via email
14 February 2018
A few years later in New York, I got my period in the middle of the night and there were no more painkillers in the apartment. I was accustomed to taking 2-3 Advil Liquid-gels whenever it started (and again every 5-6 hours for a day or more). I was too lazy to go down to the deli in the middle of the night and I thought I'd sleep through it. Instead, I experienced excruciating, mind-numbing pain. I had a migraine headache and was violently excreting out of both holes. I curled up in the fetal position for a few hours until I could muster enough strength to get the painkillers downstairs from Sunny and Annie’s. What I didn't know at the time is that I was actually bleeding internally.
The next day I called my aunt, a nurse, and she told me I could always take "birth control" to make the cramps more tolerable. I got on an app (probably ZocDoc) and went to a gynecologist near my office in New York that week. She did an exam and tested me for every STD under the sun. I told her I wanted "birth control." She prescribed it without a question. I starting taking it again, but after 2-3 months I stopped. After I’d missed just one pill, I spotted blood until the end of my pill pack (10+ days in a row). This seemed unnatural.
A few years later in Berlin, I went to a gynecologist for a checkup. She tested me for common STDs and did an exam. She felt something on my ovaries, took an ultrasound, and printed pictures of the cysts she saw growing on each one.
She put me in contact with an endometriosis specialist at a nearby hospital. "You have to save your ovaries," she told me. I went to my first consult. They told me I have a disease and they have no idea what causes it. The only methods of treatment are "birth control" and surgery – and I definitely needed the surgery. A month later, they took the endometrial cysts out laparoscopically. Afterwards, the surgeon highly recommended I go on "birth control" – "It's likely you're able to get pregnant now, but if the procedure is necessary again, it may not be possible." I recovered within a few days and waited to bleed again.
After the surgery, I had even more excruciating pain. But the Internet reassured me that this post-operative pain was normal and my body would obviously need time to heal. I read books about my gut and how to treat my hormonal health issues with diet and lifestyle changes. I attempted holistic treatments for 3 months, but the pain was not subsiding. I consulted a second gynecologist at home in the Bay Area and she said "birth control" was a no brainer for me. She immediately wrote me a prescription.
I went on the pill again and the monthly pain significantly subsided. When I bled, I could continue about my day-to-day life and the acne on my face completed cleared. But it left me feeling conflicted. I felt the pill was affecting my psyche and making me less sexual, but at this point, I felt out of options.
I felt that "birth control" was toning down my natural hormonal cycles, which were clearly confused. My body no longer produced estrogen on its own, the pill did it for me. The doctors told me that if I was having babies, the endometriosis wouldn't afflict me. My grandmother was married with four children at my age. So in a way, I felt my reproductive system was revolting against me.