Feeling depressed after stopping the birth control pills?

Hi Ashley,



Yes I feel exactly as you do. I question life a lot and am really scared I'll never be the way I was again. I also have trouble remembering things. I know this all goes away, but its just so hard sometimes to have faith that it will!

Ashley,

I have a really bad memory to begin with, so I doubt I would notice if I remembered less :) However, my negative thoughts were usually centered around my fiancé at the time. I suspect, as Amber did, that it was because we were about to be married. It was a really big step for me and I believe I was concerned with making the right choice, and even though I already had, it was as if those hormones were trying to prove me wrong. Seriously, knowing that our relationship survived that makes me feel 100% confident in our future together :) Keep that in mind on your good days!

Well i screwed up my relationship in the beginning because i woke up one morning before i quit the pill and had no feelings for my boyfriend this has been the man ive been in love with since 6th grade hes my soul mate and i broke up with him and during my hard timea he wasnt there but we just recently got back together and i dont think anything negative about our relationship i love him so.much. Like did any of you girls get derealization from the anxiety like where u didnt feel real or that you were on autopilot. This just recently lifted about 2 weeks ago now the world just feels like a different world then what i remember :/

My boyfriend has been there through all of this. And is very patient and understanding. he just wants me to feel better. I am still on birth control. So my case is slightly different than most people on this board because everyone on here is having problems coming off of them. But its kind of nice to hear that someone had those problems while on birth control.

But yes. I get what you are saying about the derealization and being on auto pilot. honestly i have felt like that for some time. which is why i suspect that i've had some underlying depression or anxiety.

Yeah and i mean even though the derealization has lifted i still dont feel normal :/ sometimes i feel like im either dying or losing my mind and i dont wanna feel like this when has anyone seen big improvements around what month

Do you seriously think you're going crazy sometimes? Like you'll have to be locked up lol? Sometimes I feel that way and it scares me even though I know I'm not actually crazy :(

Yeah sometimes that's how i feel and it is scary this is not how life is suppose to be

Hello all its Paperstar here. Have not been back in a bit but I am still struggling with these negative feelings towards my boyfriend and general malaise thats descended on me... ambertinks, the last part about your bf feeling like a stranger, I feel that exact same way. It makes my negative feelings feel amplified and only makes me feel further away from him... It has been a long time already got off bc in Jan then had all this c**p pop up in May and to now I am still suffering... I want it all to go away.

Then I feel like it isnt the hormones like its just me... but it cant be I love my bf so much... I cant imagine my life without him I want to marry this man and have his children... I mean come on!! Hormones have ruined my life... I will not go back.

I need to research the copper IUD some more, I am seriously considering it. I feel very much not like myself... I feel like I see everything through this very different lens not like I used to be at all... I am hoping and praying that I'll feel better soon. I am seeing a therapist in the mean time, am on anti-depressants (though I may come off them soon) and will see someone soon for anti anxiety meds. I know many here are avoiding such meds like the plague but I have a history of depression and anxiety and my therapist feels that anti anxiety meds will help me much more than the depression meds (my tendency to be extremely anxious is amplifying my negative thoughts and its just this awful vicious cycle). I pray for everyone here that this "fog" will lift. Please pray for me too... I am reaching such a breaking point i Feel like dying... :(

My life has turned to complete hell since quitting birth control six months ago. I need some reassurance. Does anyone have any success stories? I have become a shell of myself. I've always had anxiety but this is unbearable. I'm doubting EVERYHING about my boyfriend and our relationship. I thought I found the love of my life. He's perfect. I was so happy. All of a sudden a little while after stopping the pill I felt like I had fallen out of love. I have constant negative thoughts: I don't love him, he's not the one, i want to love him bc he's nice and a good catch but i don't, I'm forcing myself to be with him, I don't like his personality, he irritates me, I have to break up with him... UGH. These thoughts are intrusive, unwanted and devastating. I feel like my mind is sabotaging me. I want to love my boyfriend and it's like my mind isn't allowing me to. I feel derealization and depersonailzation around him sometimes. Little things that never bothered me now irritate the hell out of me. I'm constantly checking my feelings to see if I can feel the love between us. When I get extra anxious, I shut down. It's hard for me to tell him I love him. When I'm really anxious, it's hard to even use terms of endearment or be silly with him. I feel myself distancing myself because of this anxiety. I feel like I've been going through a six month long heartbreak. The thing is, somewhere deep inside of me, there is something screaming that this is crazy. Deep down, I know I love him. That's what keeps me holding on. He is so wonderful and I constantly picture spending the rest of my life with him. But I miss the old me that didn't have this anxiety/OCD and this emotional numbness. I've done research and more or less stalked the internet for advice over the months. It's so nice to hear that other people are struggling too (though I'm truly sorry for your pain -- I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy)! I have felt slightly better this past month. I had a wonderful weekend with my boyfriend last week. The anxiety/doubts were still quietly there but I was able to mostly ignore them and feel the love. I keep telling myself that this is just a hormonal imbalance. I keep reminding myself that if I didn't love him and didn't want to be with him, I wouldn't be so devastated by it like I am. I wouldn't have anxiety-free moments where I feel the love. And I certainly wouldn't be happily daydreaming about marriage and our future. But I just feel so defeated by these thoughts. I absolutely hate it ;(

Omg iBelieveinus, I feel very single freaking thing you feel, and I mean, EVERY SINGLE THING. I wish so badly to give you a hug!! I hate this entire thing... I've been going through this hell for about 3-4 months now. I can barely stand it. I feel like i am being unfair to my bf... but I love him so much I know I do... when I look in his eyes and feel that spectacular happy feeling, thats LOVE, it has to be!! Once again I wish I could give you a hug... birth control has caused us so much pain I hate it. I pray for us all to feel normal and deeply in love once more!!! If you ever wanna talk email me, I've started a convo with someone else here and its helped me immensely to share my feelings on a more direct level with someone else who understands: email: _[removed]_

Hey all,

Hang in there everyone, it will get better!! At this point, I consider myself a "success story", and I have felt all those terrible feelings you all have. I felt the distance from my boyfriend, the constant questioning of my feelings, the constant doubting, the thought of, "maybe I'm with him just because he's nice and it feels comfortable". I thank God that I was with him long enough before this mess to know that I had loved him once and that I still did deep down somewhere. However, there was a long stretch where I would repeat it to myself, and not really believe it. Thankfully, I listened to veterans of this forum and another forum on Aphrodite health, and they all reminded me that, if I didn't really love him, I wouldn't be so torn up about the doubts running rampant in my head. It's difficult to have faith in that concept when you don't feel it in your heart or know it in your head, but somewhere your soul is still holding on to the truth. At least, I think that's what it was for me. 

I also thought I was going crazy. I began to worry about the day that I might have to admit that and seek professional help. I managed to avoid that, but just barely, and I know I probably would've healed without as much turmoil if I had just chosen to talk to a therapist. 

As for the question of how long it takes to heal, I think I have a unique perspective on this (though I could be wrong). I was only on the pill for 8 days (seriously), and it took me about 4 months to fully recover. Some might wonder how 8 days worth of hormones could screw up 4 months, but they did. In hindsight, I know there's no other explanation but the hormones. Now, that's not to say that you all won't heal faster or will have to wait forever. It seems that most women who post on here and in other forums begin to feel relief in 6 months, and usually after a year they begin to feel their "old self" returning. That may seem like an eternity, but keep in mind that we all have good days in there, and that we improve dramatically as the months go by.

Anyway, I hope this gives all of you a little strength to have faith. You are NOT crazy, you WILL get better, you DO LOVE your bf/fiance/husband. 

God, it's so nice to hear about someone who has gotten through this. I was only on the pill for 4 months and the last 6 months post-pill have been HELL. Something deep inside of me is holding on and saying that all of this is crazy but it's just so hard to drown out the doubts and negative thoughts. I hear them and automatically believe them and then get depressed about them. I need to work on not believing them and not obsessing over them but it's so hard. I love my boyfriend so much that I'm staying with him either way. I'd rather be with him with this anxiety than without him. He's the most wonderful man I've ever known. But I want to enjoy my relationship again. I have spurts of excitement, happiness, and love but it's mostly just doubt, anxiety and depression. I feel like I'm almost building up a phobia to him -- Like I get anticipatingly anxious prior to seeing him because I worry that I'm going to be anxious while with him or that something he does is going to annoy me. It's so silly but it's also so heartbreaking. I also need to stop blowing things out of proportion. If he annoys me, so what? No one is perfect. But instead, if he annoys me, my anxiety says "YOU DON'T LOVE HIM!" Ugh, it's so hard... Especially since post-pill, I'm so much more irritable and things that never or barely annoyed me are now driving me insane. This really just... SUCKS. I hope it's over soon!

I feel for you. I am 47 and was on progestrone only bc and my doctor switched me to estrogen and after 3 months I began to have severe anxiety, hot flashes and severe depression. totallly hopeless feeling. My gyno said no i could not be the pills so I have spend 2 months seeing specialists who can find nothing wrong with me and they all say it is hormonal and my primary changed my pills and put me on Xanax and Wellbutrin to get me through this. It has been a nightmare

I used to do the same thing. I'd anticipate how I was going to feel around my fiance, which usually made things worse. Something that helped me, since I'm driven mostly by logic (except when the hormones made me crazy), was taking online quizzes or reading articles on relationship topics. For example, I read several different articles on the topic of wedding jitters versus true doubts in a relationship. What I discovered was that my doubts weren't founded in logic. I felt better after that, knowing that even experts on the subject believed my relationship to be rock solid.

Ok so i feel so much better now that my period is over still somewhat crazy but better and easier to put up with and a few nights ago i started to feel a tingling numbness all over and it of course set off anxiety and i worry all night it's almost 3am now and i can't sleep bc of it. I was wondering if anyone felt this way??? Or maybe it could have to do with me being anemic? I don't know. It's really starting to worry me!