Ep.168: Mental + emotional changes on birth control that are not okay, with Grace

We're told birth control is safe and effective and side effects should be temporary, but what happens when that's not our experience? How can we know what's a side effect from birth control vs unrelated? Doctors often evaluate physical side effects like bleeding or cramping, but mental and emotional side effects are just as important to our quality of life! Today Caitlin and Grace chat about the mental and emotional side effects she and others have experienced on birth control. 

NOTE: This episode is appropriate for most audiences, but does reference libido. 

Guest Biography:

Grace is no stranger to the Woven Well podcast! A native of Murfreesboro, TN, Grace studied public relations at Union University. Now she is serving as an Admissions Director. Grace enjoys spending time with her husband Quinn, traveling, and playing pickleball! 

Other episodes you might enjoy:

Ep. 141: Healing after Birth Control - Grace's Story

Ep. 160: What every college student should know about women's health with Grace

Ep. 159: Nagging uncertainty about birth control revealed undiagnosed health issues, Courtney's story

Transcript

Caitlin (00:24)
Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. Today I'm joined by a good friend of the show, Grace Beasley. She's been on our show before and I'm thrilled to say that not only is she now a fertility care practitioner intern, like we talked about in the last episode, but now she is officially a part of Woven Natural Fertility Care. So she definitely is a friend of the show. So Grace, welcome back. I'm glad you're here.

Grace Beasley (00:50)
Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Caitlin (00:54)
We always love having conversations about fertility and women and women's health. I love how our passion for women just sort of bubbles up out of our conversations. You know, we can be talking about anything and I feel like it always comes back to like the goodness of God and how he wants to demonstrate that to women in the world. So I love our shared passion for that for sure. And I really think that you're

Grace Beasley (01:18)
I did too.

Caitlin (01:22)
such a great fit for doing this work, this fertility care work with women, especially because you've been there. So when there are ladies out there like looking for guidance about getting off of birth control or you know they're really afraid to let that go or they have questions about what it's going to be like, you've walked that path so you know that experience what it's like.

Grace Beasley (01:29)
Yeah.

and

Yes, I have and I am so thankful that I walked that path and I'm no longer on that path anymore. It's a good walk.

Caitlin (01:57)
Absolutely. It's good to know that there are options out there. And, you know, it's interesting because I feel like a lot of times when women go to an OBGYN and they have any sort of women's health issue, painful periods, irregular cycles, PMS, unusual bleeding, any anything really.

Grace Beasley (02:19)
Right.

Caitlin (02:20)
Or if they say they're not ready to get pregnant, they're all pretty much given the same option, but very rarely are they really told about the potential side effects that they could experience. I think that's totally wrong. It is unfair. Was that your experience too? Did they talk a lot about what the side effects could be?

Grace Beasley (02:42)
They did not talk about a lot of the side effects. I actually knew about several just from friends or family members who had talked to me. And it was one of those settings where I just felt stuck. And I think a lot of them can relate to this because I remember feeling like I do not want to get on birth control. Like I know it's not going to be good. I knew that.

Caitlin (02:51)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Grace Beasley (03:07)
but I equally or even more so was so fearful of pregnancy and didn't know another way. And I was like, that outweighed that for me. And so even like going back and trying to think about what was my experience like when I was getting on birth control, one, the side effects definitely weren't.

Caitlin (03:14)
Yeah.

Grace Beasley (03:28)
really talked about it was like, you know, you might experience this, but most people don't you're on a low dosage. So you'll probably have very mild, you know, side effects. And I just kind of locked that in and locked in like the stories I'd heard of other people but like put that away. I was like,

Caitlin (03:47)
Yeah.

Grace Beasley (03:49)
been their case, but like, think I'll be different. And so it just was something that later over time, I realized, ⁓ I was not different. I actually was very much the same. And something from my personal story is, it wasn't until I got off a few months after I got off that I realized how different I had become.

Caitlin (03:52)
Hahaha

Grace Beasley (04:15)
It almost like clouded me in that moment of thinking like I would kind of excuse some of the emotions or feelings that I was having because I would say, ⁓ that's not because of birth control. That's because I'm in this really stressful situation or ⁓ I reacted that way. That was a little more than I feel like I normally do. But like, again, it's just because of this situation. It wasn't because of birth control making me do that.

Caitlin (04:43)
Hmm.

Grace Beasley (04:44)
And so I just kind of got in that pattern of like, justifying the a lot bigger of emotions than I was used to experiencing. But then I also like beat myself up about it because I was like, why am I acting this way? And so it was this cycle. And then finally, once I took the path of getting off, I look back and I'm like, oh my word, I was a total different person and I didn't even know.

Caitlin (04:55)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Grace Beasley (05:13)
I thought it

Caitlin (05:13)
Yeah.

Grace Beasley (05:14)
was my own, but I really didn't know. so thankfully I can be on this side and see that it's really crazy to see that change.

Caitlin (05:24)
Yeah, well, and you said that you didn't want to think that you would be in that group. Like you convinced yourself ahead of time that these horrible side effects affect other people, but they're not going to affect me. It's going to be totally fine. And so when you like compartmentalize, like you said you did, it's hard to go back and say, well, maybe I am in that group. Maybe that is happening to me. So I really don't blame you.

I wonder because your OBGYN told you like most people don't experience side effects. Is that even true? know, mean, do really do most people not experience side effects because I mean, obviously, obviously I work with women who have come off of birth control, but almost every single one of them did experience some sort of side effects. And when you think about it,

Grace Beasley (06:07)
I think they did.

Caitlin (06:23)
there are so many women in the world who are taking birth control. It's certainly the number one recommended method of preventing pregnancy in America, but you think about globally, it's like 100 million women is the estimate about how many are on it. Like, there's gotta be a ton of ladies experiencing side effects there, and some of them are gonna be the physical side effects. So those are probably the easiest to identify.

Grace Beasley (06:32)
yes.

yes

Yeah.

Caitlin (06:53)
and to realize, hey, this is having an effect. So nausea, vomiting, and I you think, what? But really, nausea can be a side effect of birth control. Headaches or migraines, which should not go unmonitored because if you're having migraines while on birth control, it could be pointing to a very critical issue. So please get that checked immediately.

Bleeding, so bleeding in the middle of your cycle or heavier periods or very light periods, a lack of period altogether, like maybe you just stop bleeding for months on end, which is also not good for you. You need to have a bleed at least every three months. Breast tenderness, weight gain, acne. Now,

Grace Beasley (07:24)
less.

Caitlin (07:39)
Sometimes birth control can improve those last two things, weight gain and acne, but sometimes they can do the opposite and can make it worse. So when ladies start taking hormonal contraception of any kind and they experience those things, it's more of a, okay, I began taking this pill and I started experiencing all these things, I can see the connection. But the mental, emotional side effects, I think are a lot harder for women to pinpoint.

And it's kind of like what you were saying. They rationalize it away or they convince themselves that it's not related to birth control or they don't even see the connection for themselves.

Grace Beasley (08:21)
Right, and I think as women, we are prone to be, know, as society would say, like we're prone to be more emotional or prone to be more just maybe anxious driven when it's, when we think about the future, when think about different things. And so I think we can easily lean into that lie when we have those side effects with birth control that like, well, this is just normal. Like, every...

Caitlin (08:30)
Mmm.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Grace Beasley (08:46)
feels this way. And something I want to say is like, anxiety, anger, like some of those side effects that might happen through birth control. Those feelings and things aren't just gonna go away because you're not on birth control. But from my experience, they're not as intensified. Because in life, we're gonna have things we're fearful of, we're gonna have things that might make us angry, we're gonna have things that make us sad, those those are actual feelings that are real.

but in my my particular case

Caitlin (09:16)
Yes.

Grace Beasley (09:18)
birth control just like skyrocketed those and then it was almost like out of my control and I think too I'm a believer and so as a believer

we have the opportunity to bring those things to the Lord and Have him speak to us in those ways of Lord. Why am I struggling with this? But in my case with birth control it was like

I don't even feel like I can bring this to you, Lord, because I don't even know what's happening.

Caitlin (09:49)
Yeah.

Grace Beasley (09:50)
It just like I've talked to so many of my friends who have taken the step. It is a, it's a really brave step to get off of birth control because it's so normal. But some of my friends have taken the brave step and you know, they just talked about the anxiety, the irritability. That was my case for sure. Like I just was constantly irritated, but I didn't like nothing was really making me mad.

Caitlin (10:00)
Yeah.

Grace Beasley (10:16)
⁓ and then insecurity or loss of self or loss of that confidence of yourself sadness and even depression. ⁓ Also not feeling anything a lot of my friends Had that where they were like i'm not even really feeling anything at all

Caitlin (10:16)
Yeah.

Grace Beasley (10:35)
And I think all of those things to a degree we might experience on a regular day to day basis. But when those are constantly occurring, just every day and intensified, I think that's a second, a step you can take to step back and analyze.

Is this normal? Like kind of question like for those who are maybe struggling should I get off birth control? Am I really okay? It's a it's a chance to kind of look at that and see like has this really intensified over the years and Could I maybe make a change even where it feels like I can't?

Caitlin (10:56)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah, that is such a great distinction because I think that it's easy to get lost in those feelings. And like you said, it's we're human, it's good to have emotions. It's normal to feel different on different days. But there is a point where it's no longer natural, like the level or the degree to which we experience those things. And I really love that you

Grace Beasley (11:22)
Yes.

Caitlin (11:41)
kind of gave the other version of it too. You could have super intense feelings like really strong rage or anger or irritability. But then there's that also that other side of everything feeling very gray. So I have had many, many clients over the years that say that they just stopped really feeling anything and they just went through days by days by days, just sort of feeling the same.

Grace Beasley (11:58)
Right.

Caitlin (12:11)
nothing really made them super excited or happy or joyful, and nothing really brought them down to feel upset or sad or they even struggled to grieve and that sort of thing when they should have. And this is what makes me think the people in your life make a big difference here. So talking with your husband, talking with your best friend, asking your mom, like, do you feel like I'm the same person now that I was

Grace Beasley (12:27)
Yes.

Hmm.

Caitlin (12:38)
two years ago or whenever before you were taking birth control and kind of get other people's perspective too, because I know in our first episode that we ever recorded together and you shared a little bit of your story, which we'll link in the show notes, but you talked about how your husband was like, hey, I miss the woman that I fell in love with. Like I miss who you were and I don't know what happened. And I think that's really important too. You talked about taking a step back and looking at yourself.

Grace Beasley (12:58)
Yes.

Caitlin (13:07)
and then also bringing in that community and inviting them to be a part of it. Because we aren't living this life alone, we really do have that community and it makes a difference. They can help us see things that we can't.

Grace Beasley (13:20)
Right, and...

For my case, like I said earlier about how it can just cloud you. It's like when we just do it ourselves, we might think, okay, that was a little something, but nah, I'm just going to disregard that. And so when we invite in community, although sometimes it's honest, sometimes we don't want to hear the honest answer. It truly makes an impact. so I think as women just understanding like you're not alone in this and there has been someone in your circle that has either been on birth control and gotten off or

Caitlin (13:37)
Yes.

Yeah.

Grace Beasley (13:52)
currently on birth control feeling the same things you might be feeling and so talk about it talk to them ask them questions and and then also You get to then make your own decisions like if they might say like I think I'm fine because Maybe that's how they're feeling in the moment And so if you're not I think continue to dig into that question Am I really feeling normal? Am I feeling like I'm able to be who God created me to be?

Caitlin (14:16)
Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah, beautifully said. I totally agree. You know, it's just interesting when we think about all these emotional and mental side effects that women feel like they just have to suffer with if they're not ready to have a baby or if they would rather suffer those side effects than have painful periods, for instance. And they're never actually told that there are other options that are not

synthetic and artificial, but they actually work with their bodies instead of against them. And you can actually pursue healing in those ways. So if it's because of painful periods or regular cycles, like, I know this sounds crazy, but you may not get the advice from your OBGYN. But there are other, there are other OBGYNs out there who are trained in this more restorative approach to things.

Grace Beasley (15:10)
Right.

Caitlin (15:19)
and they're gonna tell you, you don't have to suffer in order to feel better. Like it's the opposite. We wanna improve your quality of life. We wanna restore your reproductive health so that you have a better life now and in the future and you preserve your fertility. And I've talked with a couple of ladies lately, well in the last six months or so that their birth control, the side effects were so intense like,

Grace Beasley (15:22)
You're right.

Caitlin (15:48)
suicidal thoughts, you know? I mean, it can get really, really bad or something like the loss of libido. So ladies who were very ready to be with their spouse before they got married, you know, like they were engaged, they were really looking forward to that, they started taking birth control, they got married and their desire just evaporated. And they're like, is this what it means to be married? Like, I just don't have an interest anymore.

Grace Beasley (15:50)
Right.

Right.

Right.

Caitlin (16:16)
their husbands like, what's going on? You know? And it was the birth control and they got off of it and they're like, ⁓ they came to life again, you know? So there are other physicians out there who will give you a different perspective, who will honor your design as a woman and work with that and not just shut it down.

Grace Beasley (16:37)
Absolutely and amen. I wish we could tell every woman that I also that made me think of there are some women too that I know who have gotten on at 15 because of period cramps because of acne and so they've been on it 10 plus years and they're actually they're afraid of

Caitlin (16:54)
Good point, Grace.

Grace Beasley (16:58)
what will happen getting off the almost like withdrawal period, they're afraid of what that would cause what side effects would change getting off. So it's just easier to stay on because I've managed it this long, I might as well just stay on. And so I would love to encourage you if that's you listening, I would just love to encourage you to really take a step back and try to examine like, how you're actually feeling like get to the root of how

Caitlin (17:04)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Grace Beasley (17:28)
you actually feel and things that you maybe want to feel and just start questioning, start doing research, start having conversations because I think that's the first step and it is a really brave step, especially if you've been on for a long time or even a short time. It is something that I think our world wants to make you feel afraid of getting off. But in my case, there is so much more joy and freedom.

Caitlin (17:30)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Grace Beasley (17:58)
being off of birth control than there was being on for me. And, you know, 22 year old Grace did not understand that at the time. And I wish someone could have have said that to me and said, actually there is another way. And so that's my little tidbit.

Caitlin (18:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, and we're doing all we can, you know, we've got this. This is why we have the podcast. This is why we have free resources on our website, wovenfertility.com. This is why we want to offer these things, because it can be a challenge to find resources, but they are out there. There really are physicians who care about your health and want to see it thrive and not just silence it, not just suppress it.

You mentioned your friends who got on birth control when they're 15 and they've just been on it for the last 10 years. And it's such a good point because they may not even realize that the way they feel, the way they see the world is a result of the lack of hormones or the constant synthetic hormones stream that they're being fed. And so they may not even know that there's the potential to come to life and see the world in color.

Grace Beasley (18:56)
Yes.

Caitlin (19:08)
So as Grace said, if you're listening and you wanna try something new, but you're scared, that's okay. It's okay to be scared. You have a community here that will support you, that will help you in that process. Grace and I wanna make sure that you get the information that you need and feel informed and empowered as you go about this process. So Grace, thanks for being on the show and chatting with us today about all these things.

Grace Beasley (19:15)
Mm-hmm.

Thanks so much for having me.

Caitlin (19:38)
As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.