on BC for two years and decided to come off it because it wasnt working for me and within two months being off it everything hit me like a ton of bricks i was having anxiety attacks on a regular basis......your advice you have given about relationships toward your partner is exactly the way im feeling like i do loe him but all these hormones are making me feel so different and i freaked out an thought we were going to break up which made things so bad for me im with him 6 years and we are talking about marriage and everything and i the space of a week my hormones have gone so crazy im all over the place with him.

I just want to get better. Would ove to hear back .

Thanks for your post
Jennifer

Hi Paperstar,



I am so happy i have found your post . Everything that you said in your post that you are going through is exactly what is happening to me.....but i was on my pill for two years and coming off it has set me into a really bad depression and i was having suicidle thoughts aswell.



But the one thing that was effecting me was that in the space of a week i went from talking about marriage with my boyfriend of 6 years to questioning my feeling. From all the posts that i have read different feeling towards your boyfriend is normal and t with all be ok....like i have lost my sex drive and everything its crazy.



Would love to hear back from ya see how you are xx

i hoep this is normal because i am experiencing the same

Jennifer,



I see we've had similar experiences as well as the same name! You mentioned that you started feeling bad after 2 months, is this when your period started again? I took the pills for a very short time, so I was fine right after I got off them, but when I had my next period, everything hit me again. I figured this had to do with my natural cycle fighting with what the pills had done to my system. I haven't had another period since then, so I am a little nervous that some of the symptoms will return again.



Sadly, the only thing that truly helped me with my relationship was time, and an extremely understanding and caring fiancé. At my lowest points, I doubted everything I'd ever felt about him. It scares me now to think what would have happened if I'd ever acted on one of those temporary feelings, because that's what they are, temporary. It also helped to think things through rationally, after all, feelings of love don't just disappear suddenly without warning. Somebody also told me once, and this still helps me, that I wouldn't have felt so bad about my feelings if I hadn't truly loved him deep down. If I truly didn't love him then, I wouldn't have felt so bad about what the pills were doing to me.



Anyway, I hope this helps!

Hi,

Thanks so much for your reply thats the one thing that was upsetting me the most was my relationship stuff ya know. But my boyfriend is so supportive her really is . Im just goin to take one day at a time .

Thanks so much for your reply take care of yourself !

I am so happy I've found this forum. I came off birth control about 5 months ago after being on it for around 4 years. I had been taking a different pill and then switched to Yasmin to try it out because of a lack of sex drive and then I started getting panic attacks and severe anxiety so I decided to stop hormonal birth control altogether. Unfortunately, instead of feeling better, things just got worse from there. I haven't felt like myself in nearly half a year. I'm sad all the time, anxious, can't stop thinking about "what ifs." I'm a student and working a summer job in a hospital and I can hardly be at work because I've developed a fear of all sorts of things like exposure to cytotoxic drugs that cause cancer and antibiotic-resistant bacteria (things that never used to bother me before, even having worked with patients with them before). I have to go into the bathroom once or twice a day just to be with myself a moment and take a few deep breaths so I don't start crying at work. I've actually thought about quitting because of this, but not sure our finances could handle it or if my husband would forgive me for being so irresponsible.

It was only just recently that I've started feeling almost normal on my "good" days (whereas before I was just in a constant state of gloom and felt numb and sad ALL the time), usually when I get to be at home and just focus on other things. Then my anxiety starts to increase again as I get closer to the work week. It just feels like every time I start to get a little better, I find a new thing to focus my anxiety on. I'm so stressed out and depressed and I've started questioning my whole future career because at this point I want to just avoid hospitals altogether. My husband is convinced though that if it wasn't something to do with hospitals, I would have found something else to be afraid of, and he's probably right. He has been put through a lot dealing with me lately, and he has told me how much of an emotional strain it has put on him. He's told me that it feels like I'm a different person, not the woman he married (who was happy, excited for the future, had drive and was brave). I'm so scared that I'm going to lose him over this, even though he tells me he would never leave me. But honestly I feel like he deserves a lot better than the person I've become. He feels so bad that he can't seem to help make me happy, but what he doesn't understand is that -I- can't even help myself. And until reading these forums, I was beginning to think it was just me.

I just don't know what to do. Should I go to a psychologist? I did go to one once when this first started, but he didn't seem to have any clue about birth control pills or hormones and I'm afraid if I go to another they will want to put me on anti-depressants. My husband keeps asking me to get help but I don't know where to go and the thought that I need that kind of help just makes me feel worse. I haven't had a perfect life, but I've never felt so bad in my life before. I cry a few times a week and the days when I don't cry, it's only because I'm holding it in. I used to cry like once every 2 years or so. I just want to sleep all day because in my dreams I'm not sad. It's so hard getting out of bed in the morning. I've become someone that I don't recognize and I don't know how to help myself. It's so nice to see that maybe it's -not- just me, but at the same time, it's been about 5 months since stopping the pill and I still get major panic attacks and start sobbing. Anyone out there who has gotten -better- from this (preferably without any anti-depressants or other drugs)? Will our own hormones even out eventually or has the pill messed it up forever? If only I'd known, I never would have considered taking the pill in the first place.

Have you ever considered keeping a daily journal of your moods? Doing that really helped me because I found a pattern in my "good" days. Though I didn't improve overnight, I could at least see that I was improving through the records I kept in the journal.



I got better without drugs, but I wasn't on the pills very long, and so my experience was a month of misery and then I improved. However, I've read stories from women on here who said it took them 6 months to start to feel better and a year to get back to their normal selves. I know that might not sound like the relief you were looking for, but keep in mind that many women never get back on this site to write about how much better they're doing. To me, that means that they've recovered so well that they've forgotten most of the misery it caused them.



I think you should be patient with yourself (very patient!) and do whatever it takes to help you get past it. Maybe talking to a therapist and stipulating that you don't want to be on pills would be helpful to you. After all, they can't really force you to take anything, they can suggest it, but that doesn't mean that you have to go along with it.



Let us know how it all goes :)

Hi everyone,

I don't know if this is still an active thread, but I just wanted to say I'm so grateful I found it. I tried to go off of my Ocella (a combination pill) two years ago and, while the cramps and physical symptoms were bad, it was the mental/emotional stuff that's the worst. Just like Soraya, I was anxious literally all the time and I felt incapable of feeling anything good at ALL. I totally relate to the symptoms people posted here--doing your normal actions but feeling like they're unreal, questioning EVERYTHING . . . one time, I pulled into a parking space and was CONVINCED I had parked totally crooked, like not even in the spot, but I got out and the car was perfectly in line. Weird thoughts like that popped up all the time and they really DO give you a sense that you're crazy.

I just got diagnosed will gallstones and high cholesterol, which is really strange for my lifestyle and age. Both of these conditions are associated with my pill and I'm thinking being on it is just not safe anymore. It looks like I have to try to go off of it again but I'm so scared. Like another poster mentioned, I'm getting married this summer, and I had NO idea it could make you feel different about your fiancé. That scares me so much. I've been such a wreck since my gallstone diagnoses (really because of fear of having to go off the pill) that I"m already driving him nuts. I am so scared of messing up our relationship.

Anyway this is not really that helpful to any of you but I wanted to let you know I'm going through it too. It's really great to know that some of you have gotten better as the months went by. Last time I had to go back on it because I was completely 100% impenetrably miserable all the time. Now I just think I have to wait it out longer. Blessings and good luck to all of you!

glad i have found this. i am having the exact same issues and problems. I came off the birth control pill (cilest) just over 3 months ago. since i stopped these pills i have felt like a total different person. i have been on the pill for 13 years without a break. I feel like i am going crazy i have really bad depession which i have never had in my life always been easy going chilled out person. I am also suffering from bad anxiaty which i have started to take st johns wort, vitamin b complex and primrose oils to try and help me as i really dont want to go on anti depressants and anti anxiaty tablets which the doctors are trying to push me to take.The docs say my symtoms are nothing to do with coming off the pill. Since stopping the pills i have had ringing in my right ear which is also making me depressed. I have read that starting and coming off birth control pills can cause ear ringing. i am going to see a gynacolagist next week as well as having an MRI so hoping i start to get answers as cant cope with feeling like this much longer. would be much appreciated if anyone can help.

 need advice ASAP i have been on the pill for two years and i decided to come off it two months ago. My moods started to change slightly i was angry and would get angry at the slightest thing. Then out of No where 3 weeks ago my hole life fell apart im with my boyfriend 6 years and we have been living together for three years. I always said i found my soulmate he is the man i want to marry and have kids with. Then three weeks ago on a monday night me and him had a little fight and and i had this one thought in my head what if we break up and i had a panic attack that ws so bad i couldnt breath felt like my life was falling apart. What if i don't love my boyfriend anymore these are all the things that are going through my head i love him but i do not have that in love feeling anymore.....will this return i have panic attacks all the time, headaches, not eating i have lost a stone and a half. I have moved back home to my parents im not able to work. I went to see the doctor and he put me on xanex and that was helping and then a phyciatrist put me on Ireven and generic anti-depressant like effexor. So i was doing okay until wednesday and i took my anti-depressant and wednesday could not sleep then thursday was the worst night of my life i was up the hole now having panic attacks because i kept thinking me and my boyfriend are going to breakup because i might not be in love with him then i was vomiting. The next day which was friday just gone i went to see my Therapist and she told me that ths has nothing to do with mark that my hormones in my body and then from the tablets ive been taking im having withdrawals. The doctor has put me back on Xanex and im a little calmer now but im still sad keep crying i woke up this morning and i got my period. I have sat down with my boyfriend and told him everything thats going on in my mind and he said that he still wants to support me 100% and when im better if it actually really turns out things are not working it'll be ok but everytime i think of that i feel like my world is ending.i feel like i have lost everything we had an apartment together and now im back home im not working im crying all the time i really feel like im goin mad i have lost my sex drive :(:(:( My therapist told me to go and see a Doctor call Jan De Vries he specialises is hormones imbalances and has helped alot of women so i will be going to see hime the end of July. Please if there is anyone out there like this please email me and tell me things get better because im desperate at this point

Hey, if I were you I would have my hormone levels checked definitely. It sounds like it's good you will be seeing that doc at the end of July, but it sounds like waiting till then is going to be tough.

It's been about 5 months since coming off the pills for me and now that I think about it (thanks JenniferE), I -have- gotten a lot better. It just doesn't seem like it on my bad days (it was one of my bad days when I wrote my previous post). But every day used to be a bad day. I mean I would walk around with this fake smile on my face trying to act normal for my husband, but every second would feel like agony.

I'm just afraid to ask for help from a doctor because I don't want them to tell me it's not the pills and ignore my concerns about that altogether, you know?